KRISHNA CORIOLIS#1: Slayer of Kamsa Read online

  Contents

  SLAYER OF KAMSA

  AKB eBOOKS

  About Ashok

  Prelim Pages copy

  Dedication

  Preface

  Author's Note

  Epigraph

  Kaand 1

  Kaand 2

  Also in the Krishna Coriolis Series

  Also in the Krishna Coriolis Series

  Also in the Krishna Coriolis Series

  Also in the Krishna Coriolis Series

  Also in the Krishna Coriolis Series

  AKB eBOOKS

  SLAYER OF KAMSA

  Ashok K. Banker

  KRISHNA CORIOLIS

  Book 1

  AKB eBOOKS

  AKB eBOOKS

  Home of the epics!

  RAMAYANA SERIES®

  PRINCE OF DHARMA

  PRINCE OF AYODHYA & SIEGE OF MITHILA

  PRINCE IN EXILE

  DEMONS OF CHITRAKUT & ARMIES OF HANUMAN

  PRINCE AT WAR

  BRIDGE OF RAMA & KING OF AYODHYA

  KING OF DHARMA

  VENGEANCE OF RAVANA & SONS OF SITA

  KRISHNA CORIOLIS SERIES™

  MAHABHARATA SERIES®

  MUMBAI NOIR SERIES

  FUTURE HISTORY SERIES

  ITIHASA SERIES

  & MUCH, MUCH MORE!

  only from

  AKB eBOOKS

  www.akbebooks.com

  About Ashok

  Ashok Kumar Banker’s internationally acclaimed Ramayana Series® has been hailed as a ‘milestone’ (India Today) and a ‘magnificently rendered labour of love’ (Outlook). It is arguably the most popular English-language retelling of the ancient Sanskrit epic. His work has been published in 56 countries, a dozen languages, several hundred reprint editions with over 1.2 million copies of his books currently in print.

  Born of mixed parentage, Ashok was raised without any caste or religion, giving him a uniquely post-racial and post-religious Indian perspective. Even through successful careers in marketing, advertising, journalism and scriptwriting, Ashok retained his childhood fascination with the ancient literature of India. With the Ramayana Series® he embarked on a massively ambitious publishing project he calls the Epic India Library. The EI Library comprises Four Wheels: Mythology, Itihasa, History, and Future History. The Ramayana Series® and Krishna Coriolis are part of the First Wheel. The Mahabharata Series is part of the Second Wheel. Ten Kings and the subsequent novels in the Itihasa Series dealing with different periods of recorded Indian history are the Third Wheel. Novels such as Vertigo, Gods of War, The Kali Quartet, Saffron White Green are the Fourth Wheel.

  He is one of the few living Indian authors whose contribution to Indian literature is acknowledged in The Picador Book of Modern Indian Writing and The Vintage Anthology of Indian Literature. His writing is used as a teaching aid in several management and educational courses worldwide and has been the subject of several dissertations and theses.

  Ashok is 48 years old and lives with his family in Mumbai. He is always accessible to his readers at www.ashokbanker.com—over 35,000 have corresponded with him to date. He looks forward to hearing from you.

  SLAYER OF KAMSA

  Ashok K. Banker

  KRISHNA CORIOLIS

  Book 1

  AKB eBOOKS

  For Biki and Bithika:

  My Radha and my Rukmini.

  For Yashka and Ayush Yoda:

  My Yashoda.

  All you faithful readers

  who understand

  that these tales

  are not about being Hindu

  or even about being Indian.

  They're simply about being.

  In that spirit,

  I dedicate this gita-govinda

  to the krishnachild in all of us.

  For, under these countless

  separate skins, there beats

  a single eternal heart.

  Author’s Preface to the first Indian print edition 2010

  If it takes a community to raise a child, then it surely takes a nation to build an epic.

  The itihasa of the subcontinent belongs to no single person. The great epics of our culture – of any culture – may be told and retold infinite times by innumerable poets and writers; yet, no single version is the final one.

  The wonderful adventures of the great Lord Krishna are greater than what any story, edition or retelling can possibly encompass. The lila of God Incarnate is beyond the complete comprehension of any one person. We may each perceive some aspects of His greatness, but, like the blind men and the elephant, none of us can ever see everything at once.

  It matters not whether you are Hindu or non- Hindu, whether you believe Krishna to be God or just a great historical personage, whether you are Indian or not. The richness and wonder of these tales have outlived countless generations and will outlast many more to come.

  My humble attempt here – within these pages and in the volumes to follow – is neither the best nor the last retelling of this great story. I have no extraordinary talent or ability, no special skill or knowledge, no inner sight or visionary gift. What I do have is a lifelong exposure to an itihasa so vast, a culture so rich, a nation so great, wise and ancient, that its influence – permeating into one like water through peat over millennia, filtering through from mind to mind, memory to memory, mother to child and to mother again – has suffused every cell of my being, every unit of my consciousness.

  And when I use the word ‘I’, it is meant in the universal.You are‘I’. As I am she.And she is all of us. Krishna’s tale lives through each and every one of us. It is yours to tell. His to tell. Hers to tell. Mine as well. For as long as this tale is told, and retold, it lives on.

  I have devoted years to the telling, to the crafting of words, sentences, paragraphs, pages, chapters, kaands and volumes. I shall devote more years to come, decades even. Yet all my effort is not mine alone. It is the fruition of a billion Indians, and the billions who have lived before us. For each person who has known this tale and kept it alive in his heart has been a teller, a reteller, a poet, and an author. I am merely the newest name in a long, endless line of names that has had the honour and distinction of being associated with this great story.

  It is my good fortune to be the newest reteller of this ancient saga. It is a distinction I share with all who tell and retell this story: from the grandmother who whispers it as a lullaby to the drowsy child, to the scholar who pores over every syllable of every shloka in an attempt to find an insight that has eluded countless scholars before him.

  It is a tale told by me in this version, yet it is not my tale alone to tell. It is your story. Our story. Her story. His story.

  Accept it in this spirit and with all humility and hope. Also know that I did not create this flame, nor did I light the torch that blazes. I merely bore the torch this far. Now I give it to you. Take it from my hand. Pass it on. As it has passed from hand to hand, mind to mind, voice to voice, for unknown millennia.

  Turn the page. See the spark catch flame. Watch Krishna come alive.

  Author’s Note to the second Indian print edition 2012

  All my books are long in the gestation, some conceived many as thirty-plus years earlier, none less than a decade. It takes me that long to be sure of a story’s longevity and worth and to accumulate the details, notes, research, character development and other tools without which I can’t put my fingers to the keyboard. This particular story, Krishna Coriolis, originated in the same ‘Big Bang’ that was responsible for the creation of my entire Epic India universe – a series of interlinked retellings of all the major myths, legends and itihasa of the Indian subcontinent, set agai nst the backdrop of world history. I’m using the term ‘BigBang’ but in fact it was more of a series of carefully controlled delayed-time explosions over the first fifteen to eighteen years of my life.

  At that time, the Krishna story was a part of the Sword of Dharma section of the Epic India library, which retold the ‘dashavatara’ storyline with an unusual twist as well as an integral part of my massively ambitious retelling of the world’s greatest epic, the Mahabharata or the Mba. I began work on my Mba immediately after I completed the Ramayana Series in 2004. After about five years of working on my Mba – a period in which most actual MBA students would be firmly established in their careers! – I realized that the series was too massive to be published as it was. I saw that the Krishna storyline, in particular his individual adventures, could stand on their own as a separate series. So I separated them into a parallel series which I titled Krishna Coriolis. Naturally, since the story now had to stand on its own, rather than be a part of the larger Mba story, I had to rewrite each book to make it stand on its own, with a reasonably complete beginning, middle and end. This process took another three years, and resulted finally in the form the series now takes. You’re holding the second book of this parallel series in your hands now, titled Dance of Govinda.

  Dance of Govinda is just the second part of the Krishna Coriolis, which is interlinked with the much larger Mba series, which itself is only one section of my whole Epic India library. Yet, I’ve laboured to make this book stand on its own and be a satisfying read. Naturally, it’s not complete in the story, since that would require not just the full Krishna storyline but also the larger Mba story and the larger context behind that as well. In that sense, it’s just a part of the big picture; but even the longest journey must start with a single step and if you permit, Dance of Govinda will take you on a short but eventful trip, one packed with action and magic, terror and adventure. The reason why the book, like the remaining books in the series, are so short, almost half of the length of my earlier Ramayana Series, is because that’s the best way the structure works. By that I mean the individual parts of the story and the way in which they fit together. Sure, I could make it longer – or shorter. But this felt like the perfect length. In an ideal world, the entire series would be packaged together as one massive book and published at once – but that’s not only impossible in terms of paper thickness and binding and cover price affordability, it’s not the right structure for the story. Stories have been split into sections, or volumes, or, in our culture, into parvas, kaands, suras, mandalas and so on, since literature was first written. You might as well ask the same question of Krishna Dweipayana-Vyasa – ‘Sir, why did you split the Mahabharata into so many parvas and each parva into smaller sections and so on?’ The fact is, a story needs to be structured and the story itself decides which structure works best. That was the case here and I am very pleased with the way Dance of Govinda and the other books in the series turned out.

  The Sword of Dharma mini-series, as I call it now, is also written in first draft and tells us the experiences and adventures of Lord Vishnu in the heavenly realms. It is a direct sequel to the Ramayana Series as well as a bridge story to the Krishna Coriolis and Mahabharata Series. And since it deals with otherworldly events, it exists outside of ‘normal’ time as we know it, which means it is also a sequel to the Krishna Coriolis and also a prequel to the Ramayana Series. I won’t confuse you further: once you read Sword of Dharma, you would understand instantly what I mean because the story itself is an action- packed adventure story where questions like‘when is this taking place?’ and ‘so is this happening before or after such-and-such?’ become less important than seeing the curtain parted and the world beyond the curtain revealed in its full glorious detail. No matter how much I may show you in the Ramayana Series, Krishna Coriolis and Mahabharata Series, all these ‘mortal’ tales are ultimately being affected and altered by events taking place at the ‘immortal’ level, and only by seeing that story-beyond-the-story can we fully comprehend the epic saga of gods and demons that forms the basis of Hindu mythology in our puranas.

  But for now, Dance of Govinda marks a crucial turning point in the story of swayam Bhagwan (as the Bhagwatham calls him). Not only has he survived every attempt to destroy him at birth, he will grow and thrive. By the close of this book, hewill have gained the ability to stand on his own two feet – hence the title. And even though just a babe for most of the story, he is capable of far more than most grown heroes – not just more action, but more masthi as well! For that is the beauty of Krishna, he is not just a warrior but also a lovable mischievous tyke. There are as many stories of his infantile pranks as there are tales of his derring-do in this book, for I have tried to be as thorough as possible in mining the rich vein of Shrimad Bhagwatham, the Vishnu Purana and the Harivamsha sections of the Mahabharata in seeking every known recorded incident of Krishna’s infancy.

  And that too is only part of the much, much larger tale of Krishna, which itself is part of the larger tale of Lord Vishnu, which is only part of the far greater saga of gods and demons. It’s an epic saga but the beauty of it is that each portion is delicious and fulfilling in itself!

  Enjoy!

  || yadrcchaya copapannah ||

  || svarga-dvaram apavrtam ||

  || sukhinah ksatriya partha ||

  || labhante yuddham idrsam ||

  Blessed are the warriors

  Who are chosen to fight justly;

  For the doors to heaven

  Shall be opened unto them.

  Kaand 1

  one

  Vasudeva raised aloft the ceremonial sceptre of the Sura nation. The rod, shaped to resemble a cowherd’s crook, was impressively cast in solid gold and studded with precious gems at the curve of the handle. It caught a bar of morning sunlight streaming in from a slatted window high upon the soaring walls of the Andhaka palace and gleamed. Beside him, King Ugrasena of Andhaka raised his rajtaru too. The Andhaka sceptre was no less impressive than that of the Suras.

  Both rajtarus – the Sanskrit word literally meant kingsrods – reflected the sunlight, sending shards and slivers flashing to the farthest corners of the great hall. A calico tomcat, lying curled in the south corner, closed his eyes to slits and bared his teeth, peering against the blinding gleam of the rajtarus. The well-fed palace cat’s expression resembled nothing so much as a satiated grin.

  The watching assemblage crowding the sabha hall to the limit of its capacity, and the lords and ladies resplendent in their finery, blinked, then caught their breaths. The sight of the two lieges standing on the throne dais, their traditional rajtarus raised and glittering in the sunlight, presented a startling tableau. To some of the older clans chiefs in the great hall, it was a sight they had never thought they would witness as long as they lived: two ancient enemies – sovereigns of two of the wealthiest herding nations in the great land of Aryavarta – standing together with sceptres, not swords, aloft! Could it be true? Surely it was just maya? That sight – nay, that vision – could not be real, could it? After generations of cross-border blood feuds, broken only by intermittent outbreaks of war; after so much bloodshed and bitter enmity; after so many failed peace summits and parleys; after a long and bloody history had stained the pure soil of both nations, polluting the sacred Yamuna with the offal of vengeful violence, could peace finally be at hand?

  Most of the assemblage, as well as the enormous throng crowding the palace grounds without, doubted it severely. Suspicious frowns creased the faces of many clanschiefs, ministers and merchant lords. Only a few hopeful souls smiled beatifically and fingered their rudraksh-bead rosaries, silently chanting shlokas to ensure the fruition of this historic pact.

  There were few such personages; the golden age of Brahminism had long since ebbed, and the long- dreaded Kali Yuga was imminent – the prophesied dark age of Iron and Death. Most doubted that this historic pact, wrought after months of anxiety and expectation, would last, or that it would be honoured at all. Yet, even the most sceptical of ministers, the most cynical of generals, even the hardened veterans who had somehow survived the first violent decades of this dark age, prayed as fervently as their Brahmin brethren. For a while, few believed, all hoped, all desired. If it could somehow be brought to pass, if the devas truly saw fit to grant them this reprieve, they would accept peace, nay, embrace it, with all the warmth they had in them.

  So, when both kings brought their rajtarus together in an inverted V, touching the gem-studded crooks lightly together, every citizen, high and low, watched with bated breath. Even the calico tomcat, stretching himself in preparation for a foray into the royal bhojanalya – he had sniffed the unmistakable, delectable fragrance of sweetwater fish being grilled there – paused and turned his head, smelling the sour sweat of hesitant hopes and anxious prayers in the air. The rhythmic, martial count of the dhol playing in the background underscored the whole scene like a giant unified heartbeat, marking the four-by-four count to which all Arya ceremonies were performed.