“Hey, who are you?”
“Balaanujaa !” (The younger brother of Balarama)
The gopi smiled, realizing that it was a poor attempt to redeem himself in her eyes. For, Balarama was known to be the ‘good’ child of Nanda quite in contrast to this mischievous one!
“Why are you in my house?”
The lotus-like eyes grew wider, and those dark unruly curls danced as he glanced around, as if confused.
“It looked just like my house, so I entered!”
The gopi just about managed to not roll her eyes in disbelief.
“Ok, accepted, but please tell me, why is your hand in my butter pot?”
He threw the gopi a calculating look and loudly declared,
“Actually, one little calf is missing from the herd I took grazing today. So, I’m searching if he’s there inside this pot!”
The gopi struggled to suppress her mirth at the utter improbability of this scenario.
Putting on an innocent face, she said, sotto voce,
“Well, did you find your calf in my butter pot?”
“Well, did you find your calf in my butter pot?”
He blessed her with His famed mesmerizing smile.
The poor gopi melted faster than the butter in her pot!
And before she could recover from the effect of that bewitching smile, He had run away, shouting out with a backward glance, “No, my calf isn’t here! I was just waiting for you to come, so that I could tell you so. Now that I’ve done that, I’m going, ok, bye!”
As we read and bask in the glory of this leela described by Bilvamangala Thakur in his writing (called, I think, Krishna Karanaamrutham), may the playful butter-thief of Gokula steal from us all that stands in the way of us reaching His lotus feet!
Happy Krishna Jayanti!
