My friend revisited

Summer holidays always meant a trip to my mother's hometown. It is a quaint district town in West Bengal and has a charm all its own.

There is a little temple nearby that my grandparents would take me to everyday. The deities (3 of them) in the temple are actually our family deities which we could no longer maintain owing to financial reasons.

My favorite amongst the three, ever since I was a toddler, was a life sized, blue colored little child who stood with his legs crossed at the ankles, holding a flute at his lips.

Granny would tell me several stories about that child who did a lot of mischief when he lived in our home.

Sometimes the child would go out early in the morning and steal fresh peas from a Muslim farmer's crop and sometimes just hide our belongings and return them only when he was offered a pack of salt!

Being a quite child myself, I enjoyed listening to such mischievous activity of someone who I thought was my age.

Today I no longer have the time to go to my hometown and gaze at that lovely face. I console myself with a little golden idol gifted by my father. I keep my Gopal/Krishna at my desk and offer him all sorts of goodies that I personally like. My Gopal loves chocolates, biscuits, chips, cold drinks too, apart from the usual fruits and sweets.

I wonder why we restrict our offerings to God to and sweets only. Don't we get tired of eating the same kind of food everyday? Why then do we restrict God from eating tasty food when it is he who provides us with the means to eat tasty eats?

I learnt sometime back that in Iskcon they feel the same way as I do. Perhaps someday I shall be able to bring my little friend to some temple in Iskcon where he will no longer have to make mischief to eat better stuff.

Meanwhile, just hold on Gopal.