Some childhood stories stay with us because they were beautifully written.

Others stay because, somehow, they quietly become part of who we are.

For me, it began with an Amar Chitra Katha comic.

It was the story of Mirabai.

I must have been seven or eight years old when I first read it.

Long before I understood history or devotion, I knew one thing with complete certainty.

Mirabai loved Krishna.

And somehow...

Krishna loved her too.

Of all the pages in that comic, one remained with me more than any other.

The moment when Mirabai, abandoned by the world, walks toward the river.

And just before despair claims her...

Krishna appears.

Not with thunder.

Not with grandeur.

Simply with a gentle smile, a flute in His hand, as though to say,

"I am here."

I don't know whether that single illustration shaped my imagination...

or whether it quietly shaped my faith.

Because from that day onward, whenever life became frightening, that was how I imagined Krishna.

Not distant.

Not unreachable.

But arriving with the same smile...

the same flute...

the same quiet assurance that I would never have to face life alone.

Perhaps that is why I insisted on keeping a little Krishna idol beside my bed.

He stood there, playing His flute, watching over me while I slept.

To anyone else, it may have been a small clay idol.

To a little girl...

it was companionship.

❦

Years passed.

Childhood slowly gave way to adulthood.

And somewhere in my twenties, I met Krishna again.

This time...

through the Bhagavad Gita.

He was no longer simply the enchanting cowherd of Vrindavan.

Nor the playful child stealing butter.

Nor even the Krishna who rescued Mirabai.

Here was Krishna the teacher.

The guide who stood beside a confused Arjuna and patiently untangled fear from duty.

The strategist who could hold compassion and courage together.

The charioteer who willingly chose service over glory.

The friend who reminded Arjuna that while we are responsible for our actions...

the fruits belong to something greater than ourselves.

The more I read, the more I realized that Krishna hadn't become different.

I had.

My questions had changed.

So His answers had changed too.

❦

Then life gave me another way to know Him.

I became a mother.

Years later, when we carried our little son to Guruvayoor for his Annaprashana—

the beautiful ceremony of offering a child's first grains of rice—

my heart was overflowing.

As I watched my little boy receive his first taste of food before Guruvayurappan...

I felt an unexpected peace.

I wasn't simply placing my child before Krishna.

I was entrusting him to Someone I had trusted all my own life.

Soon afterwards came another of my favourite traditions.

Like so many South Indian families, we dressed our little boy as Krishna during Janmashtami.

Tiny silk dhoti.

Little flute.

A peacock feather.

And the smallest footprints...

made by dipping his feet in rice flour and letting him walk into our home.

There is a beautiful belief that on Krishna Janmashtami, Krishna enters every home as our own child.

When my little boy walked across those white footprints...

for just a moment...

it became very easy to believe.

❦

Today, every Janmashtami still fills me with the same quiet anticipation I felt as a child.

Not because I expect miracles.

But because somewhere inside me...

that little girl is still waiting.

Waiting for Krishna to come home.

Only now I know something she didn't.

He doesn't always arrive the way we imagine.

Sometimes He comes as a story in a comic book.

Sometimes as the wisdom of the Gita.

Sometimes as courage when we have none of our own.

Sometimes as a child whose tiny footprints fill a home with laughter.

And sometimes...

He simply arrives as the quiet certainty that whatever tomorrow brings,

we do not walk toward it alone.

Perhaps that has always been Krishna's greatest promise.

Not that He will remove every battle from our lives.

But that, like Arjuna's charioteer...

He never asks us to fight them by ourselves.

❤️

“Sometimes the longest journeys begin with the smallest acts of devotion.”