Part 6 of 12 · 12 minThe Race Around the Worlds

Vinayaka was not the only child on Kailasa.

He had a younger brother, and his brother was dazzling.

Some people call him Subrahmanya, some call him Kartikeya, some call him Murugan, and in our homes we lovingly call him Kumaraswamy. He was slim and quick and bright as a flame. He had six faces, so he could look in every direction at once, which made him very hard to sneak up on and completely impossible to beat at hide-and-seek. He carried a shining spear called the vel, which never missed. He had already led the armies of heaven against a terrible demon named Tarakasura, and won. And he rode a peacock so fast and so beautiful that when it spread its tail, the whole sky seemed to turn blue and green and gold.

The brothers loved each other very much.

They also argued about absolutely everything.

"My peacock is faster than your mouse," Kumaraswamy would say.

"My mouse can go places your peacock can't," Vinayaka would say. "Like under the kitchen door."

"I have six faces."

"I have one very big one. It's more efficient."

"I have a spear that never misses."

"I have a trunk that never misses a laddu."

And the ganas, listening, would roll on the ground with laughter, and Mooshika would puff out his grey chest, and the peacock would ruffle its feathers and pretend not to hear, and Nandi would say, "In my day, the Lord's sons did not bicker in the courtyard like parrots," and then both boys would climb on Nandi together.

But one bright morning an argument began that was not a game.

The ganas, Shiva's great host of attendants, had grown in number until they covered the slopes of Kailasa like snow. There were ganas with three eyes and ganas with one, ganas as tall as pine trees and ganas as small as squirrels, dancing ganas, singing ganas, and far too many hungry ganas. And a host that large needed a leader. Someone to guide them, protect them, settle their quarrels and stand at the head of Shiva's household.

That leader would be called Ganadhipati, lord of the ganas. It was a great honour. The whole world would bow to whoever held it.

In the court of Kailasa, when Shiva asked who should be Ganadhipati, both brothers stood up at the same moment.

"I have led the armies of the devas," said Kumaraswamy, and all six of his faces were serious. "I defeated Tarakasura. The ganas should follow a warrior."

"I guarded Amma's door against all of heaven," said Vinayaka, "and I caught Mushikasura when nobody else could. And the ganas already follow me." He paused. "Mostly to the kitchen. But they follow."

The ganas laughed. Kumbhodara laughed loudest. But Kumaraswamy's six faces all frowned at once, and for the first time, Vinayaka saw that his little brother was not joking.

Shiva looked at Parvati. Parvati looked at Shiva. Neither of them wanted to choose one child over the other. What parent would?

At last Shiva raised his hand, and the court went silent.

"Let there be a contest," he said. "The ganas protect the whole of creation. So whoever leads them must honour the whole of creation. Whoever goes to every holy river in the three worlds, bathes in each one, and returns here first, shall be Ganadhipati."

The words had barely finished echoing off the ice when Kumaraswamy moved. He bent and touched his parents' feet, sprang onto his peacock, and whoosh! In a blaze of blue and green feathers he was gone, a streak of colour across the sky, heading south toward the Ganga.

A single peacock feather drifted slowly down and landed on Vinayaka's head.

Vinayaka looked down at his mouse.

Mooshika looked up at Vinayaka.

Nobody laughed now. Everyone in the court was thinking the same thing. A peacock could fly around the whole world in a day. A mouse carrying a god with a belly like a pot could perhaps reach the bottom of the mountain by nightfall, if he did not stop for snacks. Which he would.

Mooshika's whiskers drooped. His ears went flat.

"Swami," he said in a very small voice, "I am sorry. I am so sorry. If you had a lion or a swan or an eagle, you could win this. But you chose me. And I am only a mouse. I was a demon once, and even then I was not fast, I was only greedy." His bright black eyes filled with tears. "I will run until my legs break. But I can't fly."

Vinayaka knelt and wiped the mouse's tears with the tip of his trunk.

"I chose you," he said. "I'd choose you again. Don't you dare say sorry."

But when he stood up, his own ears were drooping too. He walked out of the court and sat down on the palace steps, on the very step where, not so long ago, he had stood guard with a staff, and he put his chin in his hands.

"It isn't fair," he said to nobody.

Kumbhodara sat down on one side of him, and for once he did not say anything about food.

Then a tall shadow fell across the steps. Shiva sat down beside his son, as he had once knelt beside him at a doorway.

"Is that what you think a contest is, Vinayaka?" he asked gently. "Only a race?"

"What else could it be, Appa? The rivers are far away. He's fast. I'm not."

"You are the one with the big ears," said Shiva. "You caught Mushikasura by listening. So listen. Listen to what I actually said."

And he got up and went back inside, and left Vinayaka thinking.

Vinayaka thought the way elephants think: slowly, all the way down, like roots going into the ground. What had Appa said? Honour the whole of creation. Every holy river. Why were rivers holy? What made the Ganga holy?

The Ganga came from Appa's hair.

Then his mother came out and sat down on his other side, and put her arm around him, and said quietly, "Shall I tell you a secret, kanna?"

Vinayaka nodded.

"There is a mantra," said Parvati, "called the Narayana mantra. The sages say that a person who chants it with a full and honest heart gains the merit of bathing in every sacred river and visiting every holy place in all the worlds. Rivers are only water, my son. What makes them holy is the one they flow from."

Vinayaka's ears lifted. First the left. Then the right.

"Amma," he said slowly, "where do all the holy rivers flow from?"

Parvati only smiled and said nothing at all.

Vinayaka stood up. He brushed the dust off his dhoti. He straightened his crown. He walked back into the court, where the ganas were playing dice and the devas were placing bets on how many days Kumaraswamy would take.

"Appa," he said. "Amma. Would you please sit down on the throne? Together?"

Shiva and Parvati looked at each other. Then they sat side by side on the great throne of Kailasa, the Lord of the Universe and the Mother of the Universe, and waited.

Vinayaka joined his palms. He closed his eyes. And he began to chant the Narayana mantra, and while he chanted, he walked around his parents.

Once around, slowly, with his whole heart.

The ganas stopped playing dice.

Twice around. Mooshika trotted behind him, trying to chant too, getting the words a little wrong.

Three times around. And at the end of the third circle, Vinayaka knelt and touched his forehead to his father's feet, and to his mother's feet.

"For a child," he said, "the whole world is in his mother and father. Every holy river begins at your feet. So I have bathed in all of them. I have been everywhere."

For a moment the court was completely silent.

Then Shiva began to laugh. It was not a small laugh. It was the laugh that shakes the stars, a deep, delighted, rolling laugh, and Parvati pulled her elder son into her arms and kissed the top of his big head.

But the contest was not over yet. Because Kumaraswamy did not know.

Far away to the south, the peacock came down out of the clouds over Kashi, the holy city, and landed on the stone steps of the Ganga. Kumaraswamy leapt off, breathless and proud. He had flown faster than the wind. Nobody in the three worlds could have beaten him here.

He waded into the river, bathed, and as he came up out of the water, blinking, he saw someone sitting on the steps ahead of him.

A round figure. Elephant head. Big ears, dripping wet. A grey mouse beside him, shaking water out of its fur. And the figure was just finishing his prayers.

Kumaraswamy rubbed all twelve of his eyes.

When he looked again, there was only the river. But the wet footprints on the steps were still there. A boy's feet. And a mouse's.

"Impossible," he said, and jumped back on his peacock.

He flew to the Yamuna, where the water is dark and slow. He flew so fast that the clouds tore behind him. And when he landed on the bank, there on the far side was Vinayaka, wringing the water out of his ears.

"Anna?" he shouted. "How did you get here?"

But when he had waded across, his brother was gone, and there was only a half-eaten banana on a rock.

He flew west to the Sindhu and south to the Godavari. Vinayaka was there first. He flew over the great forests to the Narmada, where the river leaps down marble cliffs, and Vinayaka was already there, sitting on a boulder with Mooshika, both dripping. He flew to the Krishna, and to the Kaveri, where the water runs past rice fields and coconut groves, and when he came down, his brother was there, and this time Vinayaka waved.

At the Godavari, an old fisherman mending his net looked up at the six-faced god splashing down out of the sky and said, "Back again, Swami? Your brother said you would be along shortly." Kumaraswamy nearly fell off his peacock. "Shortly?" he cried. "I have been flying for days!" The fisherman only shrugged and went back to his net. "He said you'd say that too," he said. "He also asked me to tell you that the water is lovely and you should mind the slippery step." Kumaraswamy, who was just then stepping onto the slippery step, slipped.

Kumaraswamy's peacock began to look very worried.

He flew higher still, to the rivers that run through the heavens, and down, down, to the dark rivers under the earth. He flew to every tirtha, every sacred bathing place, and every temple tank, and at every one, the moment his feet touched the water, there was his elder brother: always one step ahead, always calm, never out of breath.

The old story says this went on for three crore days, as the gods count time. The peacock's beautiful tail feathers grew ragged. The shining vel grew dull with dust. And little by little, as he flew, Kumaraswamy stopped being angry and began to think.

He thought: My brother is not flying. He is not racing. He is everywhere at once.

He thought: How can someone be at every river?

And then he thought: Only if he is standing at the place every river comes from.

Somewhere over the southern sea, with the stars wheeling above him, Kumaraswamy began to smile. It started on one face and spread to all six.

He turned his tired peacock toward home.

He landed on the steps of Kailasa, dusty and windblown, and walked into the court. And there, exactly where he had left him, sitting on the floor in front of their parents' throne, was Vinayaka, eating a banana and sharing it with Mooshika.

The whole court held its breath. The ganas had heard stories of brothers who went to war over less than this. Nandi took one step forward, just in case.

Kumaraswamy walked right up to his brother. He looked at him for a long moment. Then he knelt down and bowed.

"Anna," he said, "I went around the world. You went around the ones who made the world. You won before I even left." He turned to his parents. "He should be Ganadhipati. He always sees the heart of a thing. I only see how fast I can get there."

Vinayaka dropped his banana and threw his arms around his little brother so hard that they both fell over, and the peacock squawked, and Mooshika squeaked, and the ganas cheered until snow slid off the peaks for miles around.

"You flew to every river in the three worlds," said Vinayaka, when they had untangled themselves. "Nobody else could do that. Not even me. I just walked around twice." He grinned. "Three times."

"Next time," said Kumaraswamy, "we race to the kitchen."

"Next time," said Vinayaka, "I'll win that too."

And so, on the fourth day of the bright half of the month of Bhadrapada, before all the gods and all the ganas, Shiva placed a crown on the head of his elder son and named him Ganapati, lord of all the ganas, Ganadhipati, the leader who comes first. Kumaraswamy became commander of the armies of heaven, which suited him perfectly. And the brothers never again argued about which of them was greater, though they went on arguing about everything else, happily, forever.

From that day, the fourth day of Bhadrapada has been called Vinayaka Chavithi, the birthday of the lord of the ganas.

And the gods declared that there must be a feast. A feast so enormous, so magnificent, so full of sweets, that nobody in the three worlds would ever forget it.

Nobody would. But not for the reason they thought.