When Krishna and Radha exchanged Clothes
This 1825 Guler painting, acquired by Ananda Coomaraswamy for MFA, Boston, moved me beyond words.
What happens when Krishna and Radha exchange clothes?
The Doha which accompanies this painting is this:
"Radhahari Hariradha ke vania sanketa. Dampati rati viparita sush sahaija surat hun laet"
In Ananda Coomaraswamy's translation,
"The station of Radha being made Hari and Hari, Radha, The twain with affections transposed, easily attain to a blissful union. He maketh Himself as we are, that we may be as he is."
Beyond poetics, we are in fascinating times where life partners can exchange clothes happily and discover what they find missing in their lives.
I don’t know about you. Pandemic has been a blessing in disguise for me to push the boundaries of traditional roles of life partners.
If you think about it: We are two different people when we are at home and work. For the longest period, I found that while I was fairly competent at work, the same couldn’t be said about home.
At first, I attributed the blame to the perils of being a writer. More often, I wandered around with thoughts noodling over my head. It took a while to see that being consumed in thoughts was the worst way to be competent at home.
And as I began to discover ways to be competent at home, I realized that I had to transform my relationship with home. Unless I am deeply attuned with the rhythms of cooking, the live elements that are in the home (plants, vegetables, clothes, and so much more ), it was going to be difficult to be competent at home.
This is a beautiful read by my friend David Week on the Inner Kitchen
Thanks to the infinite patience of my life partner, I can say that I have begun to be much more mindful at home and see the possibilities that emerge in exchanging clothes and discovering who I could be.
When humans discover this inner balance of energies, (the ardha-nari, as Shiva-parvati are called), perhaps, there is a glimmer of possibility that we do the work that is needed to restore masculine-feminine energies in planet Earth.