THE MIRROR

All was still and silent in Krishna’s bedchamber. The Pranava mantra that continued to resonate in the sanctum seemed to have become infrasound. The bouquet of floral odours was now barely a hint of the misty aromatic essence. The golden aura in the room looked tinted. The overwhelmed and trembling Paavai pengal, who stood by the door of the sacred chamber, stiffened—tongue-dried and scared to even tremble. 

Nothing seemed to exist in that sphere any more. 

That sphere where now prevailed only the still sleeping Lord Narayana and Nappinai. 

And Kothai.

Kothai, who had succumbed to ego. 

Kothai, who realised her mistake in the silence that followed her utterance. 

Kothai, who, now flushed with shame, stood with her head bowed down.

A few drops of tears from her downcast eyes that, only moments before, had held a reflected image of Perumal and His Piratti, fell to the ground with a noiseless splat. 

She closed her eyes to drain out the rest of the saltiness. 

“Let them go; tears of self-pity they are,

It doesn’t do well for Perumal’s devotee

To shed tears of self-pity.

I shall cry no more now.”

Kothai, her eyes dry now, looked up at her Perumal and Piratti, at the ivory-legged bedstead upon which they lay supine. The four legs of the cot were not tusks of dead animals but the four-fold elephantine ego of a devotee that had lived in her and was dead now. 

“O Madhava, from the very depths of my consciousness,

I ask You to please forgive me my folly.

O Narasimha, You who manifested, for Prahalada,

In but a brief second,

So did You, O Amalan, in Your silence, manifest for this Kothai

As awareness,

Exposing the illusion of ego and saving me from the monstrous evil.

Manifest You did as awareness, for Thou art the Formless entity,

But O Purushottama, I am but a simple village girl

Who understands not Your Formlessness,

But pines to see Your resplendent incarnation.

So, won’t You not awaken for me, my heart’s desire to fulfill?

“O Krishna, You, the epitome of valour and strength,

Who obliged the thirty three crore immortals,

Their prayers for power, position, prosperity,

Why, even fought their battles for them, O Nimalan,

Often leading from the front, 

Not minding the risk,

How could this Kothai doubt

That You, the golden-hued One,

Would not come to embellish this poor devotee?

For, it is not monetary wealth that Kothai wants

But the abundance of just being close to You!

“O Narayana, You who would to the aid of a devotee 

Even before they feel pain,

How brazenly mistaken can I be 

To assume that You, O Nirmalan, would

This devotee’s heart break with the pain of separation?

Wake up, O my Lord Parthasarathy,

Wake up so this devotee, foolish in her love for You,

Can sing and chant the name of Hari 

To her heart’s content.

Wake up please, for this Kothai, 

But wake up at Your own Will.

I know You lie in pretentious ignorance of my presence,

I will entreat You no more, O Vimalan, 

But bow my head in supplication to Your Will.

So saying, Kothai bowed her head yet again; this time, it was not with the flushes of shame, but with impassioned devotion. The stifled atmosphere in the chamber became breezy again. The Paavai pengal came out of the reverie that had entrapped them, heaving a sigh of relief. Their throats didn’t seem parched anymore. The Pranava mantra soothed their ears anew and their olfactory senses became alive afresh. Everything around was aglow. Everything had come back into existence.

Kothai, the palms of her hands enjoined in namaskara mudra, continued:

“O Nappinai, pardon me please my hasty accusations,

For, I know now that both my Perumal and Piratti

Vie with each other, their devotees to help.

There is not One without the other,

And none is greater than the other.

“O Mahalakshmi, bountiful is your bosom,

Rounded jars, deep and well endowed, 

Isn’t that where our Perumal lives? In those depths?

Difficult it can be to bring up treasures

From a fathomless abyss,

But true devotion definitely will draw

My Madhusudhana from your chest 

To liberate me.

Your luscious red lips pronounce

Postulations intense in knowledge and wisdom,

That anyone who listens will be lost in the profundity 

Of your philosophies.

But even Krishna, who is always all ears for your scholarliness,

Will definitely wake up to listen

To the rustic songs of devoted village pengal.

“O Nappina with waist so slender,

Because, renounced have you all joys except the highest—

The joy of serving Him,

And detached are you from all wealth except the ultimate—

The incomparable treasure that our Hari is,

We take a leaf from your book.

O Nappinai, O Mother, please wake up

And guide us to be in the service of our Lord,

For, surrendered have we to His Will

But supplication is not inactivity,

So, wake up please and give us what we need

So we may worship Him with service."

Nappinai called out to Kothai from her resting place and told her that she was not sleeping but very much awake, and that she was thinking of ways to rouse Krishna. 

“In the meantime, what may I do for you to guide you in your aspiration to serve our Lord Parthasarathy?”

“O Nappinai, give us some oil, on our head to apply,

Bathe we will in the name of our Perumal,

And when we are back, thus purified,

Give us a fan so we may cool Him in His slumber.

Give us too a mirror, not the one to admire our beauty with,

But the one that reveals to us the ahamkaras 

Of my and mine,

For, isn’t that why, to acquire such a mirror,

That our Guru blessed us with the Pranava mantra?”

Om! Om! Om! 

Photographs courtesy: Shankar Ramakrishnan
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Please note: This is NOT a translation of the divine verses sung by the revered poet-saint Andal. I have not the qualifications for that undertaking, my greatest limitation being my inability to read and write Tamil. Nor can I claim to be as devoted and as passionate as Andal was to Her Rangamannar. But I do love Krishna in my own way and these verses are just my attempt at writing a poem a day, as Kothai did over the thirty days of Margazhi, centuries ago. The muse for each of these thirty verses are the thirty songs that form the thirty paasurams of Thiruppavai. As I can't read or write Tamil, I have had to look up the Internet for translations and transliterations of Thiruppavai. I have provided the links below. Also for the same reason is why my poetry is in English. 
I offer this humble work at the Lotus Feet of my Lord Parthasarathy, my Krishna, my Flautist of Brindaranyam.
Click here for Thiruppavai series 2020, Day 19 of Margazhi: 03 January 2021EGO

 

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