When they tell my tale, they will say I was a

  baby when I showed Yashoda the cosmos

  inside my mouth. They will talk of how I

  sucked the very life out of a demoness

  through her breast. They will call it the

  vanquishing of Putana. You will also hear of

  how I lifted a hill on my little finger as a boy

  tending my cows.

  These are just stories, but they will turn into

  truths, as stories do when birthed from the

  pen of raconteurs with literary flair and skill.

  But they were always just stories.

  Govardhan hill was lifted and elevated about

  seven feet above the earth, not by me and my

  divine strength but by a group of men lead

  by an engineer with crazy ideas. I enjoyed

  hanging out with him in my boyhood,

  fascinated by his ideas and inventions. He

  was from a distant land, towards the west of

  the five rivers and the Hindukush mountains.

  I called him Haish.

  Haish was from a tiny country called Greece.

  An island nation full of gods much like ours.

  Haish was on a journey of self-discovery

  when he found me.

  I was standing beneath the kadamba tree

  playing my flute which I called bansuri, lost

  in the music I had created. It was the one

  time; I could disengage from everything

  around me: my solace, my pride. I loved the

  melancholic notes that hinted at secrets and

  promises. It reminded you of the cool

  breezes on hot summer nights and the

  warmth of the sun on your back in winter

  afternoons. I often felt it was not me who

  was playing the flute but rather the flute

  playing me. When my lips touched the cool

  shaft of bamboo, I felt like this was the only

  reality. I created pain, joy, rage, love,

  subliminal in its rawness and simplicity and I

  did it with a piece of bamboo and my breath.

  Haish heard my music before he saw me and

  was pulled in by the force of the bansuri's

  refrains. He sat down near me, closed his

  eyes, and let the notes pass over him.

  "It brought me peace" he told me much

  later. When I stopped playing and saw this

  young man seated on the grassy knoll, I

  knew this was no ordinary mortal. We started

  talking, and the awareness of our true self

  that both of us held in our hearts lead us to

  realize the divinity in the other quickly.

  He was Hephaestus, the Greek, I was

  Krishna, of the Hindus, and so much more,

  for I was a form of Vishnu, a form of his

  Zeus. As far as divinity goes, both of us felt

  in tune with each other. Hephaestus was

  brilliant, bright, and starved as I am of

  equality in friendship, the three months spent

  in the company of Hephaestus were some of

  the best in my existence on Earth.

  One particularly humid summer evening, I

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  was chatting with Haish about the monsoon

  rains and the lightning strikes that come with

  them. "You know what, we could lift that hill

  in the west and raise it high enough to make

  a shelter for the people who get caught in the

  rain," Haish ventured. All he had been doing

  the last two weeks was listening to me

  playing the flute and chatting with Amsu, a

  friend of mine Haish seemed to have

  developed a fondness for, probably because

  of Amsu's keen intellect and quiet

  demeanour. Although Haish was an inventor,

  he liked having his mind occupied by

  technology, physics, masonry, and forging.

  The idea stuck, and we decided to give it a

  go- lift Govardhan the human way. Haish

  built an underground hoisting system that

  could bear the weight of a hill the size of

  Govardhan. Metallic sheets were placed

  underneath to lift them. It took Haish a good

  two weeks to set it up. I knew men would not

  be able to replicate it even a thousand

  centuries later. We decided to give it a try

  when it would be raining.

  The next time one of the crazy downpours

  started to occur when it seems as if the

  heavens had opened up, wanting to submerge

  the whole earth in a deluge, I rounded up the

  villagers and took them to Govardhan. Haish

  pulled the lever that lifted Govardhan. It

  worked. Haish did not make mistakes. He

  didn't like to be seen either. He was too

  conscious of his looks. I, ever the playful

  showman, decided to stand with my feet

  crossed and little finger raised, looking as if I

  was holding up Govardhan. The image just

  stuck, I guess.

  Haish had been travelling the world because

  he was running away from home. He was

  married to the most beautiful woman in

  Greece, a goddess, but she fell in love with

  his cousin, a high-ranking general in the

  Greek army, a god of war. Hurt, he did what

  a lot of men do, exposed their adultery, and

  then ran to find peace.

  A couple of months after the Govardhan

  Raising feat, something Haish would not let

  me tell anyone the reality about, Haish said

  to me that he needed to go back home. The

  three months in Vrindavan had made him

  calmer. He felt he was in a better place and

  could think more clearly than when he had

  left Greece.

  I let my dear friend go back. Haish was

  Hephaestus. He had a responsibility as a

  divine being of his island, and I needed to

  spend time with Radha.

  I had been neglecting Radha these past three

  months. She said I was enamoured by the

  Greek, going so far as even my flute was

  now playing a foreign tune. She hated the

  new music, which of course, Haish loved. I

  had changed some of the notes to suit his

  ears.

  Haish left, and I went back to Radha and my

  friends. The music emanating from my flute

  reverted to the familiar style loved by the

  people I was supposed to love. Thus I played

  on, my tryst with Hephaestus relegated to the

  back of my mind, a story that would not be

  told.

  But I never used that lever built by Haish to

  lift Govardhan again. It must have rusted

  over the years and broken down in disuse.