“So you will wake up every morning and pray to Krishna here but greet me with a grumpy face because I just came back in late last night?”, I scoffed at my grandmother while we both stood in front of this painting where Krishna Meets the Gopis at Night and is surrounded by them (girlfriends), all trying to woo him while he takes this opportunity to enjoy his time with the ladies in bikinis and draped in vibrant sparkling sarongs.

 

In Duryodhana’s words, Krishna is a “smiling rogue if there ever was one. He can eat, he can drink, he can sing, he can dance. He can make love, he can fight, he can gossip with old women, and play with little children. Who says he’s God?”

 

I heard this story from my grandmother since I was a child and from reading the Mahabharata. Krishna was the cool cat who engaged in skirmishes not by force, but through psychological warfare. Krishna, with his amped-up flirtation and his luck with the ladies, held infinite appeal for me. It was only magnified by my name when I learnt Krishna officiated Uttara and Arjuna’s wedding.

 

It all came to life when we finally took that trip in search of Krishna in Vrindavan’s secret forest, turning me into a Krishna fangirl. It was nearly 11 pm and we were still waiting outside the walled temple of Nidhivan in Vrindavan, in Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura district. I had never imagined I’d be investigating a legend I’ve heard since I was a kid at this supposed site of Krishna’s childhood. Vrindavan is now known as the ‘City of Widows’, as it harbours a floating population of nearly 20,000 women who migrate there after losing their husbands to sing hymns to the Blue God. At that hour though, I couldn’t hear any of their prayers – the pedha shops around had shuttered, the rickshaw pullers were fast asleep. But the monkeys were still awake. They are everywhere in Vrindavan, carrying out a primate version of UP’s gunda raj. I was feeling secure though, as the animals’ penchant for stealing spectacles has forced me to take mine off, forcing me into a temporary blindness.

 

Blindness would just have been my lot if the legend came true.

 

Nidhivan, as my grandmother told me, was a walled forest in the middle of Vrindavan. In the solitary temple inside, every evening around 5, the priests would install seven locks and place plates of besan laddoos, khoya pedas, ghee, butter, and kheer outside it. They would remake the bed in the Rang Mahal. But no one is allowed to stay inside Nidhivan past 5.30 pm, because every night, for the last 5,000 years, the trees inside the forest turn into gopis. Krishna, it is believed, descends from the heavens with Radha to dance with them, to perform the Raas Leela. After the Leela is done, around 11.30 pm, Krishna eats the food laid out for him, and proceeds to the Rang Mahal to rest with Radha.

 

But here’s the catch. If any human were to witness the ceremony, the priests and locals say, they will go blind, insane even.

 

So there we were, surrounded by monkeys and barely working street lamps, patrolling the 15-feet boundaries of Nidhivan, hoping that my reduced eyesight would heighten my other senses. Specifically my auditory perception, so I could hear the “chhan chhan” from the ghunghroos of the gopis who, I presume, dance every night inside Nidhivan.

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Instead of blindness though, my lot was disappointment.

 

We stayed at Nidhvan for nearly an hour that night, literally blinded by faith, but our rickshaw guy was getting antsy. “It’s blasphemy to see the Lord,” he exclaims, and we had no option but to head back to the ashram. “Radhe Radhe,” he says, as we got in. Krishna would have to wait another day.

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