Entry for the round --3 [ Second Milestone ] Together, We Are Timeless [IF-NC_Entry]
Continuation from page 2 ---
"I will do as you wish Radha", she bowed her head with an intriguing expression for Radha's inexplicable love, sending the touch of a tear as a gift to the Divine Prince!
The clouds cleared the sky after a light drizzle.
The chariot vanished from sight leaving behind a cloud of dust! Radha was left stranded there in her thoughts, unable to move, trying hard to assimilate the shock. After a while she started walking with that garland adorned her neck, to immerse herself in penance for her Krishna. With each stride, her mind became more clear, more resolute, as if the growing distance between them had now become an emotional chasm. Her aura, that inner light, was shining so radiantly at that evening time, nothing could diminish or overpower its dazzle. Not even the imprints of pain!!
Seasons fade in and out like soft lullabies; the transitions are slow but never faltering. Like mother earth herself, they turn only in one direction, always onward, never backward. As they wax and wane, the pace of life changes along with nature. Days had stretched into months, and months had stretched into years.
Epistle of a smile to a tear
The autumnal season arrived with regal ease and natural grace. The leaves were tumbling as giant confetti onto the sidewalks and to the verge again. The first leaves had tumbled to the soil rich with rain, and remained verdant, fluttering in the strengthening wind. Spring thought to itself, though I wish for that garland of reds and golds, I must be as patient as Radha who is waiting for her Krishna to adorn her life with colorful hues.
Radha now consoled herself with the thought that no matter how much happiness Krishna's wives had from him, but the pangs of separation were only her privilege. She accepted the truth that his smile was for his wives but his tears were only for her. This perception strengthened her sustenance. Her sacrifice made her divine, greater than even God himself!
But her mind was so much like the ocean, calm on the surface with many deep undercurrents, all of them invoking an assortment of emotions to torment her.
"How can I withstand and save myself from this tempest of love, Krishna? It is engulfing me like wildfire. Though it is an unbelievable truth, though I know you'll never come back, why isn't my heart accepting the truth? Whenever, a gust of zephyr quivers in the twigs, whenever the soft and lilting susurration of the leaves happens, I presume it is you! Your image was permanently etched in my eyes. I'm stilled in that world of loneliness! Though my eyes are wide open, I'm still wandering in that dream in which you are imprinted as my past. All of a sudden, a huge wave of love engulfs me from top to toe and recedes... dampening my dreaming eyes! How will I search for you with these moist eyes, Krishna?"
When the silence of the milieu together with the whispers of the ripples of the river were listening to Radha's anguished disquisitions, the biting cold of that night added pain to her heart, longing for Him. To possess what you do not possess, longing will reign deep in the heart.
Suddenly, the chortle of the girls broke the stillness of the night. She knew that they had arrived to listen to her words and to console her for a while before going back to their homes. Radha looked around and questioned the maidens, "Can you guess who my Krishna is?" Radha was in a trance, asking the maidens with half-closed eyes and replying herself said, "He is the vision of our eyes, the smile of our lips, the beat of our hearts, and he is the God of our prayers, ultimately the light of our lives!" The surrounded maidens were watching her limpid eyes which made all the stars to dim, her magical voice was entrancing their hearts as well! They were addicted to listening to Krishna's captivating tunes of the flute in the past, now they were looking forward to listening to Radha's enraptured feelings, her disclosures of the tantalizing nights she spent with Krishna on the same river bank! In between, they would ask some questions to remind her of their presence and as usual in her trance, sometimes she would talk with them animatedly but at times would slip into her thoughts of Him!
Radha continued, "Vandana ...did you hear that call? My Krishna is calling me in this stillness of the night! Please listen to his intoxicating voice, that voice must have bathed in the honey of love, traversing through the winter breeze, touching the threshold of my passion, moving through the quivering heart, listen... listen once again to that musical tune, my friends! My Krishna is calling me, have to go now, have to hurry, but ... but where to go? Where can I search for Him in this vast Universe?" Tears of despondency slowly cascaded down her cheeks! She was surrounded by a heap of garlands sent to her by her Krishna, all were afresh spreading sweet fragrance as if trying to calm her down! The garlands added beauty to that bucolic setting. She was sitting like a queen, waiting to see the seasons change in front of her eyes!
All of a sudden she chortled gleefully! Vaishnavi questioned her, "Are you mad Radha? He is marrying one after the other and sending you a garland every time to tease you, to increase your desolation, still, you are laughing?"
Radha looked at her, "Try to understand his quest Vaishnavi! He is searching for me in every girl who loved and married him. He's sending me a fresh garland every time he marries, which means, he is still searching for me in them, these garlands are carrying that message. Do you remember, he sent pink flowers when he married Rukmini? That signifies purity and happiness which he has seen in her, later he sent a purple garland symbolically when he married Satyabhama, which explains her beauty, passion, and courage! His every sentiment was expressed in one form or the other by these tender buds and blossoms! It was a sort of a romantic divertissement between us," she averred with a flash of a smile on her lips, a spark of love in those yearning eyes! "For me, love is an infinite stillness, a state of rootedness! For my Krishna, it's a never-ending quest! I can live in this stillness of love, but he'll take the world with him unto eternity in search of that love! They saw admiration in her lucid eyes!
The next moment, her eyes were heavy with unshed tears. It was painful to see her like this for all the maidens there. Neela embraced her to let the torrent of tears to soak through her pallu, she could feel her clenched fists and was in a dilemma whether to be mad at her or to give up hope all together! She could hear her stifled scream that suffocated with each breath, trying hard to hold on to her pride. She caressed Radha's head in an attempt to calm the silent war within her mind!
Under the canopy of luminous stars, a faint wind swept through the stillness of the rippling river and shattered the reflection of the moon. Radha started walking towards her house, carrying all her memories in her heart where her Krishna was waiting to woo her along with her longings! The dew drops under her feet were softly reiterating the past stories of their love on the heart of the earth to preserve those for future generations!
The rainy season renews rejuvenation in the lives of people after the scorching summer. Normally in Aryavarta, the Rain festival is followed by many other festivals that bring people together to enjoy the following seasons. With the receding rains, the sun started smiling feebly behind the mild fog that morning!
The previous day, Nand as the head of Brindavan, issued a note to his people to assemble at the bank of river Yamuna to celebrate the Rain Festival. For that, he arranged mammoth festivities and feast in the vast gardens near the river. Since morning, all the maidens were busy preparing food for the assembling crowds. Kids were pampered with sweetened milk with motherly love. The festivities offered a cornucopia of delectable to the villagers.
The morning dew spread its charm everywhere and adorned the surroundings with an aromatic tenderness! All the villagers who had congregated for the celebrations had finished the pooja and other religious rituals in the early morning itself. At late morning, they assembled at one place, sat on the elevated platform under a big tree, started making garlands with the colorful flowers. Some maidens adorned their hair with those chaplets and a few girls wrapped the flower leis on their tender wrists. Yashoda and the other elderly ladies were engaged in supervising the cooking. The nearby woods and paddy fields were watching the kids' playful squealing with delight. The grazing animals on the undulating meadows on one side and the sparkling stream of the river Yamuna on the other side, the luscious landscapes and the rolling mountains around, all created virtual heaven there!
Radha was singing a song in her velvety voice, imagining her Krishna with his flute accompaniment! Exuberance rooted itself there in happiness to lend a new meaning to that mellifluous romance!
Radha was singing, ''Whose manifestation is this love Krishna, isn't it invented by God with a commitment and adopted by humans with an intention! Why does the moonlight coyly drop the veil to hide us from human glares? This alluring love is like a wildfire, on which no one has any control! How strange! We tried to keep our meeting a secret, but it has been exposed to the world because of the tunes of your flute and the tinkling sounds of my anklets!! God knows what has happened, when I started from the house, I hid my face behind a full bloomed jasmine creeper as a veil thinking that the moonlight won't reveal my identity, but see, the arrogant honey bees pulled the floral veil to feast on the honey from the jasmine flowers! What to say, the moon too heckled at me while leaning towards a star cluster! On the banks of Yamuna, in perfect solitude and wilderness, we spent a few moments together with blissful joy, this song is the outpouring of that joy Krishna!"
Nature was listening to the words of Radha in rapturous delight! This strong attraction, the interplay of the human and divine, and the profound mystery of love and its mysterious ways of luring two humans into a divine bond made it so surreal!
A nearby brook babbled gently trying not to disturb Radha's expressions of longing in a song form through her melodious voice.
On the riverside precinct, the peacocks were dancing in the garden, their iridescent blue-green plumage fanning out to reveal their mysteriously beautiful feathers and eyes that created a blissful atmosphere there! In the sprawling gardens, children were dancing while their parents watched them in the morning coolth. A group of young boys was busy in a game of role-playing. One of them had tied a golden yellow scarf around his head and tucked a peacock feather in it. He was the make-believe, Krishna, sitting atop a large rock representing the intellectual giant of a boy. The other boys were standing near him pretending to be his subjects or his Pandavas.
The watching cowherd maidens were recollecting how their little Krishna performed various miracles to safeguard the people of Brindavan in his early years! Later the women watched the kids performing Krishna's Raas Leela dance, where every kid wanted to play Krishna's role to lead the dance from the front. They reminisced about their divine prankster Kanha, which brought a smile on the maidens' faces!
On the other side, some young girls were presenting a dance drama of 'Radha Madhav' written by a pandit.
First, a beautifully attired dancer entered the stage and scattered flowers from her hand onto the spectators! Then entered a group of girls, singing songs praising their Krishna:
"Our Krishna, the giver of salvation, the enemy of the demons, Victory to thee!
Ocean of compassion, Lord of Radha, wearer of Mayur Pankh, victory to thee!
With curly locks, with a charming smile, a player of flute, victory to thee!
The little son of Yashoda, stealer of clothes, lover of Gopikas, victory to thee!"
The dance drama started with an introductory word from the Sutradhar ---
The chorus entered with the words, "This isn't a story of once upon a time! It is the story of the birth of a beautiful dream, a magnificent display of spiritual love, and at the end, a beginning of an eternal longing! Her birth, youth, the association with Him and the separation from the normal world... all are real to us and we were witness to it, here is our Radha searching for her Krishna!" Then started the performance with soft background music...
The women in the audience were talking among themselves, "The thought of Krishna seduces the hearts of even hermits and saints, we are simple cowherd maidens, how can we escape from that seduction?" They were recollecting those Raas Leela nights while watching the theatrical entertainment!
The girls started enacting the song through gestures and then through dance! It started as a simple folk dance, later was transformed into a regular dramatic spectacle. The play started by depicting the separation of Radha from her Krishna and moved forward to their ultimate union culminating in a Raas dance...
The wondrous spectacle enamored one and all...when gopikas complained in the dance drama to Yashoda about the mischief of Krishna, at the bathing ghat, she argued that Krishna was just a child as yet, the young maidens glanced at Krishna and laughed secretly. "How can we describe the face of our Kanha when he hid the clothes of the gopikas? How can we describe the faces of the demure women who pleaded with Krishna to return their clothes and bangles??" The dancer Yashoda with mock anger left that place, while Maa Yashoda was watching that scene with amusement!
The girls started enacting the next scene where the girl who was playing Radha, entered the arena when the celestial melody of his flute lured her, acted as if she left boiling milk at home, came running, her anklets jingling, girdle bells tinkling, she soliloquizes her sentiments rebuking herself.
"Why hasn't my Krishna come to me?
I have decorated my garden with flowers,
Waiting to welcome Shyam with the stars and moon!
Want to make a floral path on which I wish to spread
All my dreams to give a soft touch to his feet!"
"Ahh. well sung, well danced, I would have also participated but my age has tired me," an elderly lady said to the maiden next to her. The dance drama was going on ... [ 2516 words]
Viswasruti2019-02-16 07:39:51
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