Long many years ago I had read lrving Stone’s ‘Agony and the Ecstasy’. It reminded me of my own grandmother, in a manner redolent of Goldy’s own, telling me, “You’ll never know joy until you have experienced sorrow.” The main contrast between the two states of mind lies in this: Sorrow is caused principally by the material world outside, of objects and experiences. Joy comes-indeed can come – only from within, which is what Goldy sought to convey at an earlier show of hers,” A journey inward”.
The most difficult of journeys, yes; but the easiest too. But you have to be a Meera: lost to everything excepting her Girdhar, the magic of his flute, the feather touch of his love – neither poison nor malice could harm her- for she was in ecstatic union with her Beloved. Or a Buddha who when he saw old age, disease and death all around him, retreated into himself and found the truth and the ecstasy that comes with it. Did he not say “Ananda, be a lamp unto thyself!”
Or an M.S Subbulakshmi who picks up the cymbals as she starts singing bhajans at the end of a four-hour long concert. Lost to the world she comes to the end, tears streaming down her eyes-tears of pure ecstasy. Of her it was said when she ceased to sing at the end of each concert (she had sung at thousands of them in her life) there was stillness – the stillness not of death but stillness that is sheathed in pure bliss born of svanubhava. Or of a Shiva who transforms in due course his Raudra Tandava to Ananda Tandava (form dance fierce to dance joyous), signifying the pure bliss of one being born again at the end of a cycle- the Lord himself said “Sambhavami yuge yuge!”.
Or a Radha who lives for and in her beloved Kanha. Or each one of the thousand Gopis who during Raasleela is sure that her own Yashodanandan is dancing only with her, her heart filled with pity for the nine hundred and ninety-nine others discarded by him! Or the floating earthen Diya lamp in the golden sunset on the Ganga, rushing as it where to envelope the Eternal in her private flame of joy – Prithvi (Earth) as Tejah (Fire) on the steaming Apaha (water), fanned by Vayu (Wind) and reaching out the Akasha, Space and beyond, a serendipitous confluence of the Pancha bhootas (Five Primordial Elements)!
Or Ramakrishna Paramahamsa who went into a trance of unalloyed ecstasy as he danced before his Ma Kali at Dakshineshwar. Or the portly potbellied Ganesha dancing away to glory at having been able to write the entire epic of Mahabharata to the dictation of Vyasa, although in the process he had to break off one of his tusks to use as a stylus, in the recollected memory of the total bliss he experienced while being the amanuensis to bring alive the Lord’s incarnation and his leelas. One could go on ……And Goldy has seized not only on these legends but on these “lived” experiences to wield her brush and use her colours – providentially, as it happens, not on the synthetic outpourings today of millions of self-styled gurus the world over! As the wag said, dervish is a short hop from devilish; and that is why Dervishes and Sufis are so few while the other kind abound!
My own perception is that these legends are what undoubtedly have directed Goldy’s imagination through her own artistic perception and talent, to paint these and many others in yet another inspired foray into her own Inner world – to show that Sat, Chit and Ananda are to be found only within and not anywhere else.
Muthusamy Varadarajan, IAS (Retd.)
Formerly Secretary to Government Of India
Chief Advisor, OSIANs
Member- National Minorities Commission
Chairman- National Museum Expert Committee
