A Five Headed Snake! Yikes!

Another short excerpt from my forthcoming novel "Kalyana." Very excited about releasing my new novel!

“What happened next, Mummy?” I licked the edges of my lips.

“The Yamuna River raged and her waves threatened to swallow Yasudev and baby Krishna whole.” My mother would fix her penetrating stare upon me, and my heart would skip, the hairs rising on my arms. I knew what would follow: “And it was then that the five-headed snake from below the waters emerged.”

“Five-headed snake!” I would shiver in the night air.

“Sumitri, you are frightening her,” my father would say. “The child is scared of snakes and is ridden with nightmares about them, and here you are telling her stories about snakes with five heads!”

“Rajdev Seth, it’s not snakes,” my mother would say. “There was only one five-headed snake. And it was a good one.”

My mother would throw me a conspiring look and try to speak the next series of words as fast as she could before Father could demand that she end all stories for the night.

“The snake’s five heads shielded baby Krishna from the water, and the snake itself was Yasudev’s guide, allowing him to...”

“Sumitri...”

“Snakes are not to be feared, but to be embraced. They are your guides. Kalyana...”

“Sumitri!” My father would tell my mother to go back to bed, bringing the story to an abrupt end.