Episode 13 – Nurse Ratched and Umbrella Mountain

This week we are back to Krishna.

If you haven’t heard Episode 11, it’s a good idea to begin with that. But if not, I’ll provide a quick recap for you.

The character this week is a creature that can control the laws of physics simply by stretching and un-stretching

Kansa was an evil tyrant king. He heard a prophecy that the 8th baby and his newly married sister would kill him. Instead of laughing it off over cozy fireside chats with the new couple, Kansa put his newly married sister and her husband into prison. Not to prevent the baby from being born, but to have absolute control over it the moment it entered the world. 

His plan, unfortunately, worked for babies 1 they 6. But baby 7, Balaram was swapped out by divine intervention.

For baby 8, swapping was still what the gods chose, but they had the dad do all the hard work instead. So, Krishna, the baby escaped the fate of his brothers and sisters. Unfortunately, Kansa found out about it. We’ll pick up the story right here.

Kansa dispatched people far and wide to find all babies born on that day, Ashtami or the eighth day of that month, just like Voldemort had sent out his death eaters. Soon one of his scouts came back with the news of a baby in Gokul, to Nanda Baba and Yashoda.

Kansa knew what to do, he sent for Pootana.

Pootana was a demon in his employ and was trusted enough to be salaried. She could change shape – sort of like Rogue from the X men series. Which might make you think that Pootana probably earned multiple salaries by pretending to be multiple people.

And just like Rogue, Pootana preferred to be in her natural form – which others may have found less pleasing to the eye but she didn’t.

And just like Magneto, Kansa encouraged her to be herself, and not simply eye candy for the rest of the world that had not been nice to her.

Kansa told Pootana about the backstory, he had Pootana listen to episode 11 of this podcast for the backstory.

Pootana was ready, “alright I will take an army of people and go crush this child”. Probably thinking this was just a baby, I can do the job alone, and be multiple people when it’s time to claim my mean our salaries and bonuses.

“No no, I need you to be subtle,” said Kansa

“Why?” Asked Pootana  – “you rule this land, why can’t you simply crush all of Gokul. You have the resources to do it”

Kansa said – “but then if anything goes wrong, the media and social media will be all over it. I still get a question or two in every press conference about how I meant to destroy the 8th baby and failed. They called it gross incompetence at the highest level. I was trending on Twitter for weeks”.

Pootana sympathized- “I hear you,” she said. “Subtlety is what you want, then subtlety is what you get. I’ll head to Gokul right now. Watch the evening news for a tragic accident in Gokul. I’d try and message you or post a picture or something on Instagram, but I am not sure I’ll have signal out there in the boondocks”

She changed her shape and clothes into that of a very attractive young nurse and walked over to Gokul.

Honestly, I’d have personally changed shape into an eagle and reached Gokul quickly, but maybe Pootana needed time to plan out her strategy.

Krishna already had a bit of a reputation then, and it was easy to find out which house he lived in.

Seeing as Krishna was about a month old then, she advertised herself exclusively as a nurse for 1-month-olds.

Pootana was in luck, Yashoda was in the market for a nurse to take care of her baby.

Nandababa was out minding the cows(not that the cows needed any minding, the cowherd’s job is more important during the walk to and from the meadow). Yashoda who was a milkmaid took her job very seriously. There was a sale on the latest edition butter making equipment and she had to buy it. But a shopping mall was no place for a 1-month-old baby.

Pootana’s advertisement of her services as a nurse to 1-month-olds (which she was conveniently shouting out, right outside her door) was exactly what Yashoda needed.

It didn’t matter that Yashoda had never seen Pootana before. But the girl had a very charming appearance and Krishna smiled at her, so that must mean it was quite alright to leave her darling son in the hands of this perfect stranger, right?

So she quickly grabbed her reusable shopping bags, indicated all emergency phone numbers and rushed to the mall – maybe she’d get a bonus milk pail or something.

Pootana got to work right away. She nursed the baby but with a twist, she had coated the source of milk with a very strong poison.

The baby was still smiling at her. It latched on no problem. But then as it drank the effect was the opposite of what Pootana expected. The baby wasn’t affected by the poison. Instead, she herself went weak. Her energy levels dipped and drained away. She couldn’t keep up her disguise anymore either. Powerless she realized this was the end for her. She knew this child had to be an avatar of a major god and that she was way out of her league here. 

When Yashoda returned she was shocked at the scene, with Pootana in her true form lifeless on the floor and Krishna peacefully sleeping in his crib.

There was only one possible explanation for this incident.

This lifeless hideous body belonged to a demon who had come to the house looking for food.

Pootana, sticking to her duty must have fought this beast. The beast probably ate up Pootana, seeing as she didn’t seem to be around anymore. The demon then would have eaten her baby too, but probably choked on Pootana, Yashoda thought chokingly.

Oh well, guess Nanda baba had the gargantuan task of hauling away the demon when he got back.

There are many more stories of Krishna. There are broadly two themes. Either those that demonstrate cute, child-like but superhuman behavior(sort of like baby superman lifting a car), or those that involve him defeating an adversary sent specifically to destroy him or in a few cases, to just humble him.

This next story combines both of these themes.
We’ll fast forward a few years. Krishna, his cowherd family and all the other cowherd families were now in Brindavan, a place near Mathura.
Krishna observed how everyone was gathering gifts.

He asked Nanda  Baba, “Why is everyone gathering all that stuff?”

Nanda Baba said – “It’s for the big prayer to Indra, the god of rain”

Krishna: “And why is everyone worshipping Indra?”

“Because this is ancient India, and the way we take care of our cattle and whatever food we grow is entirely dependent on the rain, and that is controlled entirely by Indra”

“So you’re bribing Indra to keep the rain coming?”

“Bribing is a strong word. Let me explain something called Quid Pro Quo…”

Krishna quickly interrupted – “With all due respect, let me explain something called the Water Cycle”. He explained it not just to Nandababa but also to everyone else.

Add to that Krishna’s magnetic personality, and everyone was convinced that the rainfall they received was dependent on melting of glaciers and evaporation from water bodies and not something that could be simply turned off by a god with a huge ego.

They were right, and also wrong. Yes, Indra could control the rains, but when he found out he wouldn’t be getting prayers from the Vrindavan cowherds he didn’t turn off the rains, he turned them on. At full blast.

He kept the rains coming at full strength, and pretty soon it looked like this was going to need Matsya or unicorn fish all over again. But Krishna stepped in to save the day!

He saw how everyone in Vrindavan was soaking wet and their cattle besides. It was hard to see with rain pouring in sheets like this. If only he had an umbrella while he tried to think of a solution. An umbrella, wait a minute that was the answer. An umbrella.

He gathered all the people of Vrindavan and cattle, did a few calculations, pi times the radius squared. And then measured and picked the right spot on the nearby mountain Govardhan.

Once he picked that spot on the mountain, he picked up the mountain by that spot.

Yeah, lifting a mountain isn’t too hard, is it? I just lifted a couple myself over breakfast this morning.

That mountain became an umbrella for everyone.

Indra could not make it rain on the cattle and people anymore. He tried raining hard on the mountain but that did nothing.
In fact, as if to shame him, Krishna was now balancing the mountain on his ***pinky***?

Sometime later, Indra had to admit defeat and give up on the idea of raining do.

Rains were back, just the way people wanted. Indra got some prayers out of it.

And everyone got to see an awesome demonstration of the use of the world’s biggest umbrella.

And Krishna’s pinky didn’t even hurt.

That’s it for the stories. Now some notes.

The Govardhan mountain lifting story is thought to have occurred around Sankranti a local Indian festival that happens to be this week, but there are 12 different Sankranti.

There is some confusion about which one exactly is the one that this story happened on, but it doesn’t matter who’s right. All of the calendars in human use are inaccurate to one degree or the other so that it doesnt really matter.

Krishna’s stories may remind you somewhat of Voldemort and Harry Potter. Ths comparisons are striking.

I mean even the name Harry sounds like Hari, which is another name for Krishna. 

Kansa was ashamed of his dad and had him imprisoned. As Voldemort did.

The prophecy was nearly identical, though Harry Potter’s one left room for Voldemort to possibly kill him. That had to be changed of course, because if the prophecy simply said that Harry would certainly kill Voldemort, I don’t think the books would have sold as much.

Voldemort actually killed Harry’s parents, while Kansa imprisoned Hari’s parents for life. Not the same, but it is similar. 

The baby in each case was taken to a place where they could grow up in anonymity.

The difference is that Nandababa and Yashoda were the opposite of the Dursleys. They treated Hari as regular parents do, showering him with love, as well as a bit of discipline when required.

Krishna had several run-ins with snakes good and bad and could communicate with them, though not in parseltongue.

While you might be tempted to think of Krishna, Balaram, and Subhadra as Harry, Ron, and Hermione, this would be wrong. Krishna was fearless like Harry but never showed bad judgment like Harry Potter often does. Krishna was well-read and wise like Hermione but not socially awkward.

And Ron, I’m not sure what Ron brought to the table in the trio, but if you think attractiveness Krishna had that too!

Balaram was Krishna’s sidekick, though older than him – this is unusual in Indian mythology, where age is usually proportional to respect commanded.

Over and over Voldemort and his death eaters engineered Harry Potter assassination attempts. As Kansa did. Everyone one of those failed. 

And just like Harry Potter, all the parents and guardians seem perfectly content with putting their children in the most dangerous positions possible. I mean battling fire breathing dragons and being sent into the dark forest for detention for the crime of unsafely walking around after hours in school – just doesn’t make any sense.

Character of the week

Shesh naag or Ultimate snake is Vishnu’s sidekick. He floats in the ocean of milk and is large enough for his body to serve as a day bed for Vishnu. He accompanies Vishnu everywhere

For example during the Matsya avatar, while Vishnu had the all-important role of being the unicorn fish that saved humanity, Shesh Naag’s role was that of a rope to tie Manu’s boat to the horn of the fish, not an unimportant task but not the most glamorous one either.

In subsequent avatars, Shesh Naag aired his grievances to Vishnu and was given more and more important tasks. But all of them came out not quite the way he wanted. Sort of like a classic morality tale about wish fulfillment gone wrong.

When Shesh Naag asked to be born an equal, he got to Laxman to Vishnu’s Ram.

Laxman was obviously a sidekick in the Ramayan, or it’d have been called the Laxmanayan.

He told Vishnu – no fair, you got to be the older brother. Next time make me the older brother!

“Sure thing” said Vishnu, and in the next avatar Shesh Naag was Balram, and despite being Krishna’s older brother definitely had the supporting role yet again.

It’s said that Shesh Naag’s body controls the flow of time in the universe. If the snake uncoils its body, time can move forward, but when it coils, time stands still and the universe can even blink out of existence.

Thats it for this week.

Next week

Next week we’ll learn about how a dead mouse can change your life if you apply some clever business principles, in a story that could be describing the story of a modern retail giant, but 500 years ago.

Approach the character next week with caution, because she is associated with bees, wasps, and hornets. And I’m not talking about a DC comics superhero