Volume One in the Krishna Trilogy
“The savior will be born at midnight tomorrow, and he will be the foremost warrior in all the three worlds.”
The name of the warrior was murmured softly by the Lord of Svetadvipa and it was taken up by all the Devas present, till the hushed whisperings reached a crescendo and one name echoed throughout the land – Krishna…. Krishna…. Krishna!
3112 BC ….. The date when a mortal predestined to be a God was born in what was then known as Mrityulok. His mission was to rid the land of evil. People gave him various names, but he gained glory as the one they called Krishna.
What very few people know however is that the seeds of this warrior’s arrival on Mrityulok were sown two hundred years prior to his birth.
It all began in 3312 BC. In a fit of rage, Brahma banishes his star pupil from Swarglok. This man is neither a Deva nor an Asura. Cursed by Brahma, he is relegated to the lowest level within the netherworld. Mortally wounded, and anguished at Brahma’s unfair punishment, he struggles to survive in Tamastamah Prabha, the hell of hells within Pataal Lok.
Saved by Bhargava, the one man who believes in him, he rises in time to become known as the Dark Lord….the most feared figure in all of Pataal Lok. His plan is to assemble an army of demons in the netherworld to take over the mortals of Mrityulok. The final objective is to wage a war on Brahma and all those who were responsible for his downfall.
Brahma’s curse unwittingly sets in motion a chain of events that threaten to forever alter the fate of all the three worlds, including Mrityulok. Vasudev, the brave Prince of Bateshwar, becomes the unwitting hunter of Asura assassins. His closest friend, Kansa is fatally wounded when he tries to save his sister Devki from a group of deadly monsters. The hand of the Dark Lord is visible as elsewhere, some of the most valiant Kings in Mrityulok, start turning over to the Dark side, driven by forces beyond their control.
There is only one person who can threaten the success of his plans; the beautiful and mischievous Princess of Madhuvan, Devki. For she is the one who will give birth to the warrior, Krishna. Devki must die, and the Dark Lord uses the one man who loves her the most to do this deed….her beloved brother Kansa, the valiant Prince of Madhuvan. But in order to do this, he has to first destroy Kansa’s noble soul. Kansa begins to change as the Dark Lord uses his powers to turn him over to the Dark side. The man considered by most to be the next King of Madhuvan turns into a paranoid monster leaving a trail of carnage wherever he goes. Kansa’s shocking transformation from a noble Prince to a merciless butcher is complete even as Vasudev and Devki are rejoicing in their imminent marriage.
Bhoomidevi, the guardian goddess of the mortal world seeks help from Brahma and Shiva to stop the carnage happening on Mrityulok. Together they travel to Svetadvipa to meet the one person who can deliver the savior to them. The Lord of Svetadvipa announces the ordained birth of a warrior who will save the three worlds from the revenge of the Dark Lord…..a savior yet to be born. The Gods christen the savior “Krishna” – the warrior who will grow to strike fear in the heart of Evil. Krishna’s name reverberates across the pristine waters of Svetadvipa where all the Devas and the Supreme Gods are gathered. But will the Dark Lord allow Krishna to be born? Will Devki live to give birth to the warrior, who in time the world will turn into a God?
And the most important question of all – Is the Dark Lord evil incarnate or a betrayed hero?
(Extracted from Chapter 2: Birth of a demon child)
Kansa moved in his sleep. The nightmare was disturbing and it had been recurring for the past few days. Images of death….his death came to him in patches. A little boy was running in the royal gardens, butter smeared across his face. He had the most innocent smile Kansa had ever seen. He moved surreptitiously towards the child so he wouldn’t disturb the infant’s unbridled frolicking in the mud. He bent down to see what the child was doing. He saw the infant shaping something out of the mildly wet mud; it looked like he was making a toy dagger. Kansa smiled indulgently at the toddler. At the age of three, he was already showing signs of being a true Kshatriya (Warrior). After all, he was the son of his beloved sister Devki and his valiant friend Vasudev. He had to be a warrior among warriors. The child had by now completed fashioning the dagger out of the wet mud and was waving it in an arc as if parrying with an unseen foe. Kansa playfully tried to pull the toy dagger from the child’s hands, but the child resisted with a baby smile. Kansa laughed at this.
The baby laughed too. But it seemed to Kansa that the child was not laughing with him; he was laughing at him. Suddenly the child thrust the toy dagger in Kansa’s direction and in that moment the dagger became real; a metallic dagger with a lethally sharp tip, pointed in his direction and Kansa barely escaped getting hurt. Instinctively Kansa pulled out his own sword and just as he was about to plunge it in the direction of the child, Devki appeared out of thin air. She screamed, “No, Kansa, he is my son….your nephew! You can’t hurt him!”
Kansa was shocked at what he had been about to do. He turned back to apologize to the child, but the child was gone. In his place stood a fifteen year old youth with the same innocent smile the child had had. The young boy was holding the infant’s dagger by the handle, but the tip of the dagger now rested in Kansa’s abdomen, and Kansa could see more than feel the life blood from his body pouring out on to the ground, making the mud even wetter. He looked uncomprehendingly at the boy. The boy laughed, and again it seemed that he was laughing at Kansa. Devki came close to the boy and hugged him. Why was she hugging him? His beloved sister, hugging his murderer! And then Kansa heard the words that chilled his heart and turned all the warmth inside him to ice. “Thank you my son!” Devki had just thanked the boy who had killed him…..
Kansa got up from his nightmare, his angavastra drenched with perspiration. He felt sick. The dream had seemed so real. As if it was happening right in front of him. Devki’s betrayal haunted him. Of all his brothers and sisters, she was the dearest to him. What if she ever betrayed him? He shook his head vigorously to get the vile thought out of his mind. “She would never do something like this. This was just a dream!” he said viciously to himself.
“What if it was not a dream?” The hoarse and raucous voice came from somewhere inside his mind. Kansa jumped off his bed. His fighting arm instinctively reached to retrieve his sword from the other side of his bed. He looked around him trying to see where the voice was coming from.
“You fool, you think you can kill me with your puny sword?” the voice rasped. Kansa was familiar with the concept of ventriloquism. He knew there were people who could throw their voice in such a way that it gave the appearance of coming from one place, while the speaker could be at an entirely different place in the room. Somebody was using ventriloquism with him but to what purpose? Kansa decided he would find out. He walked stealthily towards the curtains on the other side of the room and with a swift jab he thrust his sword through the curtains. The sword passed through the cloth without meeting any resistance. He repeated this action with the curtains on all sides of the lavishly decorated room. He looked under the bed to see if the intruder was hiding there. Nothing! Kansa looked around the room bewildered.
“You look in the wrong places for the wrong person, Kalanemi! The voice was mocking. Kansa put his hands to his ears trying to shut the hoarse voice out of his mind. “You can’t shut me out by shutting your ears, Kalanemi!” The voice was gentler now; more appeasing. “I’m not your enemy…I’m your friend. The only friend you have.”
“Show yourself you coward!” Kansa growled in anger. The voice in his head laughed mirthlessly. “You are not prepared to see me yet Kalanemi. One day you shall, and then I will show myself to you. Right now you need to prepare yourself against your true enemies, Kalanemi.”
Kansa stopped moving around the room. He understood now that there was no intruder in the room. The intruder was in his mind. Someone was using cosmic telepathy to communicate with him. But who? And how? Only the three Supreme Gods or a Brahmarishi could communicate through cosmic telepathy, and this voice was no God’s. Who could possibly be doing this?
“My true enemies….What do you mean?” He growled.
“Your closest friend and your loving sister…Vasudev and Devki…they are your true enemies, Kalanemi”. The voice in Kansa’s head was even gentler now as if sympathizing with him.
Kansa’s mouth tightened in anger at the slander of the two people closest to him. Then another thought struck Kansa with the force of lightning. He spoke aloud. “Why are you calling me Kalanemi?
“Because that is your true name…that is who you really are…inside that mortal body that you inhabit.” The voice was softer now, gradually fading away.
“What? You are mistaken!” Kansa said in a mixture of confusion and anger. “I am Kansa, son of King Ugrasena of Madhuvan.”
The voice in his head was almost inaudible now, “You are not Kansa, you are Kalanemi….the greatest demon king the world has ever known. And Ugrasena is not your father…”
“You lie, you coward. Show yourself to me so I may cut off your blasphemous tongue!” Kansa screamed with barely controlled fury. There was no answer in reply to Kansa’s outraged scream, and Kansa thought the voice in his head had left him.
Then all of a sudden it was back again, and with what seemed like a super human effort, it whispered, “Go ask Ugrasena who your true father is…” And with those words, the Dark Lord’s voice disappeared, accompanied by his sad and hoarse laughter, even as Kansa struggled to come to terms with the reality of what he had just heard.
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The Curse of Brahma is the first volume in a trilogy on Krishna. It includes a cast of characters, some of whom are known to majority of the people whereas there are others who may be entirely new for most people. The key premise of The Curse of Brahma is that Krishna’s birth as a mortal was pre-ordained the day Brahma cursed his star pupil, an enigmatic man called Amartya Kalyanesu. Brahma’s curse sets in motion a chain of events that not even he is able to control. Loyalties shift as situations undergo a dramatic change. Misunderstandings are created and powerful friends transform into sworn enemies. Finally, the stage is set for the arrival of the man whom the world will know as Krishna.
For the simple reason that if Brahma had not cursed his star pupil (Amartya Kalyanesu), events would not have conspired to lead to Krishna’s birth. Brahma is the unwitting cause of Krishna’s birth, and that is the reason for the title of this particular volume in the trilogy.
While a lot has been said and written about Krishna, the fact is that almost every book ends up telling us the story of Krishna as we know it from childhood. I didn’t want to repeat the same story. Every book in the market shows Krishna either as a childhood prankster or later on as the friend of the Pandavas. The fact is that those are relatively insignificant aspects of Krishna’s life.
The Krishna trilogy (starting with The Curse of Brahma) as narrated by me provides an entirely different rationale for Krishna’s birth on earth. Moreover, it also includes that part of his life (From the age of fifteen to his early thirties) that no one has written or spoken about till date. And perhaps most interestingly, the trilogy shows Krishna as a mortal who earned the right to be called a God rather than someone who was born divine. Also, every character in the book – irrespective of how much has been written about them earlier – has been characterized differently, and been provided shades of grey. This not only makes them more credulous but in my humble opinion lends each character a different persona that defines them. Reading the trilogy therefore, will be like experiencing Krishna in an entirely new light.
With subjects like Krishna, it is difficult to say where facts end and fiction begins. However, the fact is that Krishna was a real character who lived more than 5,000 years ago and I have taken facts wherever available and woven fiction around the same. Therefore, the result is a book that is part fiction and part reality.
This is a rather philosophical question. Our holy texts give us different definitions of Gods and Devas. And the same texts tell us that even Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu cease to exist and are reborn at defined cycles in time. What makes them a God is therefore not their immortality but how they live their life during the period of their existence. By that logic, people might be correct when they refer to Krishna as a God because he epitomized everything that may be called godly.
Having said that, various facts and evidence suggests that Krishna was a real person who lived a little more than 5,000 years ago. The way he lived his life and his exemplary deeds compelled people to give him the status of a God amongst Gods.
Yes, all the three books within the trilogy address Krishna’s dual existence – the mortal who came to be known as a God.
The research took close to eight years and the actual writing of the first book in the trilogy (The Curse of Brahma) took another year.
The second book in the trilogy is called The Rise of the Yadavas. It covers the period in Krishna’s life between the age of fifteen and his early thirties. This is the period no one has ever written or spoken about. The third and final book in the trilogy is called The Drums of Dwaraka. This is where his true nature is revealed. Unlike the other texts, this doesn’t just show him as a supporting entity in the Great War, but as the central character. The Great War itself is described entirely differently and from Krishna’s perspective. The great finale is the biggest surprise and will leave the readers of the trilogy guessing till the last moment.
The Curse of Brahma is initially being published in India and the Indian sub-continent. Rupa Publications are the publishers for this.
It is premature to say anything at this stage. I have had a preliminary discussion with a major production house regarding this. But these kind of projects take time, given the scale of production and the large canvas required to do justice to a subject like this.
Well, I love interacting with people. This was one of the main reasons I left a lucrative banking career a decade back. The idea was to have more time and freedom to interact with people, without having any specific agenda in mind.
I would therefore be very happy to interact with people on any of the social media platforms where I am present. The preferable ones would be Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.