The moniker

He was three years old when he had seen her. She was the tiniest thing he had every seen, tinier than Dexter the puppy he thought to himself. His mom was fussing over her, she hadn't seen him come in. He climbed onto th bed with a little effort, proud of himself, the spirit quickly doused, for there was no audience, nobody to say, "Aiyyo Krishna, you shall fall down" or "Look at him climbing the bed, quite the dare devil, my son". His audience, who had observed his every movement with varying emotions of amusement, joy, wary and alarm, with an adoration, not different from the star struck fan has in his eyes when he sees his idol. "Isn't she beautiful?" his mother was asking his father. "The most beautiful baby in the world,indeed" his grandma replied, whilst his dad was looking at his daughter. He could not understand where this "she" came from. All he knew that his mother was ill for a day and came back from the hospital with this attention snatcher. "Mumma", said Krishna, trying to catch his mother's attention for a minute. His mother took him into her arms, the tiny meddlesome being still resting in her lap. It was letting out a small giggle looking at him, as if to mock him, he thought. "Krishna, look, this is your baby sister, now you can play with her all day", his grandma said. "Mumma but I don't like girls. I don't want a sister", Krishna was whining by now. His mom was alarmed now, lest he hate the baby, thinking it took away all the attention, so she said "No baby, remember how Lord Krishna looked after his sister Subhadra? How he fought the demons to protect her? You should also do that, take care of your sister, she is your baby Krishna" she said. Krishna was now filled with a sense of duty and valiance, most of all, a sense of pride, that now he was like the God Krishna, destroyer of evil. He brought it upon himself to take care of his little sister in every which way possible.
As the years passed, Krishna started college, discovering Pink Floyd, Malbro, Irani chai, midnight biryani. Getting sloshed was a permanent solution to life's miseries. Getting sloshed was celebration. Getting drunk and high was a way of life. It was a way to fill the gaping void in his life, which seemed to be caused by no apparent reason. The root he said was important, once I know it, I will quit he said. He had a lot of friends, but he never forgot his little sister. One call of hers and he'd drop everything, be it a bottle or a sentence in mid air and rush to her aide. He was her protector, her confidant and at times her co-conspirator. She looked up to him, adored him and thought of him as the enlightened one, the one who had all the answers and knew the ways of the world. To him, she was the only thing that kept him grounded to reality. Then, things changed.
He thought it was stress of school at first. The occasional not picking up of his call or not getting a reply to his message. She called him fewer times and their conversations were dry with spells of silence, as if she was always in thought or that they had nothing to say to each other. "Am I being too hard on her?" he thought, but then he realized there was another man in her life. Subhadra's Arjun was Krishna's friend. He tried talking to her, saying that Arjun was as clueless as him, without purpose or without care. But she was too smitten by the wild and unyielding Arjun to heed him, "besides, Krishna, he is just like you... He even says the same things as you do." Krishna attempted to talk to Arjun over a bottle of beer... He saw that Arjun was not touching neither the beer nor the joint. "I found my root Krishna, I found love, I found purpose" he said, "I quit".
He can't be upto any good Krishna thought. I have to constantly keep an eye on them, he decided. He pursued them relentlessly, zealously at first, fanatically and maniacally later. His drug abuse spiralled and he was sucked into the vortex of endless alcohol. With alcohol, his tongue lost control.Arjun was irritated, but Subhadra always understood, he would never let her go. When they decided to get married, they got consent from both their families, except Krishna, who in a fit of rage hit Arjun. My sister he roared in rage, is my sister, My sister. SHE is mine. Arjun had enough by then was enraged. "Come to your senses, she loves me as much as she loves you, I love her more than you do",he said. It hit Krishna then, when Arjun had said that. He looked at Arjun, how much he had progressed, he had everything, just because he wanted to make something out of himself. No longer could he see Arjun as his drinking buddy, he had far evolved. He looked at himself, the sorry state he was in, drunk and unable to comprehend, what he had made out of his life, his sister, an excuse, to escape from himself. The reality was, though he was a warrior, a saviour, a shield from evil to the outside world, he was the one in need of saviour, a warrior to combat his inner deamons. Krishna, he thought...What a sham, this namesake has made of your name...