The Story of my Life - An Autobiography by Hiranyakashipu

You must have heard about the story of Narasimha and Prahlada. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Hiranyakashipu, Prahlada’s dad. I believe that a lot of people are not aware of my story. So here goes -

The Birth

One evening, Mom told Dad that she wanted a kid. Dad checked his watch and told her that evenings are not a good time for such activities but she didn’t relent and Dad had to agree. It turned out that according to Hindu rules, children conceived during twilight are born as demons. And so, I and my twin brother Hiranyaksha were born as demons.

Hiranyaksha’s Death

One day when I was relaxing with my wife, a messenger came to me with the news of Hiranyaksha’s death. On further inquiry, I came to know that he was killed by Vishnu.

Brahma’s boon

I had to avenge my brother’s death and killing Vishnu was the only way. I studied my history books and realized that defeating Vishnu wasn’t easy and I needed a smart boon from Brahma to achieve my target. I gathered a team of Business Analysts and told them to quickly come up with a Business Requirement Specifications (BRS) document in 10 days. They came up with the following requirements -

Ø  Immortality against each one of Brahma’s creations.

Ø  Cannot be killed indoor or outdoor

Ø  Cannot be killed during day or night

Ø  Cannot be killed by men or animals

Ø  Cannot be killed by living or non-living objects

Ø  Cannot be killed on earth or space

Satisfied with the BRS document, I proceeded to Mandara mountain where I meditated for years. Finally, Brahma appeared, read my BRS document and approved it.

King of Heaven and Birth of Prahlada

Armed with my new powers, I forced Indra to resign and became the new ruler of Heaven. My life was stable now and the future looked good. So I decided to plan for a kid and Prahlada was born. But there was a problem - that damned kid kept chanting “Narayana Narayana” all the time. Being a responsible father, I told my kid to enjoy life, concentrate on his studies and be a good human being instead of monotonously repeating a single word “Narayana”, a million times a day for no reason. But you know how stubborn kids are. He still continued with his chanting.

Encounter with Narasimha

I was going nuts with this “Narayana” chanting. I had to put an end to it. I searched Wikipedia to find out what this "Narayana" meant. I was horrified to see that it was one of Vishnu's nicknames. I called up Vishnu and told him to appear in front of me if he had the guts. Suddenly, a strange dude with a lion’s face and human’s body appeared in front of me and claimed that he was going to kill me. I laughed and told him about Brahma’s boon. He informed me that Brahma’s boon was not applicable in this scenario as the BRS document had not covered the following Use Cases -

Ø  Guys like Vishnu, Shiva, etc who were not created by Brahma

Ø  Corridor (neither indoor nor outdoor)

Ø  Evenings (neither day nor night)

Ø  Creatures that are a mix of man and animal

Ø  Fingernails (neither living nor non-living object)

Ø  Thighs (neither earth nor space)

The End

And I was killed by the Narasimha dude. I guess I should have hired my Business Analysts from TATA Consultancy Services.