Sri Lalita Madhava pg42 ~ "My dear friend, where is Krsna, who is like the moon rising from the ocean of Maharaja Nanda's dynasty? Where is Krsna, His head decorated with a peacock feather? Where is He? Where is Krishna whose flute produces such a deep sound? [...] Kindly tell me where to find Krsna the treausre of My life and best of My friends. Feeling separation from Him, I hereby condemn Providence, the shaper of My destiny."
This poem was inspired by
an encounter I had in Vraja many many years ago. It was in the morning and I was walking down a
narrow, dirt path when a man dressed only in a loin cloth, very thin and with his
skin darkened by the sun, came towards me.
He looked at me without seeing me and was murmuring "Where is Shyam?".
Then suddenly aware of my
presence when I was right in front of him he said very loudly but with a choked
voice "Where is Shyam?". I
said "I do not know" and he
became more agitated and in despair repeated several times with an anxious tone
in his voice "Where is Shyam, where is Shyam?" Then I answered
"I cannot see, I do not see where is
He".
I have never forgotten
those eyes, that voice, that forlorn heart, that morning light in Vraja ....
No parrot, bird or cuckoo
warbles
to awake this dawn,
this daybreak light in Vraja
feebly kisses
the nocturnal pout of the
flowers
reluctant now to bloom,
no feet has trampled over them
no pollen hovers the air
no swarm of excited bees
have buzzed after
the honey of His running feet,
forlorn the heart repeats
where is Shyam?
Is this the same wind
that ruffled the curls,
shivered the skin,
that swayed His feather,
and His earrings ?
Stole the scent of the rainy
cloud
from His limbs,
and blew words of love
written on kumkum dusted leaves
?
Is this the same wind?
Carrier now of sighs
and a sole pitiful cry ~
where is Shyam?
Will there still be the moon?
with the stars for limbs
and its nectar-like beams
trickling flickering drops
on Radha's petal-like skin ?
Drops which capture her glow
and turn into moonstones
just as raindrops fall
in seashells
and turn into pearls,
but He has left ~
nothing shines now,
neither the moon nor the gems,
the stars nor the sun,
as a pair of unseeing eyes ask
~
Where is Shyam?
Behind the wheels
fell the dust
with the deafening silence
of His absence.
Now will come no dusk
carrying the notes of flutesongs
in clouds of dust.
The love talks,
the sweet words, the poetry,
the laughs ~ all have sunk
into the stillness of time.
The lanes of Vraja
have no more destinations,
the heart, errant of love,
pleads
where is Shyam?
“Ve-ry-soon-I-wi-ll-ret-urn”
the syllables of Shyam's
promise
barely reach the Gopis' lips
have become their heartbeats,
their only reason to live.
