Radha.....The Eternal Love

I watched Pandita Uma Dogra dance as Radha yesterday. On TV though, at the Khajuraho Dance Festival. She was beautiful. Innocence, playfulness, proprietary attitude towards Krishna, overwhelming unbounded love for Krishna and her sense of jealousy and longing for Krishna's bansuri - it was beautifully enacted in the poem - "Shyam tori bansi bajaoo nek" (Maybe I have got a word wrong here.)

Umaji got Radha alive on the stage. Her Kathak moves were exquisite and the abhinaya superb. I found myself crying as I saw it. I was transported to Vrindavan, near the Kadamb tree, where the two lovers laughed, played, teased and immersed themselves in each other.

I have had this longing to dance on Jaidev's Geet Govindam for years now. I know I would never be able to do it now - my dancing days are over. My desire to dance came from my deep rooted urge to express my wonder at the love of Radha Krishna, rather than dance itself, or the composition of Jaidev, beautiful as it is. Now, of course, I can only watch others perform, and it is so so beautiful and uplifting to watch a dance purist like Uma Dogra dance it.

What is it about Radha Krishna that completely mesmerizes me?



Thinking of them melts things inside, and I swoon, hearing the description of their love and longing. I wonder, what it must have been like to have been Radha. To love someone so beautiful and captivating as Krishna, and to be loved back, with the same abandon and surrender, as she was loved. What it must have been to have had no name to the relationship other than sheer love, erotic and worshipful, in equal measure.

And then, how it must have been to have been separated young, to carry the memory of such love all of their lives, when nothing would have come close to oneness than the way they felt for each other. A memory which had such an imprint that nothing of the stupendous life of Krishna, of him being a warrior, the creator of a race, the husband of many wives, the adviser to sages and kings, the Geeta-creating philosopher of the world, even came close to the way he felt about Radha. Krishna led his life immersed in Radha's love, even though he never met her after he left Vrindavan. Krishna was forever Radhe's Krishna, never just Krishna.

But what about Radha? How did she live after Krishna? Was she like a wraith all her life, living in his memory? Did she exult in the way she held this king of men in her heart?

Note to self:
a. Must write a story on this someday, Bucket list.
b. Must watch Khajuraho Dance Festival live some day.