The Hindu festival of Krishna Janmashtami, celebrated a couple of days ago, saw a pet parent dressing up their sweet golden retriever, named “Joy”, as baby Krishna, the avatar of Lord Vishnu whose birth is celebrated during the festival. The video went viral — while some peeved people felt that this was an insult to the deity, others defended the pooch and said that Krishna “did not discriminate” between humans and animals. One comment said, “This is actually cute… no need to take offence…”
The pet parent dressed up Joy with a pink scarf, some bead necklaces resembling strings of pearls, and a nice crown, the kind of crown that baby Krishna is depicted as wearing in paintings and idols.
Thus dressed, the pooch posed for the camera as “Krishna Kanhaiya”. The pet owner completed the look by hiding behind Joy and holding up a flute, a musical instrument associated with Lord Krishna.
As the video of the doggo dressed as Lord Krishna was uploaded online, it caught the attention of Internet users and gathered mixed reactions. While a few people found the idea to be cute, others did not think it was okay to make a dog dress up like a deity.
The video was uploaded on Instagram by Joy’s pet parent on or just before August 26, the day of Krishna Janmashtami. They captioned the video with a heart emoji.
Crossing 3 million views and shared on various social media platforms, the video became a talking point around the Janmashtami festival.
Initially, the video drew some criticism. “This guy portrayed [a] dog as Bhagwan Krishna. It’s very wrong, don’t do this type of cheap things,” said an X posted, leaving a few people upset and triggered. Retweets read: “What’s wrong with you guys?? You keep disrespecting God… shame on you guys.”
Taking a stand against the backlash that the video faced, pet lovers stated there was nothing wrong with dressing a dog in a deity’s look.
One of the X users replied: “I believe Krishna didn’t discriminate between humans and dogs. For him, every one is the same and he must be proud of looking at that fur baby.”
Soon, another added: “Bhagwan har kisi me baste hai chahe janwar ho ya insan (God is present in everyone, be it animal or human).”
People asked those condemning the video to rethink their attitude and take note of the intention with which the dog was dressed up as baby Krishna by the pet parent.
“I am not sure about his intention but all the Hindu religious scriptures [have] talked great about animals. Think about it, every god has an animal as a carrier. If done with good intention, I think, it is a good gesture,” wrote a netizen wrote X.
“This is actually cute… no need to take offence on small things like these… Krishna ji won’t mind I promise… Happy Janmashtami,” said another user.
(The article is published under a mutual content partnership arrangement between The Free Press Journal and Connected to India)
