The preparations were on, on full scale. It was time for the annual sacrifice to be made to Lord Indra, the King of the Devas, the bringer of rains.

Krishna just could not understand it. It almost seemed like the entire village had come a stand still trying to perform this sacrifice for the king of the Devas.

"Father, what are you doing?" Krishna asked the women in the village were getting the waters and keeping it in the place for the sacrifice.

"We are conducting a sacrifice for Lord Indra so that he gives us good rains. Our entire lives depend on the rains of the skies. If we keep Indra happy, he will give us the rains."

If possible, Krishna looked even more confused at his father's words.

"We pray to Indra because we are afraid of him?" Krishna asked in a quiet voice.

Nanda sighed. "It is not like that, Krishna." Nanda pointed at the clouds of the skies. "We survive because of the rains. It makes sense that we worship it."

Krishna huffed looking annoyed. "The rains are a natural phenomenon. The earth is filled with trees, then the clouds would have to pour water here. It is the law of nature. What does Indra have to do with this?"

Nanda looked surprised as Krishna continued. "We are people of the forests. We have hills around us. That is where we take our cows to graze. Why should we worship Indra for all this. He does not deserve our prayers."

By now all the Gopas were standing around the dark boy and they were all seriously considering the words of the boy.

"But, we will anger Indra." One of the older men said looking completely flustered. "Then how will we survive?"

Krishna smiled. "We cannot worship someone because they are stronger than us. These mindless rituals to Indra are silly. They do not serve any purpose. Our work is getting affected. The entire village is fixated on doing this sacrifice and absolutely nothing good is going to come out of this."

"So you are saying, we stop worshiping the Lord?" Yashoda demanded.

"Yes, mother. I do." Krishna said and suddenly his dark eyes were almost blazing.

"Then what should we do?" Rohini asked.

"We worship the Goverdhana, mother." Krishna said with a smile. "That hill has given us our livelihood. It asks for nothing from us. It just does its duty and we just ignore it. If you so bent on worshiping something worship the Govardhana. That mountain is worthy of our prayer."

Word spread like wildfire around the village. None of them could believe that Krishna would so openly stop a ritual which had gone on for so many years. At first the Gopas were outraged at the open defiance of Yashoda's son. But then as they heard his words, they realized that what they were doing was not a prayer – they were just being afraid and bowing to Indra.

Once that realization struck the Gopas, the entire village stuck by Krishna. The entire sacrifice was called off.

As a mark of respect for the Govardhana, the Gopas performed a small prayer to the Govardhana hill and after that they all went their way to do their own work.

But then there was a deep anxiety in the minds of the Gopas.

Immediately after the refusal of the elders to perform the sacrifice, dark clouds were beginning to gather in the outskirts of Gokul.

It seemed unnatural...almost menacing.

"Ignore it." Nanda told his people. "Get about your work."

The Gopas then walked away. At least they tried to.

Then without any warning there was a loud thunder across the skies, rumbling through shocking everyone,

Without any warning, it started pouring. And it was pouring heavily, holding absolutely nothing back.