Posts Tagged ‘Radha’

Epitome of Radha Krishna love through a timeless classic

Monday, July 1st, 2013

Nikhil Ghosh Bharat Vyas Geeta Dutt

The Radha-Krishna amour is a love legend of all times. It’s indeed hard to miss the many legends and paintings illustrating Krishna’s love affairs, of which the Radha-Krishna affair is the most memorable. Krishna’s relationship with Radha, his favorite among the ‘gopis’ (cow-herding maidens), has served as a model for male and female love in a variety of art forms, and since the sixteenth century appears prominently as a motif in North Indian paintings. The allegorical love of Radha has found expression in some great Bengali poetical works of Govinda Das, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and Jayadeva the author of Geet Govinda.

Krishna’s youthful dalliances with the ‘gopis’ are interpreted as symbolic of the loving interplay between God and the human soul. Radha’s utterly rapturous love for Krishna and their relationship is often interpreted as the quest for union with the divine. This kind of love is of the highest form of devotion in Vaishnavism, and is symbolically represented as the bond between the wife and husband or beloved and lover.

Radha, daughter of Vrishabhanu, was the mistress of Krishna during that period of his life when he lived among the cowherds of Vrindavan. Since childhood they were close to each other – they played, they danced, they fought, they grew up together and wanted to be together forever, but the world pulled them apart. He departed to safeguard the virtues of truth, and she waited for him. He vanquished his enemies, became the king, and came to be worshipped as a lord of the universe. She waited for him. He married Rukmini and Satyabhama, raised a family, fought the great war of Ayodhya, and she still waited. So great was Radha’s love for Krishna that even today her name is uttered whenever Krishna is refered to, and Krishna worship is though to be incomplete without the deification of Radha.

One day the two most talked about lovers come together for a final single meeting. Suradasa in his Radha-Krishna lyrics relates the various amorous delights of the union of Radha and Krishna in this ceremonious ‘Gandharva’ form of their wedding in front of five hundred and sixty million people of Vraj and all the gods and goddesses of heaven. The sage Vyasa refers to this as the ‘Rasa’. Age after age, this evergreen love theme has engrossed poets, painters, musicians and all Krishna devotees alike.

More than fifty years ago, veteran musician composer Pandit Nikhil Ghosh, lyricist Pandit Bharat Vyas and young singer Geeta Roy came together to weave the magic of Radha – Krishna bhakti through a wonderful non-film Hindi song. The song is “Jamuna ke teer kaanhaa aao, ro ro pukaare Raadha, meethi meethi bansiyaa bajaao..”

The song was released on the HMV label number N88024. Here is the scanned image of the same

Scanned image

Lyrics-

Jamuna ke teer kanha aao
ro ro pukare radha
mithi mithi bansiya bajao

Gaiya pukare tohen gwal pukare
bhul gayen kyun hume nand dulare
yasoda ke laal hume pyara pyara mukhada dikhao

Kadam ki chhaiyan gale mein baiyan
dale hum dolte thein
Lapak jhapak kar laaj bhara mera
ghunghat tum kholte the
Maakhan churaane wale
chori chori man ko na churaao

Jamuna ke teer kanha aao..

Source courtesy:

Information on Radha – Krishna taken from http://hinduism.about.com/od/scripturesepics/a/lovelegends_4.htm

साँवरिया राधा , और राधा बन जाए सांवरिया होली में

Friday, March 1st, 2013

Radha Krishna

As the festival of colors and love Holi is approaching and In my home town Karauli and all parts the ‘Daandaa’ kind of a flage of Holi is at The place and the month long Faag Singing and listening sessions are on so we thought to celebrate this Faag month here with the connoisseurs of music.

Here comes the first post of the Faag series with an ultimate beauty of a non film song rendered by Geeta Dutt and Krishna Goyal.

This is a beauty of a Faag song in all respects be it the festive and colorful ambiance of the Holi or the devotional romantic flavor of the thought and also the philosophical aspect where the eternal wish and yearning of the beloved to become one with the loved one. All these flavors are there in the song.

The song in the first stanza at one point deals with the all inclusive nature of the holi ‘ koi bhee mukhda chhupane paaye , koi bhee aanchal chhudane na paaye…’ as the wish is to assimilate all the beings in the spirit of holi so no one can remain untouched by the rang of Holi and by the Gop and Shyam because then only all become the equal. And then the third stanza deals with this feature of love and equality for all is more evident in ‘mukh par malo raag ki roli, bolo meethee pyaar ki boli …’ and ‘ Vair bhaav ki unvh neech ki aaj jala dalo Holi….’ so that a new world set-up full of love and goodness can be achieved.

But the ultimate aim and philosophical intent of the song comes in the second stanza, though At the very beginning the stage is set to the colorfulness and the thoughtfulness of the idea with the opening lyrics ‘ Kori na rahe koi bhee chunariya Holi mein…Gori na rahe koi Gujariya Holi mein…’ the ultimate aim of every Gopi is to be Krishamay by merging her identity into that of the Krishna so how can remain any chunariya kori and any Gujariya Gori in Holi , they all have to be or wish to be in Shyam Rang.

And to achieve this ultimate what better way can be than ‘ ek rang mein wo tan rang jaaye ..ek rang mein wo man rang jaaye ‘ and then ‘ barase rang baraabar donon ye Jag ye Jeevan rang jaaye…’ so that the identity of Jag and Jeeva becomes one with the all pervasive ,through the ultimate action ‘ Sanwariya Radha aur Radha Ban Jaaye Sanwariya Holi Mein….’ to make the Jag and Jeevan become ek rang with Shyam !

‘ Sanwariya Radha aur Radha Ban Jaaye Sanwariya Holi Mein….’ is the ultimate state where

मृण्मय से चिन्मय की यात्रा पूरी होती है और चिन्मय मृण्मय को अपने अन्दर आत्मसात कर उसे भी चिन्मय में समाहित कर लेता है .

Also this roopak of ‘ Sanwariya Radha aur Radha Ban Jaaye Sanwariya Holi Mein….’ is an imagery which you find recurring in Radha Krishna lore where the Gopis will do shringaar of Krisna as Radha and , Raadha will be given the roop and shringaar of Krishna and then roles will be reversed just to denote the inseparability of each from the other or in deeper sense to depict the ultimate unity of Purush ans Prakriti.

Rarely you come across such profound thought and philosophy in popular songs. The way Geeta Dutt and Krishna Goyal has rendered the song is any music lovers delight.

Acknowledgements:
We are grateful to our dear friend Shri Arun Mudgal ji for coming up with this great post on the occasion of the festival of Holi.