KRISHNA CORIOLIS#4: Lord of Mathura (14 page)

He saw now that the blood in the lake was all Krishna’s. A copious amount of it. That could hardly be good. If Krishna had shed so much blood, he must have absorbed a great deal of venom as well. Whoever this asura was, he was no ordinary water serpent. His venom must be highly toxic, perhaps even toxic enough to harm a god. And with such immense quantities being pushed into his body, Krishna would certainly weaken at the very least. 

He roared with fury, stamping his foot. He started downhill, intending to go to Krishna’s aid at once, to leap into the water and start wrangling the serpent’s heads, killing them one by one. He didn’t care what his brother had said. He would not simply stand by and watch as his younger sibling was killed before his eyes by an asura. He would die before he let that happen. Besides, Krishna was clearly outmatched and outnumbered right now. If they couldn’t fight back with one thousand heads, then at least two were better than one! 

He prepared himself to run downhill and leap into the water to do battle—to the death, if need be. 

But before he could start down the hill, Krishna began to dance. 

14

KRISHNA
felt the venom coursing through his veins. While his body was infused with brahman at the most basic level, the flesh was nevertheless mortal flesh. Gods did not possess flesh, blood, bones…not in the usual human sense of the term. The humanoid forms they appeared in during the rare interfaces with mortal beings were the closest approximations possible: their true forms were beyond the ability of mortal beings to perceive. It would be like attempting to see brahman itself, the force that pervaded, bonded and bound all Creation. Human eyes would only perceive a humanoid form, not the Deva parts and processes which were beyond human ability. 

So his divinity was unharmed by the venom itself but he still experienced the suffering of his mortal flesh. 

He knew that this body could not survive many more more injections of venom. 

He was smashing and crushing and breaking Kaliya’s heads—he had come to think of the serpent asura as Kaliya because, like Krishna himself, he was jet black in colour, an irony that was not lost on him—as fast as he could manage, but there were simply too many of them. 

The more he killed the more appeared to take their place, lunging from every direction, sinuously slipping in under his guard and striking home with lethal accuracy. He felt his organs failing, his blood polluted, his heart in agony and knew that this asura had harmed him in ways that no other asura had been able to achieve until now. Kaliya, his namesake and brother in skin colour, had succeeded where all others had failed. The water serpent asura was winning this battle, Krishna was losing. 

So be it. 

So let me die. 

And dying, go out in a blaze of glory. 

When all else is lost, one may as well sing, raise one’s voice in defiant song, not merely to voice a protest, but to make a statement: 

You have beaten down my body and crushed my flesh, you have destroyed my physical form, you have demolished my earthly presence…and yet I survive. My aatma lives on, eternally. My soul outlives all crises. My will overcomes all reversals. My essence triumphs regardless. Even as I stand here dying, I sing to show that this being, this individual, this unique bonding of spirit and flesh, skin and soul, still exists and remains bloody yet unbowed, beaten yet undefeated, broken yet spiritually whole. 

I am Krishna. 

I am evergreen. 

Hari! Hari! Hari!

And he danced. 

His feet found purchase even on the slippery mobile hood of Kaliya. 

They drummed out a syncopation of their own. 

He danced with frenzy, with fury, with the exultation of dwindling life, with the white hot fire of tapas. 

Shiva in his Natarajan form, dancing the dance at the End of Days to uncreate Creation, could hardly have danced more passionately or ferociously. 

He danced and even the venom coursing through his veins, killing his mortal organs, destroying this fragile mortal bond he had with the earthly realm.  

He danced, and the world seemed to realign itself to his rhythm, to re-arrange her song to harmonize with his pattern, to provide accompaniment. 

He danced, and the music of the spheres accompanied him, the songs of the earth, the sun, the moon blazed out in harmony. 

He danced and sang his defiance of mortal death. 

He was Krishna. 

He was infinite. 

If he must die, he would die dancing and celebrating his own death and rebirth. 

He would embrace the darkness that was ultimately his own shadow. 

He danced. 

15

WATCHING
him from the top of the hill, Balarama was stupefied. Radha was stunned. Both watched in gobsmacked silence as Krishna danced away atop the black snake’s main hood. The serpent itself swayed, the lunging attacks of its myriad heads stalled for the time being as it reacted to this astonishing behavior.  

It was obvious that the serpent could not make head nor tail of Krishna’s dancing: was it a precursor to a new retaliatory attack? Was it itself meant to be an attack? Was it something godly incarnations did during battle? Its bewilderment was plainly writ as it swayed slowly, its frenzied movements ceasing until it resembled nothing so much as its normal earthly brethren, just a serpent swaying to the rhythm of a been-player, a snake charming musician. 

‘Look,’ Radha said, pointing. ‘It’s dancing with Krishna!’

Balarama watched closely. 

She was right. 

Whether knowingly or instinctively, the serpent was mimicking the rhythm of Krishna’s pounding feet. It was likely the serpent had only paused to try and assess this new behavior, not intending to move in rhythm with its enemy. But in observing Krishna’s dance, it had fallen into the hypnotic pattern of his own footfalls. 

As Radha and he watched, the swaying grew more and more pronounced, until Krishna’s emphatic foot falls, marking the end of a bar or movement, were matched by noticeable jerks and sinuous shifts of the giant hood itself. What was more, even the other heads began to sway and dance in syncopation, the smaller ones moving faster to keep double time while the larger ones moved slowly in a half-beat rhythm. 

The overall effect was mesmerizing. 

A magician seeking to charm and hold a snake’s attention could not have performed a more elaborate trick. 

‘He’s hypnotized it,’ Balarama said in wonderment. ‘He’s hypnotized the asura with the rhythm of his dance.’

And so he had. 

Krishna’s feet were the only thing making contact with the serpent’s body. And snakes, lacking hearing, could only sense sounds through physical contact, usually through vibrations felt in the ground on which they lay. Krishna’s dancing was a constant rhythmic series of vibrations, transmitted to Kaliya through his hood, passing through his entire body. Somehow, Kaliya was understanding what Krishna was ‘saying’ through dance, and was listening intently. And in this manner, Krishna had succeeded in gaining control of the serpent asura through the means of rhythmic communication. 

As they continued to watch, Krishna danced on. 

Balarama realized that Krishna was doing more than simply controlling Kaliya. 

He was also ridding himself of the venom the serpent asura had injected into his body: the more he danced, the more his blood pumped through his veins, the more his wounds bled. His body was covered with gaping wounds, all oozing, dripping blood. The blood pooled on the hood of the serpent asura and dripped into the lake itself. The lake was stained blackish red now with the blood of Krishna. 

Balarama’s heart ached at the sight of so much blood, his brother’s blood, being shed. How could Krishna even survive such a great amount of blood loss, let alone dance with such frenzied passion? 

But that was the greatness of Krishna. 

That was why he was God Incarnate. 

While in this mortal form he might be subject to the limitations of the mortal form to some extent, but his spirit was divine and indomitable. 

Even as his body died, his spirit drove it on relentlessly. 

Krishna danced on. 

16

Hours
passed. 

Still Krishna danced on. 

The day became night. 

Still Krishna danced. 

Balarama and Radha sat down at last, exhausted from merely watching. 

Slowly, the night went on, passing into day again. Still, Krishna’s dance continued unabated. 

17

As
the days passed and Krishna’s dance went on, the villagers ventured back to the lakeside. 

In time, the hillside was covered with Vrishni, watching their brightest son performing yet another miracle. 

Many of these same people had watched as Krishna had taken his first steps—then broken into an impromptu dance upon the corpse of his first attacker, Putana. 

They had seen him grow and gain in strength and wisdom and love, and play mischief and get up to boyish pranks as well. 

Now they watched as he danced out every last drop of venom from his own body and every last ounce of energy from the serpent that had come to slay him. 

18

Eight
days and eight nights Krishna danced. 

And with each passing day, despite the prodigious loss of blood, he seemed to grow stronger, healthier. 

It was miraculous to watch. 

While with each passing night, the serpent Kaliya grew visibly weaker, paler, sicker. 

As the epic dance progressed, it was evident to all who watched that this dance would end only with Krishna triumphing and Kaliya dying of sheer exhaustion. 

Somehow, yet again, Krishna had turned certain defeat into unmitigated triumph. 

By the end of the seventh day itself, it was evident that the great serpent Kaliya was near death now. 

Attempting to match Krishna’s ferocious energy—
compelled
to match it—the asura had depleted its life force. It had nothing more to give. It barely survived now and was fast fading into oblivion. 

Just as Krishna had grown stronger and healthier with each passing day, it had grown weaker, sicker. Until now, it was dying. 

And still Krishna danced on. 

Now, it was no longer just a dance of death. 

It was a dance of life for himself—and death to Kaliya. 

By the end of the eighth day, everyone knew the inevitable was coming. 

Kaliya would succumb at any moment. And Krishna would survive. 

But before that could happen, someone intervened. 

19

It
happened on the Eighth Day. 

Krishna was still dancing on Kaliya’s hood. His wounds had healed completely, the bleeding had ceased, and he appeared whole and well again, even more vigorous than ever before. The blackness of his skin had always been tinged with a bluish aura, since birth, but now that bluish tinge was much more pronounced and as he exerted himself and exuded sweat and energy, he seemed to glow with a blue aura that pulsed and throbbed with his own heartbeat. Everyone took it as yet another manifestation of his divinity and praised him as Hari in human form. 

Kaliya, on the other hand, was drooping and wilting like a dying flower. The once-powerful serpent asura, so energetic and seemingly capable of slaying gods, now appeared to be near-death. It’s jet black scales were dull and lacklustre, its coat appeared to be shedding prematurely, grey wisps of dried skin peeling off to fall into the lake, and most of its heads appeared to have died from sheer exhaustion. 

Even its main head hung much, much lower than before, almost touching the water now. It was evident that Krishna had the beast completely in his control. He could probably will it to drop dead at any moment, but clearly, he was enjoying the dance as well as taking the time to heal himself as well. It was only a matter of hours now, Balarama suspected, before Kaliya dropped dead and Krishna stepped back onshore, triumphant. 

That was when it happened. 

The water around Krishna and Kaliya thrashed and seethed, before erupting with sudden gouts of water. 

Balarama rose to his feet, as did a number of other watchers. People gasped and pointed. 

‘Balarama-bhaiya, what is it?’ Radha asked. 

Balarama shook his head, silent. He didn’t know. He wondered if he should move the people back home again, to avoid any coming under threat once again. 

He decided he would wait a moment or two to see what was happening before taking a decision. 

It was logical for another asura allied to the first to attempt to attack the Vrishni while Krishna was preoccupied fighting their compatriot. If that was the plan, then it was better that the Vrishni were here too so that Balarama could protect them and Krishna could know at once.