30/08/2018
Ramchandra Sharma sat on the porch, legs folded, newspaper discarded by his side, eyes already twinkling with amusement as Rohan approached.
"Nanaji," Rohan said, handing him the cup. "Can I ask you something strange?"
"Beta, you just made tea without being asked. You can ask anything today."
Rohan sat beside him, cradling his cup. "Do you know about… MahaVishnu?"
Ramchandra snorted, nearly spilling his tea. "Do you know about Vishnu?"
Rohan hesitated. "Only bits and pieces. From Maa. A few stories. A few prayers."
"Then don't run before you've learned to walk," Ramchandra said. "Before you try to understand MahaVishnu—the breath beyond time—you need to understand Vishnu himself. And to understand Vishnu, you need to know how it all began."
He set his cup down and leaned forward, eyes sharpening like a teacher about to begin class.
"Before time, before form, before even thought, at Prarambh, before the beginning," Ramchandra began, voice steady and deep, "there was only Shakti—the eternal, unmanifested energy of existence. Pure, limitless potential. No stars, no space, no gods. Just vibration. Power. Silence."
"From that energy emerged two primal forces—Purusha and Prakriti."
"Purusha is the eternal masculine essence—not male as in gender, but in principle. Consciousness. Stillness. Awareness.
Prakriti is the eternal feminine counterpart—dynamic, flowing, the source of form, matter, and movement."
"When Purusha and Prakriti danced for the first time, creation stirred."
Rohan listened in awe, tea forgotten in his hands.
"From Purusha emerged Vishnu—the Preserver, the embodiment of divine order and stability. Vishnu is not a god who appeared—he is a god who always was, present in every cycle of creation. He carries within him the blueprint of dharma—the moral fabric of the universe."
"From Vishnu's navel grew a golden lotus, and seated atop it emerged Brahma—the Creator. It is Brahma who writes the story of existence, births galaxies, defines the laws of nature, and sets the wheels of time in motion."
"And from the dance of opposites—creation and preservation—came the third force: Shiva, the Destroyer. He is not chaos. He is transformation. He breaks only what must end, so the new may rise."
Ramchandra set his cup down, his gaze fixed on the sky.
"But none of them stand alone."
"From Prakriti, the Shakti principle, came their consorts—their completions.
Lakshmi, goddess of wealth and abundance, flows with Vishnu.
Saraswati, goddess of knowledge and speech, sits with Brahma.
And Parvati—who has appeared across the yugas as Sati, Kali, and Durga—is the strength beside Shiva."
"These three goddesses are not side characters. They are Adi Shakti—manifestations of the original energy. Where the gods hold roles, the goddesses hold power."
Rohan's breath slowed as the story widened beyond his comprehension.
Ramchandra continued, his voice lowering slightly.
"Time is not one straight road. It moves in cycles. Each cosmic cycle is called a Yuga, and there are four:
Satya Yuga: the age of truth and purity.
Treta Yuga: the age of kings and great dharma.
Dvapara Yuga: the age of balance beginning to falter.
Kali Yuga: the age of ignorance, ego, and darkness—the age we live in now."
"One full rotation of these four yugas is called a Chaturyuga. A thousand of these Chaturyugas make one day of Brahma."
Rohan's eyes widened.
"Yes," Ramchandra said with a slight chuckle. "Brahma's one day is longer than millions of our years. And for twelve hours of that divine day, Brahma creates—writes life, weaves karma, and births worlds. For the next twelve, he rests—and the universe dissolves. This repeating cycle is endless. One breath in, one breath out."
"But here's the deeper truth: those twelve hours of Brahma's creativity? They are one blink of Vishnu. Creation exists only when Vishnu's eyes are open. When he closes them, Shiva begins his work. The great dance ends. The old is destroyed. And with the next blink, it begins again."
Rohan's mind reeled—past mythology, into something vast and mathematical, like a divine engine humming under reality.
"Brahma lives for a hundred divine years," Ramchandra added. "Each year has 360 such days. And when Brahma's lifespan ends, everything collapses. Not just this Earth. Not just this timeline. The whole fabric of the cosmos dissolves in what's called the Mahapralaya—the Great Dissolution."
"And then," he whispered, "comes MahaVishnu."
Ramchandra leaned closer, as if the air itself might distort the moment.
"MahaVishnu is not one god among many. He is not Vishnu's form—he is the source from which even Vishnu arises. Where Vishnu is divine law, MahaVishnu is the stillness from which law emerges. He breathes outside of time. With each exhalation, countless universes emerge like bubbles—floating, spinning, living. And with each inhalation, those bubbles collapse back into him. A trillion stars flicker and vanish within one breath. That's where we are, Rohan. A thought, floating inside one of his exhales."
Ramchandra smiled—not with pride, but with peace.
"And if you're wondering where we are in that grand clock…"
He sipped his tea. "This is the 28th Kali Yuga of the 51st year of Brahma. Halfway through the lifespan of the creator. Half a blink of Vishnu. A breath half held by the one beyond breath."
Rohan sat frozen. One part of him was still a boy on a porch beside his grandfather. The other part—something older, quieter—felt as if it had been waiting lifetimes to hear this.
Rohan finally spoke, the words slow, cautious, like stepping into sacred water.
"If MahaVishnu breathes out the universe… then what are we to him? Are we even real?"
Ramchandra smiled at that—wide and wrinkled and full of something ancient.
"Beta, ask a clay pot if it's real. It'll say yes. Ask the earth it came from—it will say, I am all of them. You are not outside of him. You're made from him. Your breath is his. Your thoughts are threads in his fabric. Real or not is a question only the lost ask. The wise just live with reverence."
Rohan blinked. "And Vishnu? The one who sustains—what does he do, exactly?"
Ramchandra laughed. "That's like asking what the sun does when it shines—it just is. But let me tell you what he does when the world forgets."
He leaned back, his voice softening.
"Vishnu takes avatars—incarnations—whenever the world loses balance. When adharma rises and the world forgets how to breathe right. He's taken many forms, each one to restore order."
Rohan's eyes lit up. "Like Krishna?"
"Yes. But before Krishna came Rama—the prince of Ayodhya, who gave up his kingdom, fought a war against evil, and never once broke his word.
Before Rama was Parashurama—the warrior sage who fought corrupted kings with an axe.
Before him was Vamana, the dwarf who measured the universe in three steps to humble a prideful king.
And long before that, Vishnu came as a fish, a boar, a tortoise, and a lion-man—each form born for a different crisis."
"Each avatar, Rohan, is not just a story. It's a response. A reset. A course correction."
Rohan thought about that. "So… if the world goes dark again, he'll come back?"
Ramchandra looked him dead in the eyes.
"He already has. You just don't know what he looks like yet."
The porch went quiet. A bird chirped somewhere in the mango tree. Time slowed.
Just then, the screen door creaked. Arya stepped out, her math book tucked under one arm, brows furrowed.
"Nanu, he's been here an hour. Don't fill his head with gods when we've got exams in a week!"
Rohan looked up, blinking out of the haze. "Wait—next week?"
"Yes," Arya said, dropping beside them. "Midterms. We've barely caught up with the new syllabus, and they want us to start performing like we've been here all year. Total injustice!"
Ramchandra chuckled. "Time and the world don't care about your relocation excuses."
"Neither does Ms. Saxena," Arya muttered darkly.
Ramchandra patted Rohan's shoulder.
"Enough stories for today. Go revise. Even Krishna studied before taking his exams—he just didn't need to."
Rohan stood slowly, still dazed from the immensity of the conversation. "Nanu… will you tell me more tomorrow?"
"Only if you bring the tea," Ramchandra said, smiling. "And maybe some math problems too."
As the siblings walked back inside, Arya glanced sideways.
"So, how was your enlightenment session, Swami Rohan?"
"Divine," he replied.
She rolled her eyes but smiled anyway.