A child's wish.....

My 5 year old daughter, Keerthana is very much into Indian mythological stories, thanks to the constant supply of cartoon dvds of the same by dear old grandpa. She is a big fan of Krishna. She just cannot have enough of how Krishna tamed the serpant Kalia or how he contrived the slaying of Jarasandha by Bheema.

She does truly believe in God, (atleast for now) and also believes that if one is good natured and prays sincerely God will hear and respond.

The other day, she came up and said to me - "Mommy - I so want to see Krishna is person...I want to touch him and talk to him.....I have been really good mannered and am praying to him very sincerely as well, when do you think I would be able to see him?"

Like so many other questions from a child that has the ability to make a parent feel totally at loss for words , this one had me stumped.

I toyed with the idea of explaining that God is nothing but goodness and to not associate a form with him.
But then I decided against that - thinking that it would be too much for a 5 year old to comprehend, and would certainly dampen the joy that she derives out of watching the mythological cartoons. She had many years to realize all that.....

Guiltily I veered the conversation away to another topic....

I did not think of the dialogue much.

That evening, a cousin called up and mentioned that the Indian Cultural Society was staging a Krishna Leela play in our town's public school that evening- would we be interested?

We went over. It was a fabulous play put up by 6-15 year olds depicting Krishna's life right from his birth to the end of Mahabharatha war.

The youngster who played Krishna was unbelievably true to his character.

After the play - while the presentations were going on - he came over to the audience side and came and sat right behind where we were sitting.

Keerthana's joy knew no bounds - Krishna was there "in person"! For her , he was the real one - and why not - he was blue in colour (you see, that's a true identity of God - they have to be blue in colour ... ), she had just seen him tame Kalia, lift Govardhan mountain and kill Kamsa among other things.

She immediately went over to him and talked with him to her heart's content asking him all kinds of questions. The young boy also humoured her - speaking to her as Lord Krishna and giving her little tidbits of his - aka Krishna's life not captured in the DVDs that she had seen.

The morning's conversation with my daughter came rushing into my mind....

Her wish had just come true !!!!

I was stunned !!!

I did not know what to think of it.....

I was overjoyed myself, reassured that a child's faith in sincerity had somehow been kept intact. While on this instance I had been incapable of doing anything to ensure that, somehow it had been taken care of...

She has a long way to go in terms of realizing the meaning of "God", but she is now convinced that with sincerity and dedication you can achieve things. That I think is a very good lesson for a 5 year old....