Allapur (Uttar Pradesh), Nov 20 (IANS) Draped in a bright red sari, wearing bangles, anklets, nose ring and donning other items of the solah singaar (16 ways to beautify body) from head to toe, Kailash Nath Tripathi is a man who claims to be Radha - the consort of Lord Krishna.
Tripathi now calls himself Kailash Radha. The 62-year-old former teacher in a government-run school in this village in Uttar Pradesh's Pratapgarh district, some 140 km from state capital Lucknow, has been cross-dressing for the last five months.
Tripathi says that it was Lord Krishna who 'motivated' him to do this.
'Krishna came in my dream and referred to me as his Radha. To please my lord, thereafter I decided to become Radha,' Tripathi told IANS.
His Radha act has evoked strong opposition from his family members, who now shun him.
'My wife and two sons no longer live with me. They left me, as they do not like my appearance. From them (family members) there was immense pressure that I should live like a common man and not like Radha,' said Tripathi.
What made the family members more furious was his decision to donate his lifelong savings of Rs.1 million to temples in the district. 'Now they never come to meet me. I have also made it clear to them that I will continue to live like Radha till my last breath.'
The family members however said it was Tripathi's eccentric behaviour that drove them away. 'How can one live with a man who calls his wife a Sakhi (a friend). Lost in Krishna-bhakti (devotion to Krishna), my husband has no time for his family,' said his wife Girja Devi.
Neighbours say Tripathi now spends 14-16 hours a day for his 'acts' to please Lord Krishna.
'Most of the time, you will hear bhajans (devotional songs) emanating from his residence,' next-door neighbour Sarju Prasad told IANS.
Villagers now invite him to sing at religious gatherings. He pointed out that he does not charge the organisers a paisa.
Now Tripathi is planning to transform his four-room house into a Krishna temple.
'I decided to do this much earlier but could not act accordingly due to the pressure from my family members. Now, as there is no one to stop me, I will transform my home into a temple soon,' he said.
Kailash's fixation is not an isolated case. In November 2005, a controversy erupted when the Inspector General of Police (Rules and Manuals) D K Panda, a 1971 batch officer of the Indian Police Service (IPS), was found to be living as 'Radha' for the past 15 years.
Panda, who called himself 'Doosri Radha' (second Radha), once appeared before the Allahabad High Court dressed as a woman. Facing action for flouting the police dress code and service norms, the matter ended when he was allowed to take premature retirement, two years before his service was supposed to end.
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