Radha-Krishna and the irony

Few days back, I received a wedding invitation of one of my friends. Naturally I was very excited about my friend getting married but as i started reading the card, I was little perplexed. This card had a beautiful picture of Radha-Krishna painted on it and seek their blessings for the couple. Yes, I know that Radha-Krishna are considered epitome of love but I found their picture on the wedding card quite ironic as their love existed outside the wed-lock and broke the conventional rules of  society.

This immortal love story began during adolescence years of Krishna. Young Krishna or Kahna, name by which he is fondly called, used to take his cows for grazing near lake in Gokul. There he would play his flute. The music from his flute was so beautiful and mesmerizing that all the Gopis or cow-girls, would leave what-ever work they were doing and dance around him. All the Gopis yearned for Kahna but Kahna yearned for a special Gopi - Radha. But like all great love stories there was a problem- Radha was married. This problem was further elevated by the fact that she was married to Ryana, who was brother of Yosoda [Krishna's foster mother], hence making Radha, Krishna's Mami. So not only was this love illicit and adulterous but perhaps of highest order. But then the feeling of love was so intense that they didn't care about the society and their reputation. Every night Radha used to slip out of her house in secret to meet her Kahna on the banks of Yamuna. There in flowery meadows, Kahna would play his flute and Radha would dance to it. Their love was unbound by law, custom or conventions.

Their love is not easy to fathom or accommodate using our conventional morality. The fact that Krishna is considered God, makes it even more fascinating and intriguing. Now even if one's sense of morality tells them that this is adulterous and illicit relationship, just the fact that adultery was committed by God causes dissonance. There are lots of interesting ways in which people have tried to resolve this dissonance over centuries.

Moralists who find extra-marital affair too scandalous have added few back stories to this narrative like in Goloka, Radha was cursed by Dama, Krishna's friend, that she will be separated from Krishna for one hundred years when they come to earth.Or in another story Radha and Krishna were married secretly by Brahma when they were kids.

Liberal Romantics argues that illicit love is superior to married love as it is given freely and have no legal claims and is thus selfless.Married love on the contrary functions according to rights and obligations in which both partners have specific expectations of each other. It is hence limited by this sense of duty which husband and wife naturally acquire towards one another. They argue that love at the highest and purest form is so profound that it requires no sense of duty and flows absolutely spontaneously not caring about anything. Radha loved Krishna in spite of everything, not because she had an obligation to him.

 Some see Radha's love for Krishna as a metaphor which represents our unrequited longings which are suppressed by society. Social norms compels us to behave in a particular way and prevent us from being spontaneous and true to our inner spirit. Every night Radha and Krishna's reunion and rejoicing on the banks of Yamuna ,acknowledges this human condition.

The beauty of this great love story is that it gives everybody a choice of how they want to view this relationship. It says nothing about the relationship but more about our attitude towards life and society.