Book Review - Krishna's Playground: Vrindavan in the 21st Century

Krishna's Playground: Vrindavan in the 21st Century by John Stratton Hawley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

An engrossing and breathless, albeit sanitized, account of the Vrindavan – the basil “forest” – if you will, where Krishna purportedly frolicked with his flock besotted gopis. It is a sad account of an idyllic pastoral village being polluted with crass commerce and greedy land developers. Loudspeakers, garish bill-boards, tacky temple architecture have marred the pristine glory of hoary temples and ‘kunj galis’ of yore. The Yamuna is but a sewer, alas! The rusty bucolic environs have been replaced by cows munching plastic waste on garbage heaps and dying painful deaths.
The book dwells inordinately on a gaudy temple on the fringes of Vrindavan that is yet to get off the ground, a temple with its own interpretation of the Vedas and Krishna’s lore. The other needless bantering is about his host – a self-proclaimed benefactor of Vrindavan. Nouveau riche ‘pilgrims’ meander among the pigs and squalor, menaced by predatory simians who have replaced the iconic peafowls – who’s vibrant feather is a constant adornment of Lord Krishna.
The historical account from the sixteenth century onwards including the Mughal era is well documented but the tone of casteism biased towards brahmins is jarring.

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