Krishna Lifts the Govardhan Hill

Every year, the people of Braj held a big festival for Indra, the king of the rain gods. They cooked mountains of food, offered it all to Indra, and asked him to please send good rain next year.

One year, a boy of about seven watched all the preparations and asked a question.

"Nanda Baba," said Krishna, "why do we do this?"

"So that Indra sends us rain, my child."

"But does Indra send rain only to us?" Krishna asked. "Does he not send it everywhere, whether people cook for him or not? And who actually feeds us? The Govardhan hill gives our cows grass. It gives us water, and firewood, and herbs when we are ill. And the cows give us milk and butter every single day. Perhaps we should thank the ones who are actually doing the work."

The elders of Braj thought about this, and they laughed, and they agreed. So that year the food went to Govardhan hill and to the cows. Everyone walked around the hill singing, and the children fed the calves by hand.

High above the clouds, Indra heard about it — and he was furious.

"They have forgotten me!" he thundered. "A village of cowherds! I will show them what rain really means."

He called the storm clouds — the ones that are only used at the end of the world — and sent them down on Braj.

The rain did not fall in drops. It fell in ropes, in sheets, in walls of water. Rivers burst. Lightning cracked the sky open again and again. The cows bellowed in terror, the little calves slipped in the mud, and the people of Braj ran together in one frightened crowd.

"Krishna!" they cried. "It was your idea! Now what do we do?"

Krishna smiled. He walked over to the Govardhan hill, bent down, and slipped the little finger of his left hand underneath it.

And he lifted it.

The whole hill — with its trees and its rocks and its waterfalls — came up off the ground like the lid of a pot, and Krishna held it above his head as easily as a child holds an umbrella.

"Come," he said. "Everyone. Bring the cows."

All of Braj hurried underneath — men, women, children, cows, calves, dogs, even the birds. And there they stood, warm and dry, while the end-of-the-world clouds emptied themselves on the rock above.

For seven days and seven nights it rained. For seven days and seven nights Krishna stood there, one finger up, chatting and laughing with his friends, not once looking tired.

The village people kept glancing at him and whispering, "Look. He isn't even shifting his weight."

At last, up above the clouds, Indra ran out of rain. He looked down at the hill, and at the small dark boy holding it, and something inside him went very quiet.

He came down. He bowed his head all the way to the ground.

"Forgive me," he said. "I was angry because nobody praised me. That is a small reason to hurt a whole village."

Krishna set the hill back down exactly where it had been, so gently that not one bird's nest was disturbed.

"You are welcome in Braj, Indra," he said. "Just come as a friend next time, not as a storm."

This is why, on the day after Diwali, families still build a little hill of food called Annakut and offer it — remembering the year Braj learned to thank whatever actually keeps it alive.