Krishnaji - A Short Story

“I will make dinner early today and I want you all to finish your dinner by 7:00 PM”, my mother announced tersely.  She was looking forward to attending the reading of the sacred book of Ramayana and storytelling by Krishnaji, a Guru visiting my town.  Krishnaji will be in town for the next several weeks.  I already knew the routine.  Mother would attend the story telling sessions that go late into the evening.  Hurrying home before her five children went to bed, she would be anxious to share the words of wisdom that the eloquent Guru had told the gathering.  The Guru was waft in weaving the stories of Gods, demi Gods, and ways of life into an entertaining rendition that captivates the faithful devotee as well as the casual observer.

I accompanied my mother on a few occasions.  I was impressed with the fluency of Krishnaji in Tamil and English.  He would in one continuous swoop quote the Bible, Bagavad Gita (the holy scripture of a Hindu) and a parable of life and weave that into the story of the life of Rama that formed the context of his rendition. 

His given name was Krishna.  But his followers would call him Krishnaji, adding the “ji” at the end as a sign of respect and reverence and an acknowledgement of his exalted soul.  Krishnaji was in his early thirties, but he looked much older than his age.  May be it was the way he dressed, a draping of a single sheet of white cotton sheet, called dothi, around his waist, a smaller piece of white cloth, more like a towel, across his bare chest made the rest of his clothing.  He had a long beard.  His long hair was rolled into a bulb that was held together with a rubber band.  As what an ascetic should wear, he had the white sacred ash smeared across his forehead and over his chest and hands.  He would close his eyes often, as if in deep trance, or as if he was in communication with God.  His face and body radiated serenity.  He had a retinue of disciples, hanging to his every word and the deference and obsequiousness of his followers could be seen from a distance.

No wonder my mother was taken by Krishnaji.  She is easily taken by anyone who could quote the scriptures or has a word of wisdom and it was no surprise that by the second week she was so enamored by Krishnaji, that it became the only topic of conversation at the dinner table and the evening hours.  In the beginning, I would silently suffer my mother repeating Krishnaji’s lessons on ways of life.  Over time I realized my mother was starting to feel that my ways of life as a 16 year old were not in line with Krishnaji’s various pronouncements.  My silence soon led to mild demurs and then to loud vocal protests and open squabbles with my mother.  I would soon start criticizing Krishnaji on things he would say about his pronouncement that a man has to marry within his caste.  I was a progressive, believing in the oneness of human beings, and with little tolerance for divisions across caste, religion, and the myriad other clans and sub-clans that Indians seem to divide themselves into.

Krishnaji formed a large legion of followers in my town.  He would visit my town several times in an year and the crowds grew bigger with each such visit.  On one of those visits, a young woman, half his age and of a lower cast, approached Krishnaji and asked if she could join his retinue and achieve religious salvation through service to him.  Krishnaji hardly even raised his eye from the scripture he was reading and asked one of his main devotees to handle the matter.  Soon enough, the damsel was part of Krishnaji’s retinue.

One early morning, Krishnaji opened his eyes after a long period of meditation and caught sight of the damsel returning to his ashram after a bath in a nearby river.  The wet sari was clinging to her skin, like an onion skin to a wet surface, and the contours of her shapely body were well amplified.  She almost looked naked.  Krishnaji couldn’t pull away from the allure of the roundness of her supple breasts, her narrow waist and her shapely buttocks, that were clearly visible in the early light of the dawn.  The sight of the attractive woman stirred something deep within Krishnaji, as he had never experienced before.  He felt a pang of shock jolting through his loins.  From that day onwards, Krishnaji would open his eyes from his meditation when the damsel would come back from her bath in the river.  It wasn’t long before Krishnaji married the damsel.

Word reached my town that Krishnaji married someone of lower caste by falling in love with a woman, as opposed to an arranged marriage, the worst way a man can bring shame to his family.  Within a few months of his marriage, Krishnaji made his way back to my town to profess his lessons of life.  The crowd this time was much thinner.  And my mother pretended as if she didn’t know Krishnaji was in town.