SHIKWA

Chapter 25

It was evening when the family checked into hotel rooms. Sharing her room with Uttara, Swara was happily looking outside. The whole city was graced by the glory of Krishna. There was no good morning, no good afternoon greetings! The only greetings the people knew here was Radhe Radhe!

Swara had come here many times with her parents. The small lanes of Vrindavan, the ghats of Yamuna, the soil of the place, her soul had touched everything. Sharmishtha told her many stories of Krishna and Radha and the secret and symbolic meanings behind them. Swara herself had read a lot of scriptures herself. It had shaped her personality so well.

"Swara didi! Do you believe it is true?" Uttara asked.

"What?" Swara replied.

"Means Krishna really lived here? Or Krishna originally was a real person? I mean the stories and all, are they real?" Uttara asked innocently. She bit her tongue and said, "I am sorry that I asked you this question! I know you are a devotee of Krishna!"

Swara chuckled. With a smile, she said, "If a devotee get enraged because someone questioned his God, then he is no devotee at all! It simply means that his or her faith got shaken by just a question!"

Uttara laughed and said, "Didi! I do feel some power is there beyond our imagination. But.... "

"But you are a little skeptical, right! I was too when I was of your age. And it's good to be skeptical then trusting the sayings blindly just because your family or community tells you to!" Swara said.

"Then what to do?"

"First of all, read the original scriptures. You will get thousands of videos on YouTube by archeologists, astronomist and historians. But I am not talking about it right now. I am sure you have watched a lot of them."

Uttara nodded.

"Just don't take Krishna as a God for a moment and think about a person, who got separated from his birth parents just minutes after his birth. His life was in danger. Many unimaginable demons attacked him. And then, at the age of 12, he got separated from his childhood friends, his adoptive parents and his childhood love Radha!"

"Oh God!" Uttara said imagining the plight of God himself.

"His own mama wanted to kill him. He saw his parents in jail in a very bad condition. Next his kingdom Mathura got attacked by a bad king and he had to leave that kingdom not because his army or he was less capable, but to avoid killing of innocents in war. He accepted the title of Ranchord with a smile but did not let thousands of lives succumb to atrocities of an avoidable war."

Uttara was listening to everything with deep concentration.

"Then, he married Rukmini, but got separated from her for 12 years. He freed 16000 innocent princess from Narakasur and when the girls requested him to let them die as society would not accept them, he married them himself and made the his queens."

"Oh my God! Was this the reason?"

"Yes! This was the reason! And then, he helped Pandavas in Mahabharat war which he also tried to stop before it's beginning. But when the war started and Arjun got nervous, he himself told Geeta to him which is by far the best words of wisdom book one could ever read! And even after the war, he took the curse of Gandhari with a smile and watched his whole family dying in front of his eyes. And at last, for accepting the curse of Vali from his Ram avatar, he took the painful arrow in his feet."

"These many atrocities. Oh my God!" Uttara clasped her hands.

"But how you see him in photos?"

"With a smile so divine!" Uttara replied.