iKṛṣhṇa

Anand Kadakol

Aug 2019 · Notion Press

About this ebook

Suddenly the attack came close to us, not yet directly upon us but very close; we had to increase the intensity and we did. I was in sublime touch shooting off arrow after arrow. The targets were drifting across my vision and all it took was one aim and release; the arrows shot off with a swish only to hit the target where I intended it and killed the recipient of the shot. A few left-handed shots depending on the angle of the shot where I could find the target best positioned for the shot; others right handed. The bow was drifting from one hand to the other flawlessly and the arrows were flowing out like spit from a cobra’s mouth, both accurate and deadly. Before we realised there were hardly any leaders standing.
 
By the time Jarasandha recovered, his leaders and his entire army had perished. Jarasandha gave a loud shout and invited us to come out in the open and fight like real warriors.
 
By this time Balarama also came into the battlefield. Jarasandha did not turn back and run; he was livid and angry; he started challenging us to come down and fight like real warriors.Rama and I descended into battleground. Jarasandha was aghast to see Kids trying to defeat him.
 
Jarasandha invited us for a duel. He said two versus one couldn’t be fair in a war. Balarama moved ahead and chose mace as his weapon. He was adept at mace and Jarasandha was no less a mace warrior.
 
The fight that took place was of a quality that I wouldn’t witness for a long time to come. Jarasandha was more than accomplished.
 
While Jarasandha unleashed himself upon Balarama with full force and vigour, Balarama was deftly defending himself. Mace was flying into Rama from all directions. Balarama was saving his energy for the future; if he could wear Jarasandha down, he could then unleash himself upon him. Balarama was not through and through defensive. There would be moments when he surprised Jarasandha by his speed and power. Rama’s mace would start banging into Jarasandha with immense strength and speed. Before Jarasandha would recover from one bout of attack the second one would begin in a different style of attack. The lesson and practice with our Guru was paying results; I could see that in this bout. Jarasandha couldn’t fathom the skill level of Rama. He had thought it would be child’s play and he would crush Rama in no time and head for me. But this challenge was more than what he had imagined. The fact that his theory proved wrong gave him the mental agony which the real fight had not given. That agony was showing in his inconsistent fighting method. He would burst at Rama; Rama would easily read the move and defend himself; that would frustrate Jarasandha; he would change his move, which Rama easily anticipated and countered, Jarasandha would get more frustrated and soon he lost his mace to a vicious shot by Rama.
 
Now it was Rama with his mace facing an unarmed Jarasandha. Rama shouted at me and said he wanted to finish this fight right away, and lifted his mace to hit Jarasandha. I stopped Rama, it’s unfair to kill someone who is unarmed on a battlefield. I said another day would come and he had to let him go with honour.

Ratings and reviews

iKrishna is such a beautifully written book. I have read many other books on Lord Krishna but this one gave a very different vibe. Lord Krishna handling each of his hurdles without using his divine powers is ecstatic to read. Anand Kadakol must have taken a lot of efforts to make each actions of Lord Krishna reasonable. This book is inspiring in every aspect because of certain reasons. 1) This book is based on Lord Krishna, who is considered as world’s greatest influencer 2) Reading Lord Krishna sorting his issues using divine powers is not something that a human being can practice, but here, the author describes Lord Krishna as a human being who doesn’t use his enormous divine powers but his gifted human grace to overcome the hurdles. iKrishna teaches us how enormous is the power of a curse is. Our one mistake can turn our life upside down. But mistakes are a part of our life and life must go on. That’s the attitude of Lord Krishna, who had faced plenty of difficulties in life that we cannot even imagine about. But his power was in his smile. He was never worried about his future. Unlike read in mythologies, here Lord Krishna being human, does expresses his feelings. His love for his brother Balarama can be seen plainly in the second last part, where he couldn’t control his feelings anymore. Explaining the situation would be a spoiler, so I am not writing more about it. This book took me into such a dimension that I had never thought of. Being a human being, we cannot expect our world to change by just tapping our fingers, it’s through hardwork and efforts Krishna and Balarama have acquired power to handle situations. From iKrishna, what we learn is to be peaceful like Lord Krishna. How he finds solution of various problems through peace of mind is beautiful to read. In this book, the whole story is narrated by Lord Krishna which makes the title even more special. I am not going deep into the chapters as it can take away your unique thoughts about the book. I highly recommend iKrishna to anyone who’s looking out to read the story from a different dimension.

There are hundreds and thousands of books out there which talks about Lord Krishna and his role in Mahabharata in detail. I have read few of them myself and have dwelled in the contents deeply. Each one of them had never failed to fascinate me. As an avid book reader, I was always in search of the book which gives a different dimension to the story. While no one can deny that history cannot be changed, what could be done is to have a differential approach to the same. While some say the story, itself is a myth and for an atheist, this is totally irrelevant, I am not going into those discussions because I believe in GOD and I believe it firmly. When I saw this title, I was intrigued about the uniqueness of the title. I knew that there is something different about this book. I was not wrong. As soon as I read the introduction/preface, I was thoroughly convinced that I am set to begin a different and fascinating journey altogether. The uniqueness of the approach to the story, moved me a lot. The story does not glorify Krshna portraying him as a Super-Being but as a human being who had a destiny and a calling to respond to, who performed some extra ordinary acts through his wit, presence of mind coupled with the skills he learnt and mastered through his sheer grit and dedication. He was trained by eminent in the respective fields and He along with his elder brother Balram had mastered lot of skills in the field of Archery, Wrestling, diplomacy among others. The book covers all the aspects of Krshna, the Protagonist covering his life from his Birth till His end narrated in his own words. The beginning of the book surprised me. I haven't seen this kind of beginning in a story, it is very unique and it hits you from the first page. This makes the book, a real interesting read because not many have undertaken such an approach. The way the characters were portrayed, the scenes were explained coupled with expressions and emotions made me feel that there wouldn’t be a much effective/better way to bring out a story than this. Kudos to the author for the great attempt which has left me with no appropriate words to praise. The happenings and events in the book transport you to the scene. It feels as if you are part of the event and it is happening all around you, the narration is very visual. I am not going into the story or the content here as we all knew about the epic since we been told about this over a period of time on various forms – be it in books or through audio/video visuals. The book surely gives a different dimension to the story as it talks about the epic in a believable way. It made me to deeply ponder over the thought that if it had been done centuries ago, this probably would have reached much more people than it intended to be….

iKṛṣhṇa by Anand Kadakol is an in-depth and elaborative study of Lord Krishna in his own words. In this book, the author has attempted to go in the depth of the tales we have been hearing to date. I was stumped at the onset itself because the beginning was truly vivid. In fact, the author has woven this book in great detail that every bit of it comes alive. I knew a few stories beforehand but the author’s intensive research put in the book brought me a different set of stories. There were a good number of characters which appear overwhelming but because their roles and contribution were clearly defined and executed, reading got easier. The thing which sets this book apart from the other two books is its narration. The book has been written in an easy language but a great deal of text has been used to carve out the details. I absolutely liked the fact that the author has used words and more words to bring life to the story. The plot flows, devoid of any compactness and crispness, it flows in its full glory. And that’s my only point of contention with this book. It’s a big book. And I honestly felt that it could and should have been cut down by a few pages. Because you know, too much of anything can spoil the taste. To all the lovers of Indian mythology, this could be a fascinating read worth you time for its expansive approach towards mythology and the narration that solely belongs to Krishna!

About the author

Anand Kadakol worked in the corporate world for 25 years. Most of those years, he spent in financial services business specializing in payments services and helped build world-class products for a few organizations. A few years ago, he plunged into the diverse field of organic farming. He had been developing an organic farm for eight years, and after the farm started to yield choice mangoes, he left the corporate world and delved into the world of delicious, healthy, organic Alphonsos.
In parallel, a seed of an idea germinated. It took him three years to do research and now here is the result of that seed: It grew to form a book on K??h?a’s life. Anand’s passion in life is saving trees and ecology. Writing is something he wanted to do all the time. It started when he was in college. But in pursuit of the rat race, it took the back seat. But now, sitting amidst the clean green, where ideas germinate faster than elsewhere, this book was shaped from a beautiful idea.