KRISHNA CORIOLIS#4: Lord of Mathura
Page 23
Jarasandha nodded. ‘So it shall be. And I shall have it. But in my own way, at my own time. Soon. Very soon. But first, I shall leave you to sort out your internal political disagreements on your own. My daughters, your wives, have already been sent ahead to their summer palace. They shall await you there, in case you are still able to come visit them after this issue is resolved. If not, then I shall return soon enough to continue my plans with Mathura.’
Jarasandha mounted the chariot. Kamsa lost all sense of dignity. He ran after the chariot, crying out. ‘But I am your son-in-law. You love me as a son!’
‘And now, I leave you to stand on your own two feet, my son,’ Jarasandha said. Then with one sharp crack of his whip, he spurred his horses forward, and raced the chariot away, leaving Mathura through the deserted army cantonments, the only route not crowded by citizens and militia and Imperial Mathuran troops who were all on duty throughout the city today.
Kamsa watched Jarasandha leave and even in the shape of his back, Krishna saw his uncle’s entire strength leave him.
By the time Kamsa turned, he was already a broken man.
But he was a broken man with the power of a supermortal and the strength and fury of a rakshasa.
‘YOU,’ he cried out in a voice that boiled the air like thunder. ‘YOU ARE THE SOURCE OF ALL THAT AILS ME…PRESERVER OF MORTALKIND. SO YOU ARE A GOD INCARNATE. NOW LET US SEE IF YOU CAN FACE A VERITABLE GOD AMONG ASURAS.’
And as all Mathura watched with horrified astonishment, Kamsa began to grow larger, larger, and still larger. Until he once again stood with his head high among the clouds, bigger than he had ever been before in his early transformations as a rakshasa. But still as dense and powerful as he had learned to make himself with the help of Jarasandha’s potions and Putana’s Haihaiya poison.
‘COME NOW, VISHNU,’ he roared as he raised his foot and stamped down hard upon the royal pavilion, crushing every last one of his own entourage without caring if they were still loyal to him or not. ‘LET US SEE IF YOU CAN FULFILL YOUR PROPHECY BEFORE I FINISH DESTROYING MATHURA AND KILLING EVERY LAST YADAVA IN THE CITY!’
19
MATHURA was in chaos. Kamsa towered above the city, enlarged to such an enormous size, his head could barely be seen from the ground. He stamped about the cantonment area, smashing and killing everyone he could reach. For some reason, his anger was directed at his own supporters and followers—perhaps because of their betrayal.
‘Bhai,’ Balarama said, ‘We should move the people to safety before he turns his attention to them. I shall do it.’
Krishna turned to thank Balarama for taking the initiative without argument but Balarama was already racing to the pavilion, shouting instructions. Krishna knew there was not much more he could do there. His presence was better put to use against that tower of destruction on its rampage.
He needed no more than an instant to think the situation through. Kamsa’s enlargement had come as a surprise, but not a shock. After all, Krishna had known that his uncle had once possessed the ability to expand and reduce his size. He had also known that Kamsa had acquired the ability to use the same power to make his body denser while remaining the same size. Somehow, Kamsa had found a way to combine both in secret and had waited until this day to reveal his full ability.
If he lived up to his word, as he would no doubt, all of Mathura could be destroyed by his rampaging. The only way to avoid further casualties was to remove him from Mathura. And in order to do that, Krishna would have to make him take this fight elsewhere. Which left only one place to go.
Krishna flew up, rising up in the sky until he hovered high enough to be noticed by Kamsa. Then, using his power to project his own voice, he addressed his uncle.
‘Uncle Kamsa!’
Kamsa had just finished pounding most of the court’s nobility and aristocracy to bloody pulp. Krishna had no sympathy for the rich and overbearing overlords who had aided and abetted Kamsa in his reign of atrocities and abuse all these many years, but it was still sickening to see people trampled thus mercilessly. Tearing apart a supermortal wrestling champion in a bout was one thing. This, on the other hand, was simple murder.
Kamsa turned at the sound of Krishna’s voice. He grinned down at the tiny figure hovering in mid air.
‘MY NEPHEW! DID I SURPRISE YOU? YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT MY ABILITY TO DO THIS, DID YOU? HOW SURPRISING. IT SEEMS THE GREAT DELIVERER IS NOT OMNISCIENT AFTER ALL!’
Krishna ignored the taunt. ‘Uncle. I shall give you one final chance to surrender and live. Only because of our blood relation. Yield now and I shall have you arrested and imprisoned for life. It is more than you deserve and you know it.’
Kamsa chuckled. With his enormous size, it sounded like echoes of a thousand waterfalls crashing down cascades after the monsoons, echoing off a deep ravine’s walls.
‘LIFE IMPRISONMENT? WHY BOTHER. LET’S SETTLE THIS RIGHT HERE AND NOW. IT’S ABOUT TIME. I’VE BEEN WANTING TO FACE YOU, VISHNU, EVER SINCE MY MOTHER RAISED ME ON STORIES OF YOU TAKING REBIRTH TO DESTROY EVIL ON EARTH. MY MOTHER WAS THE SISTER OF THE GREAT LORD RAVANA, DID YOU KNOW THAT? THAT WAS WHEN MY NAME WAS KALA-NEMI, AND YOUR’S WAS RAMA CHANDRA. I ALSO REGRETTED THE FACT THAT WE NEVER GOT TO CONFRONT ONE ANOTHER FACE TO FACE. FINALLY, I HAVE MY CHANCE AND I INTEND TO MAKE THE BEST OF IT. COME ON, FACE ME NOW. OR STAND ASIDE AND WATCH ME DESTROY YOUR PRECIOUS CITY AND PEOPLE!’
‘So your plan is to fight me and in the process destroy Mathura as well?’
‘YES. BRILLIANT, IS IT NOT? EVEN IF YOU WIN, THE FIGHT WITH ME WILL CAUSE SO MUCH DESTRUCTION THAT I WILL HAVE TRIUMPHED BY DEFAULT. FOR I DON’T CARE A WHIT FOR THESE WRETCHED MORTALS. BUT YOU DO. SO WIN OR LOSE, THEY WILL DIE ANYWAY.’
Krishna sighed. ‘Then you leave me no choice.’
He flew directly at Kamsa.
20
KAMSA cried out in anger as he staggered, the backs of his heels crushing a line of heavily laden carts loaded with weapons for the Imperial Army. Spears and swords snapped and crackled under his giant feet. He snarled and slapped at his own head, swatting at Krishna like a man might swat at a troublesome mosquito. But before he could get hold of him, Krishna had taken hold of Kamsa’s hair and was flying upwards. Kamsa had expected him to attack and fight but instead, all Krishna intended was to take hold of the giant rakshasa and fly him in the one direction where nobody would be injured by Kamsa’s gargantuan size and wicked intent: upwards.
Kamsa roared with fury as he realized what was happening. But Krishna was already lifting him bodily up in the air, rising higher and higher. Kamsa’s feet flailed as they left the ground, narrowly missing striking a building. Crowds roared below as tens of thousands of Mathurans turned their faces upwards, watching the battle with rapt attention, less afraid for their own lives as eager to witness the fight for which they had waited 23 long years.
Kamsa continued to swat at his head. But it was near impossible for any man to strike the top of his own head while being carried upwards. Still, he struggled and flailed mightily. It was only when he was several hundred yards up in the air and still rising that he stopped flailing and froze still.
Krishna sensed understanding flood through his giant brain.
‘I SEE NOW WHAT YOU MEAN TO DO! BUT YOU CANNOT. YOU MUST NOT. I WILL NOT LET YOU DO IT. I WANT A FIGHT. I WANT THE BATTLE I DESERVE. I WILL NOT BE DROPPED DOWN LIKE A RAW EGG TO BREAK ON THE EARTH. I WANT MY FAIR DUE IN BATTLE. FIGHT ME, VISHNU. PUT ME BACK DOWN AND FIGHT ME FACE TO FACE.’
Krishna said grimly, ‘Uncle, you lost your right to a fair fight when you slew newborns by dashing their brains out. You lost it when you ordered the execution of thousands more innocent children. You lost the right when you committed a hundred thousand other atrocities over the past 23 years, not to mention those you had committed even before revealing your true rakshasa nature. Back on the field, there was a moment when you could have attacked me and had your chance at a fair fight. You failed to take it. Now, this is the only fight you get. It is the onl
y one you deserve.’
‘NO, KRISHNA, NO,’ Kamsa cried, bellowing loud enough to be heard by all Mathura. ‘YOU CANNOT DO THIS TO ME. I AM A WARRIOR AND SO ARE YOU. FIGHT ME LIKE A WARRIOR FACE TO FACE. IT IS MY RIGHT. AND IT IS YOUR DHARMA.’
‘I am a warrior, yes,’ Krishna said sadly. ‘That is the only reason why I had to wait this long and allow so many other innocents to suffer and die before facing you today in combat. If I was not a warrior and not bound by kshatriya dharma, I would have crept into your palace as a babe and slaughtered you as you slept. But this is as far as my dharma will allow me to bring you. To this certain death. It is the only way you deserve, the only end for one such as you. Just as a mad elephant or beast must be put down instantly, without hesitation or thought, so must your life be ended now. If you have any last words, speak them now, before I release my hold on your body and let it fall to its death on the earth below.’
Kamsa made begging and pleading sounds but they were of no avail. Finally, seeing that he could negotiate no further advantage, he snarled. ‘RELEASE ME, THEN. BUT KNOW THIS BEFORE I DIE. YOUR REAL STRUGGLE ON EARTH HAS NOT EVEN BEGUN YET, VISHNU. YOU HAVE FAR MORE SUFFERING TO ENDURE AND FAR GREATER BATTLES AND STRUGGLES TO OVERCOME BEFORE YOU ACCOMPLISH YOUR TASK IN THIS INCARNATION. THIS IS NOT THE END, IT IS ONLY THE BEGINNING.’
Krishna said sadly, ‘This too I know.’
And then he released Kamsa, letting the giant fall.
He took several moments, during which time all the watching tens of thousands held their breath. Krishna had been careful to carry Kamsa’s gargantuan form farther north of the city, to the wastelands where nobody resided, the sprawling wadis and ravines of uninhabited desolation where Kamsa had once come to practice the use of his newfound abilities. Where he had pounded his fists and body time and again on rocks and boulders, testing his new shakti, taking pride in it. Where he had killed animals just to vent his rage or fury.
He fell into that wasteland. And the earth itself seemed to harden to receive him. As if Bhoodevi, Mother Prithvi, whatever you choose to call her, suffering for so long under the cruel yoke of Kamsa’s tyranny, resolved that this time, she would be harder than Kamsa’s dense muscled body and sinew and bone. And so, as the giant Kamsa struck the ground, his body was shattered into a thousand pieces, fragmented and fragmented again, until even the smallest fragment broke apart into dust.
A wind rose from nowhere and carried this dust away into oblivion.
And across Mathura, a million liberated souls cheered. And only one word was on their lips.
‘KRISHNA!’
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