Krishna and Rama (microfiction)

09.11.2025

S: Krishna and Rama are two incarnations of Vishnu. Both warriors. But they are complete opposites.

A: In what way?

S: Rama rescued his wife from a man that tried to abduct her. Krishna consorted with the wife of another, Radha. He took someone’s wife away from them. Not just one woman, but all of them, all of the wives, the Gopis. Rama followed the law of matrimony. Krishna is above the law.

A: Anything else?

S: Rama, when he was exiled to the forest, accepted that another rule in his place. He let the usurper rule the throne when he was the firstborn son and the throne was his inheritance. Krishna, when he was dispossessed of his throne, he killed the usurper and reclaimed his throne. Rama accepts dispossession and unjust usurpation. Krishna fights against it.

A: I know you will say there is more.

S: Krishna has a good stepmother. Rama has an evil stepmother.

A: Always the mother with you.

S: Krishna was raised in a humble background then became a royal. Vice versa for Rama. And then, Krishna is known as the thief of butter because he stole butter. And Rama? He does not steal. Krishna is his own law. Rama follows the law of the other. Even at the end of the story, Rama sacrifices his wife in the name of the law of matrimony, because the people cannot accept that she is pure because she had been abducted by another man.

A: I think I know where this is all leading.

S: I am named after Krishna.

A: Whether it is Krishna or Rama, they are the hero.

S: Rama is the hero of the conservative. Krishna is the hero of the revolutionary.

A: It is a name. I have told you before. It is not an identity.

S: And yet, you can model yourself on that identity. The anarchism of Krishna. And the liberation of Narsimha, the man-tiger, the other incarnation of Vishnu. After all, one of my names is Tiger.

A: This obsession with names and identities, it is old fashioned.

S: I am six thousand years old. And yet, I am fresh. Because I am not just the past and the present. I am also the future. I believe. So does India.