When they tell my tale, they will say I was a
baby when I showed Yashoda the cosmos
inside my mouth. They will talk of how I
sucked the very life out of a demoness
through her breast. They will call it the
vanquishing of Putana. You will also hear of
how I lifted a hill on my little finger as a boy
tending my cows.
These are just stories, but they will turn into
truths, as stories do when birthed from the
pen of raconteurs with literary flair and skill.
But they were always just stories.
Govardhan hill was lifted and elevated about
seven feet above the earth, not by me and my
divine strength but by a group of men lead
by an engineer with crazy ideas. I enjoyed
hanging out with him in my boyhood,
fascinated by his ideas and inventions. He
was from a distant land, towards the west of
the five rivers and the Hindukush mountains.
I called him Haish.
Haish was from a tiny country called Greece.
An island nation full of gods much like ours.
Haish was on a journey of self-discovery
when he found me.
I was standing beneath the kadamba tree
playing my flute which I called bansuri, lost
in the music I had created. It was the one
time; I could disengage from everything
around me: my solace, my pride. I loved the
melancholic notes that hinted at secrets and
promises. It reminded you of the cool
breezes on hot summer nights and the
warmth of the sun on your back in winter
afternoons. I often felt it was not me who
was playing the flute but rather the flute
playing me. When my lips touched the cool
shaft of bamboo, I felt like this was the only
reality. I created pain, joy, rage, love,
subliminal in its rawness and simplicity and I
did it with a piece of bamboo and my breath.
Haish heard my music before he saw me and
was pulled in by the force of the bansuri''s
refrains. He sat down near me, closed his
eyes, and let the notes pass over him.
"It brought me peace" he told me much
later. When I stopped playing and saw this
young man seated on the grassy knoll, I
knew this was no ordinary mortal. We started
talking, and the awareness of our true self
that both of us held in our hearts lead us to
realize the divinity in the other quickly.
He was Hephaestus, the Greek, I was
Krishna, of the Hindus, and so much more,
for I was a form of Vishnu, a form of his
Zeus. As far as divinity goes, both of us felt
in tune with each other. Hephaestus was
brilliant, bright, and starved as I am of
equality in friendship, the three months spent
in the company of Hephaestus were some of
the best in my existence on Earth.
One particularly humid summer evening, I
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.was chatting with Haish about the monsoon
rains and the lightning strikes that come with
them. "You know what, we could lift that hill
in the west and raise it high enough to make
a shelter for the people who get caught in the
rain," Haish ventured. All he had been doing
the last two weeks was listening to me
playing the flute and chatting with Amsu, a
friend of mine Haish seemed to have
developed a fondness for, probably because
of Amsu''s keen intellect and quiet
demeanour. Although Haish was an inventor,
he liked having his mind occupied by
technology, physics, masonry, and forging.
The idea stuck, and we decided to give it a
go- lift Govardhan the human way. Haish
built an underground hoisting system that
could bear the weight of a hill the size of
Govardhan. Metallic sheets were placed
underneath to lift them. It took Haish a good
two weeks to set it up. I knew men would not
be able to replicate it even a thousand
centuries later. We decided to give it a try
when it would be raining.
The next time one of the crazy downpours
started to occur when it seems as if the
heavens had opened up, wanting to submerge
the whole earth in a deluge, I rounded up the
villagers and took them to Govardhan. Haish
pulled the lever that lifted Govardhan. It
worked. Haish did not make mistakes. He
didn''t like to be seen either. He was too
conscious of his looks. I, ever the playful
showman, decided to stand with my feet
crossed and little finger raised, looking as if I
was holding up Govardhan. The image just
stuck, I guess.
Haish had been travelling the world because
he was running away from home. He was
married to the most beautiful woman in
Greece, a goddess, but she fell in love with
his cousin, a high-ranking general in the
Greek army, a god of war. Hurt, he did what
a lot of men do, exposed their adultery, and
then ran to find peace.
A couple of months after the Govardhan
Raising feat, something Haish would not let
me tell anyone the reality about, Haish said
to me that he needed to go back home. The
three months in Vrindavan had made him
calmer. He felt he was in a better place and
could think more clearly than when he had
left Greece.
I let my dear friend go back. Haish was
Hephaestus. He had a responsibility as a
divine being of his island, and I needed to
spend time with Radha.
I had been neglecting Radha these past three
months. She said I was enamoured by the
Greek, going so far as even my flute was
now playing a foreign tune. She hated the
new music, which of course, Haish loved. I
had changed some of the notes to suit his
ears.
Haish left, and I went back to Radha and my
friends. The music emanating from my flute
reverted to the familiar style loved by the
people I was supposed to love. Thus I played
on, my tryst with Hephaestus relegated to the
back of my mind, a story that would not be
told.
But I never used that lever built by Haish to
lift Govardhan again. It must have rusted
over the years and broken down in disuse.