When we launched Naughty Sita, the StayUncle blog, Sanchit uncle and I plunged into a severe conflict.

I have tolerated the intimidating Radha-Krishna ad you recently launched. But this one is too much. This one I cannot tolerate. It goes against my personal conviction. It is wrong

Was it not wrong before in the case of Krishna, I asked? Aren’t both important gods?

It was. But this time I cannot overlook it.

I knew very well why Sanchit reacted this way. I have been expecting it. And I giggled inside. I giggled on the very unique Indian ability to measure and rank gods.

I knew from the very beginning that he may be able to digest advertising a religious figure like the image of Krishna but that he will never swallow playing around with Rama.

India is probably the only country in this world where such beautiful interplay of beliefs happens.

Both Krishna and Rama are two most supreme gods or avatars of the Divine. Yet they are qualitatively different from each other.

Ram is logical, stoic, princely, royal in many aspects frozen and too serious. He is the guardian of dharma, the only thing that separates us from the animal kingdom, from nature, from chaos. He even killed a child to upheld dharma with a very basic and logic explanation, of course.

Krishna is the exact opposite of him. He is playful, prankster, joker, dressed in all sorts of ornaments and tribal clothes, running loose, herding the cows the embodiment of freedom, diversity, the one who breaks the pot full with butter, who doesn’t believe in storage, in saving, in future, who lives right now, in the moment.

He loves dancing and he is sensual and consummating of all things life.

It is simply amazing how several generations of artists spanning across several centuries have managed to make the story of the first avatar supplement the story of the second avatar and bring forth a union, or rather a communion?

It is not hard to glimpse into the fact that Ram and Krishna embody two aspects of the Indian civilization and probably the entire humanity that are correlated and repeating itself. Whenever the period of Ram ends, the period of Krishna begins followed by another period of Ram.

For the past several centuries India has been living the spirit of Ram. Although Krishna is highly revered, he is subtly shunned away, almost suppressed.

He is respected but not favored; he is a treat of the Indian middle class, seeking stability – in other words, Rama.

We are hurt by the thought that a god can be sensual but deep inside it we know it, because Krishna is us, our own under realized potentials. This is unbearable for a Rama-grown Sanchit, unbearable for his parents, unbearable for most parents in India.

The dread of sex, the fear of losing control and touch with the known, the fear of our dark primordial self, the dreadful Kaliya Naag Krishna plays with so seamlessly, the fear that our children may turn into Krishna is still prevalent even today.

We respect Krishna but we are extremely afraid of his non-selectiveness so give us back the more predictable Rama, please.

Incidentally the period of Ram has matched the period of arrival of the colonial Britishers, another Ram-like civilization – methodical, logical scientific, prone to discipline and order. This has been a cancerous abomination, a period of Rama prolonged beyond its natural cycle and maturity.

Although the time of Ram was supposed to be over by now it still did not happen. Today we are seeing the effects of this clash of forces of this cancerous development everywhere around us in a nation slowly dividing itself against others and against its own self.

It is a symptom. The more Ram remains beyond his designated time the stronger the pressure the friction coming from a Krishna struggling to come out.

You can spot this during weddings or festivals where Indians get the chance to break loose and let the energy out.

They dance till the point of breaking up, because it will soon be over and too much is still waiting to come out. Even in normal circumstances they wave their hands, they bounce around or at the very least they nod their heads vigorously. Their every move is a dance. That is Krishna pushing to come out.

The more we delay the arrival of the Krishna inside us whose time has come the greater the damage we commit against ourselves.

Our parents are used in the comfort of Rama of a central figure to whom all things are attributed hence not not having to confront the challenges of life.

But the present generation of Indians are born with the spirit of Krishna – dynamic, exploring, unafraid of change. The change happening in India being attributed to so called bad Western influences is just Krishna coming back home. And Indians will way their way around churning Krishna from the mess that surrounds him.

Just like they did countless times before.

Yesterday Sanchit uncle and I spoke again about how far his parents reached and how okay they’ve become with what we do here at StayUncle.

That’s Krishna, I said and smiled.