Finding Radha

by Namita Gokhale

  The keynote of Bengal Vaishnava theology is that the relation between jiva (mankind) and Bhagavat (God) is the same as the difference between Shakti (Radha) and Shaktiman (Krishna). Jiva Goswami calls it achintya bhedabheda, same yet different, one that cannot be comprehended by the human mind. This homologous relationship is carried one step further, for just as Radha is the perfect devotee of Krishna, we as humans can do no better than be perfect devotees of Radha–Krishna. Radha is the perfect devotee of Krishna, so devoted is she that even though she resides in the same body as Krishna she feels pangs of separation from him, so extreme is her viraha. The presence of Radha and Krishna in one body is a recurring refrain and is the credo of Bengal Vaishnavism.

  While the main tenets of Bengal Vaishnavism are elaborately laid out in the writings of Jiva and Rupa Goswami, and these texts are indeed very erudite, it is in the padas that the persona of Radha comes through. The singing of mystical songs is an established tradition in Bengal. Wandering mystics, temple singers, groups of singers that go from home to home or from one festival to another are a feature of Bengal. These songs express profound truths in simple language and reach the common people. Not only do they perform a social purpose in getting people together but they keep the religious tradition alive at the ground level.

  Chaitanya, it is said, was influenced by Jayadeva, Vidyapati and Chandidas. Apparently, there were many poets who were called Chandidas, but the one text that Chaitanya read was Chandidas’s Srikrishna Kirtana.

  Come, let us go to see the fair one, in all his beauty;

  Come, let us go to Nabadwip, to see his wondrous form.

  His body glows like melted gold,

  and waves of tears swell in the ocean of his eyes.

  Let us look upon the golden columns of his arms

  reaching to his knees, and on the cloth

  coloured like the dawn, around his waist.

  Let us look upon the jasmine garland

  swinging to his feet.

  Vasu says: Come! Let us worship the living God.

  The following dialogue was recorded between Chaitanya and his disciple Ramananda.

  Chaitanya: What is the goal of life?

  Ramananda: To follow the rules and injunctions followed in the scriptures.

  Chaitanya: This is only an external part of religion, only a means, not a goal.

  Ramananda: Surrendering the fruits of action to Krishna.

  Chaitanya: This too is external.

  Ramananda: Realizing that devotion arises from self-surrender.

  Chaitanya: This too is external.

  Ramananda: Realizing with knowledge.

  Chaitanya: This too is external.

  Ramananda: Acquiring the spirit of service to Krishna.

  Chaitanya: That is good. Go further.

  Ramananda: To love Krishna as a friend.

  Chaitanya: That is very good. Go further.

  Ramananda: To love Krishna as a child.

  Chaitanya: That is also good. Go further.

  Ramananda: To love Krishna as a beloved bridegroom.

  Chaitanya: This is no doubt the goal. But tell me if there is any attainment further than this.

  Ramananda: My understanding does not go further than this.

  At this point Chaitanya stopped Ramananda from speaking, indicating thereby that the highest truth, the highest secret, must not be divulged. According to Chaitanya premvilas vivarta is the truth of mystic union, wherein there is no longer a distinction between the lover and the beloved.

  In Gaudiya literature, Krishna is compared to the sun and Radha to the sunshine. Thus, both exist together, independent and yet dependent, what is called achintya bhedabheda. They assume different forms to enjoy each other. Our role as rasikas and bhaktas is to identify with the sakhis. Gaudiya texts elaborate on the role of sakhis. The gopis are divided into five groups, the most important being the parama-preshtha-sakhis, or the eight primary gopis. These gopis are named: Lalita, Vishakha, Chitra, Indulekha, Champakalata, Tungavidya, Rangadevi and Sudevi. Gaudiya literature provides many details of their lives and service, including each one’s parents’ names, spouse’s name, skin colour, age, birthday, mood, temperament, favourite melody, instrument, closest girlfriends, and so on. These elements form the substance of an inner meditation, or sadhana, which is designed to relieve the practitioner of the spiritual amnesia that afflicts all conditioned souls. It helps them to realize who they really are in terms of their eternal identity in the spiritual realm. Through this meditation one gradually develops prema, or love for Krishna. Among the gopis there is a class of gopis called manjari, also called prana-sakhis or nitya-sakhis, and their love for Radha is called bhavollasarati. A manjari is totally dedicated to Radha and even helps her in her amorous sports with Krishna. If Vrindavana, the spiritual realm, is compared to a lotus flower, and Radha and Krishna are acknowledged as the centre, then the gopis may be compared to the petals and the manjari to the stamens.

  A common Gaudiya mantra is:

  Atapa-rakita suraja nahi jani

  Radha-virahita Krishna nahi mani

  (Just as there is no such thing as sun without heat or light, I do not accept a Krishna who is without Sri Radha!)

  12

  RADHE RADHE

  MADHUREETA ANAND

  ‘RADHE RADHE’, NOT Hare Krishna, not Jai Shri Ram, but ‘Radhe Radhe’ is the greeting of those who live in Vrindavana. Being a film-maker and keen traveller, it was strange that I hadn’t been to Vrindavana before. Here I was for the first time—in a city famed for love. Not for lovers but for love. Love in the way it was when Radha and Krishna were said to dance their Raas Leela—spiritual, deep, never-ending and immortal.

  And yet at first sight, all one sees are quiet streets so narrow that even time and its ravages couldn’t make its way in, temples with distant clanging bells, mercenary monkeys that trade stolen glasses for boxes of juice, and widows. Thousands of ladies clad in white, their bodies stooped with age and furrowed by the forces of survival—they seem like the same person multiplied. They scurry through the lanes from one bhajan sabha to another, receiving the few rupees to help them survive.

  What is apparent physically probably stems from their shared story—almost all of them are from Bengal, arriving here when their husbands died and they grew too old to work—their families decided there was no place for them any longer in the homes in which they lived their entire lives. Sons, grandsons, brothers-in-law all cut them off because they didn’t have the right male relative by their side any more. Some of them were brought here and abandoned—because who can explain to a distraught woman that all relationships, money and social life were a mirage created by a living husband. And now that he’s gone, so has all that.

  And so then one has to wonder how it came to be that the greeting here is ‘Radhe Radhe’—celebrating the woman who was the lover of Krishna but a wife to another? A woman who clearly had it all and celebrated it with no attachment and no apologies—where was she? Why use her name as a greeting when she was no longer here? If one scoured Vrindavana, one couldn’t find any gopis and certainly no Radha—those ladies clad in bright attire, singing and dancing in celebration of a beloved, living in the ecstasy of love.

  And, yet, we find things in the most unexpected places.

  I was making a film for the Paramhansa Yogananda Trust, which is doing some wonderful work to not only restore physical health to the widows but, most importantly, also giving them their dignity back by giving them their right to demand and control their lives. They have managed to create a sea of bossy, happy ladies, but the supply of the abandoned widows does not stop and so their work is continuous.

  It was lunch break during our shoot when I stepped outside to ponder this deep contradiction: the heartbreak of remembering Radha, and now seeing women who stood as symbols of freedom lost in the sand of superstition and deep patriarchy.

  It is then that I noticed her.

  To my side stood a woman. About seventy ye
ars of age—swaddled in a white sari, stooped—and, like myself, also in deep thought. She looked distinctly worried and anxious. I watched her for a few moments not sure what to do. Not able to bear the deepening concern on her face I asked if everything was all right. There was no answer. I then asked her if she had eaten lunch—hoping that a neutral question would break the ice. What it did was break the dam. She turned and looked at me, exasperated—‘How can I?’ Why?—I asked, she replied, ‘Because he hasn’t eaten a thing all day.’

  I smiled, guessing, approximately, who she was referring to but still asked her anyway—who are you talking about?

  She looked at me like I must be the stupidest person on earth. ‘Him . . . my thakur—you know his name? Don’t you?’ Yes, I said. His name is Krishna. She nodded. ‘That’s one of his names.’ She shook her head and said, ‘I made kheer, he didn’t eat it, I made dal, he didn’t eat it—you can’t eat palak every day.’ I nodded in understanding and said in sympathy that that was pretty stubborn of him.

  She replied, ‘Yes—he knows I love him so he likes to tease me sometimes,’ and then she smiled . . . And there she was. Radha—the cosmic dancer with her lover—transmuted and transfigured but definitely her.

  Perhaps, then, we have got so used to seeing joy and love in a certain way that we do not recognize its other forms. Like a monochrome shadow becoming more real than the body, we search for the image we know.

  And it was this encounter that unfurled Radha in Vrindavana to me and suddenly she was evident everywhere.

  In the widows, showing me their shrines. In the clothes they stitch for ‘Him’. In their rendition of ‘Hare Krishna’, which is not just a song but a call. A call so deep that it must surely be heard and must vibrate in the heart of the one that they call to.

  Driving back to the hotel—someone casually pointed to a square where they said Uddhav met with the gopis. Krishna’s cousin Uddhav, a knowledge-driven seeker, needed a lesson in devotion and so Krishna sent him to Vrindavana on the pretext of teaching the gopis about God.

  Uddhav’s ego is stoked at the prospect of being a teacher and he explains to the gopis that their search for God is incomplete because they have not read the scriptures. That instead of saying Krishna’s name all the time, they should spend time gaining some knowledge. The gopis listen carefully and then one of them speaks: ‘My heart, my mind, my entire body is filled with Krishna—where would I put your knowledge?’ Uddhav watches the love-absorbed gopis and is brought to tears. It is from them that Uddhav learns that transcending the ego is a crucial step towards God. That devotion and love is a direct path to enlightenment.

  And so, perhaps, the greeting of ‘Radhe Radhe’ is not a greeting but, in fact, a call to invoke the Radha quality in those who inhabit and visit Vrindavana—because in each of us resides that quality of surrender that is the path to joy and love.

  Later that day we were to film the widows playing Holi—the festival of colour that was famously played by Radha and Krishna. We were to recreate the festival in the month of April—four weeks after the actual festival.

  Mounds of rose petals, marigold flowers, red gulal, pink and yellow colours of decorative powder lined the periphery of the central courtyard of the care home for widows. Ladies of advanced years sat in chairs in the corridor waiting for us to set up and start. Many of them racked by ailments were finding it hard to sit this long. And I was concerned that perhaps it was all too much for the ladies.

  A warm shaft of light fell on the courtyard—dappled by the trees overhead. And the music was turned on—a simple lyrical Krishna bhajan—‘Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare . . .’ As if propelled by another force, the ladies rose and danced—a dance of ecstasy, of joy, of celebration. They coloured each other, sometimes Krishna, sometimes Radha they smeared each other in red, pink and yellow. They bathed each other in flower petals. The colour flew up and filled the air and mixed with the raining petals—the light held them in its thrall and under this umbrella the widows in white became the gopis in colour, dancing and swaying and whirling—showing their true form. It seemed like their physical bodies were attire they had worn to live in a material world and here they had discarded them. Naked and revealed they were Krishna’s lovers. Here, now and forever.

  And then one of the ladies objected to the filming crew being left out of the revelry. And in a moment I stood coloured and engulfed. Becoming one of them. Becoming one.

  13

  THE BLUE-NECKED GOD

  INDIRA GOSWAMI

  TRANSLATED FROM THE ASSAMESE BY GAYATRI BHATTACHARYYA

  SAUDAMINI TRIED TO get familiar with this new life and adjust to it. She was inquisitive by nature so she was curious about everything around her: the life of the radheshyamis, the new temples and the ancient ones, the ruins of Bilwamangal Kunj, the Sringar Bot Temple, Sakshi Gopal, and she lost no time acquainting herself with it all. She even visited those ruined heaps that had once been impressive ancient monuments. Those ruins that were now entwined by jungles of thorny shrubs. For days, Saudamini wandered in those places, quite bewitched by their history and mythology. Indeed, she felt, these ancient ruins and temples of Braj had a peculiar charm that could touch the core of one’s heart. Like those old stone statues of the Raj Bhawan in Jaipur that were now covered with moss, one could still hear their heart-rending voices if one had the desire.

  Aurangzeb had long ago ordered the swanlike necks of the priceless statues of Krishna’s companions, the gopis carved on the ancient Govind Temple, to be broken to pieces. But even now, if one sits in meditation inside the broken old temple built of red stone, and listens intensely, one can hear the plaintive tunes of sorrow and torture.

  In the meantime, Dr Roychoudhury had started working in the dispensary. So he was mostly away from home. Saudamini started to pass her time, particularly the afternoons, roaming around the akhaara (ashram) and its neighbouring areas. There was a strange locality on the right-hand side of the akhaara, in the small lane facing Harabari, and near this was the temple of Beharimohan Kunj.

  One day, she crossed the roof of this temple, intending to go to this mysterious place. But as she was about to go down the steps, the sadhus who stayed in the temple said to her, ‘Since you are new here, it will be better if you do not go there.’ These words from the sadhus who slept on string cots on the roof and who passed their spare time playing the pahkwaz, only increased Saudamini’s curiosity.

  Bowing respectfully in front of the priests, she replied, ‘Every inch of Brajdham’s land is of interest to me.’

  She climbed down the broken and faded old steps. She saw an old unused well, the top of which was covered with a few moss-covered wooden planks. Nearby were some small and dark dilapidated rooms that looked more like pigeon holes than human habitations. A large group of widowed radheshyamis dwelt here. They were grossly undernourished, and wore dirty and faded old dhotis. But their foreheads shone with bibhuti (sacred ash) and lines drawn with holy sandalwood. Seeing Saudamini, the old women came out of their pigeon holes and surrounded her inquisitively.

  ‘Ladies, how do you make your living here?’ Saudamini asked.

  The ‘ladies’ looked at each other. Then one of them, sunken eyes shining with the brightness of the sun, replied, ‘When necessary, we sit at the gates of the Tortoise Temple and at Rangaji and beg. When there is no other way, we spend the whole night in front of the temple, waiting and hoping for the malcha offerings.’

  ‘But if you had become radheshyamis singing bhajans in the temple, you would have been assured of at least two square meals a day,’ said Saudamini.

  All the women cackled with laughter on hearing this, and one of them started singing mockingly, ‘Sethbari’s bhajan ashram, Gopinath’s bhajan ashram, Borbag’s bhajan ashram, the stable’s bhajan ashram!’

  ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘the accountant got so fat on the radheshyamis’ money that he cannot get up now. You must be new here not to know this. This fat man sat and watched all the ra
dheshyamis, their thin hands and feet and starving bodies. He came to know which of them would kick the bucket, and when! He also came to know which dying radheshyami had how much money, and where. He found out everything. Everything!’

  Again the old women cackled with laughter.

  ‘One day, this wicked man was observing our legs. As soon as we knew this, we fled and saved ourselves. Otherwise he would have kicked us out. See, look at our legs.’ And they pulled their tattered clothes up to their knees and exposed their legs.

  Saudamini hurriedly stepped back a few steps in fright and shock. All these women were sick! They had leprosy.

  ‘My dear girl, we like begging at the Banke-Behari lane, at the doorway of Shahji Temple, on the steps of Daman Mohan . . . People like you go there.’ And saying this, one of the women started stroking Saudamini’s hand with her own hands. Saudamini went stiff with fright! But the ghostly woman seemed to get a peculiar satisfaction. Encouraged by the act of the first woman, another one started touching the gold bangles on Saudamini’s wrist, while another came near her and said, ‘Give us some donation to keep us alive. You people live to eat, but we need to eat something in order to live. Give us something to keep us alive.’

  In the meantime, another group of old women came out of the small rooms and surrounded Saudamini. They started feeling and touching her soft young body, and then started scratching her all over in a strange and feverish excitement. Saudamini’s hair came loose and cascaded down her back, her blouse was almost ripped off and, if some sadhus had not arrived at that moment, the women would have probably taken on the nature of wild wolves.