The Snake in the River

A poisonous serpent was killing the river. Krishna was just a boy. He jumped in anyway.

A giant poisonous serpent named Kaliya has poisoned a bend of the Yamuna river near Vrindavan. The water is black, the fish are dying, and even birds flying overhead drop from the sky. Little Krishna jumps in alone, tames the serpent by dancing on his hoods, and sends him away so the river can live again.

A River Going Quiet

In the village of Vrindavan, on a hot afternoon, something was wrong with the Yamuna.

The boys had taken the cows down to drink, the way they did every day. But today the cows would not bend their heads. They sniffed the water and stepped back. They mooed unhappily.

Krishna's friend Sridama looked closer at the river. He went pale.

The water was black.

Not dirty black. Not muddy black. A strange, oily black, with a smell that made the boys cover their noses. Dead fish floated on the top. A little further upstream, a bird had fallen out of the sky, just from flying over.

"What is happening to our river?" the boys whispered.

Little Krishna stood at the edge of the bank. He had peacock feathers in his hair. He had butter on his fingers from breakfast. He was about as tall as your shoulder.

He looked into the dark water and his face went very serious.

The Serpent in the Pool

The villagers came running. The mothers, the cowherds, the old grandfathers. They all gathered on the banks. And slowly, the elders explained.

Deep in this part of the Yamuna, in a pool so deep it had no bottom, there lived a great naga named Kaliya.

Kaliya had many heads. Each one as wide as a cot. Each one full of poison. He had come here long ago to hide from Garuda, the great eagle who hunted serpents. And ever since he had moved into the river, his poison had been seeping out, drop by drop, until the whole bend of the Yamuna had turned bitter.

"Nobody can go near him," said an old man. "Even the air above the pool is poisoned. Birds drop from the sky."

"What will we do?" cried the women. "Our cows cannot drink. Our children cannot bathe. The fish are all gone."

The villagers wept softly.

Krishna listened to all of it. He did not say anything for a long time.

Then he handed his flute to his older brother Balarama.

Up the Kadamba Tree

"Krishna," said Balarama quietly, "what are you doing?"

Krishna did not answer. He was already climbing.

There was a tall kadamba tree right at the edge of the river, leaning out over the black pool. Krishna went up its branches like a little monkey, higher and higher, until he was right above the deepest part of the water.

The boys on the bank gasped. The mothers screamed. "Kanha! Get down! Get down right now!"

Balarama held his breath.

Krishna stood on the very last branch. He smiled, the way a small boy smiles when he is about to do something his mother will not like at all.

And then he jumped.

A Splash, and Then Silence

The black water swallowed him with one big splash.

And then, nothing.

No movement. No bubbles. No little blue boy coming back up.

The villagers ran into the river, only to be pushed back by the smell. The mothers were sobbing. "Our Kanha! Our baby! He has gone into the snake's pool!"

Balarama stood very, very still on the bank. He was older. He knew his brother. He waited.

Deep below the water, Krishna landed in the lair of Kaliya.

The great naga felt the splash. He felt something small touch the bottom of his pool. He uncoiled in fury.

Who dares come into my home?

A hundred eyes turned toward Krishna. A hundred hooded heads rose up like dark umbrellas. The water boiled. The poison thickened. Kaliya struck.

He wrapped his huge coils around the small boy and squeezed.

The Boy Who Could Not Be Crushed

The villagers on the bank fell silent. They could see the water bulging. They could see a great snake's body twisting in the depths.

"He is gone," someone whispered.

But something strange was happening under the water.

The more Kaliya squeezed, the bigger Krishna became.

First he was the size of a boy. Then the size of a man. Then bigger. Then bigger. Until Kaliya's coils could not hold him at all.

Kaliya was suddenly very confused. What is this child? Who is this child?

Krishna slipped out of the coils as easily as a fish slips out of a hand. He smiled at the great serpent. And then he jumped, light as a feather, right onto the top of Kaliya's biggest hood.

And he started to dance.

The Dance on the Serpent

Up on the riverbank, Balarama suddenly grinned.

The water broke open and Krishna rose to the surface, dancing on Kaliya's heads. Light footsteps, perfect rhythm, his peacock feather waving in the wind. He hopped from one head to the next, faster and faster, his little foot pressing down each hood that tried to rise.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

Kaliya could not strike. He could not bite. He could not even lift his head. Every time he tried to fight back, Krishna was already on the next hood.

And the strangest thing was, even though Krishna was a small boy, his tiny feet were so heavy with power that Kaliya began to bleed dark poison out of his mouths. The poison left him, drop by drop, until his eyes grew tired and his hoods began to droop.

The villagers on the bank stopped weeping. They started to clap. Then to cheer. Then to laugh, the way only people who thought they had lost something they love can laugh when they get it back.

The Serpent's Wives

Deep in the pool, Kaliya's wives, the nagapatnis, saw their husband suffering. They came up from the depths and folded their hands.

"O little one," they cried, "please, please stop. Forgive him. He did not know who you were. We did not know who you were."

They told Krishna everything. How Kaliya had only come to this pool because Garuda was hunting him. How he was afraid. How fear had made him cruel.

Krishna's dance slowed.

He was firm. But he was not cruel.

He stepped lightly off Kaliya's heads and stood on the water as if it were stone.

"Kaliya," he said, in a voice that was much, much bigger than a small boy's. "You will leave this river. Today. Take your wives. Take your children. Go far away to the great sea, where you can live without poisoning anyone. The Yamuna belongs to the cows, the children, and the birds. Not to your venom."

Kaliya bowed every one of his heads. "Yes, my lord."

"And one more thing," Krishna said, smiling for the first time. "You have my footprints on your hoods now. Wherever you go, Garuda will see them and know you are mine. He will not hunt you again. Go in peace."

The great serpent slowly slipped into the depths, gathered his family, and slid away through the secret rivers of the world, all the way to the ocean.

A River That Could Breathe Again

When Kaliya was gone, something beautiful happened.

The black slowly drained out of the water. The bitter smell faded. The river ran clear again, and you could see all the way down to the sandy bottom where the fish were already coming back.

A cow walked to the edge, bent her head, and drank. And then another. And another.

The whole village ran to Krishna and lifted him onto their shoulders. His mother Yashoda was crying and laughing at the same time, hugging him so tight he could barely breathe. "You little rascal," she said. "Don't you ever, ever, ever scare me like that again."

Krishna smiled at her with his peacock feather lying flat on his wet head, and he didn't promise anything.

Because the truth was, this would not be the last time he jumped into something nobody else dared to.

In Your Life

There will be times when you see something that isn't right. A friend being teased. An animal being hurt. Litter piling up where flowers should grow.

You might think, I am too small. Someone bigger should fix it.

But Krishna was small too. He just didn't wait.

You don't have to dance on a serpent's heads. You can pick up one wrapper. You can sit next to the kid nobody is sitting with. You can tell a grown-up when something is wrong. You can clean one corner of one room.

That is your jump from the kadamba tree. Even tiny feet can bring a river back to life.