KRISHNA BEFORE & AFTER In the Raas Lilas of Vrindavan, adolescent Krishnas still frolic with herds of boys dressed as gopis. Shreevatsa Nevatia enters a world where tradition and commerce collide as much as entertainment and religiosity

KRISHNA BEFORE & AFTER

In the Raas Lilas of Vrindavan, adolescent Krishnas still frolic with herds of boys dressed as gopis. Shreevatsa Nevatia enters a world where tradition and commerce collide as much as entertainment and religiosity

Sitting backstage with Pradip Sharma can be a novel experience. There is a clockwork precision with which the eighteen-year-old goes about applying his own makeup. It takes him all of a couple of minutes to add a wig to his already long hair. A peacock feather is placed in his ornamental crown while the last smudge of paint and rouge is applied to his face. Sharma’s transformation into Krishna does not affect his alacrity or his speech. “There isn’t any effort to what I do or at least I can’t say I feel it. It is Krishna who is making me do it all,” he says. Divine inspiration apart, there is also a sense of practiced ease that has possibly crept into Sharma’s portrayal of Vishnu’s last avatar. Part of Vrindavan’s Braj Raas Lila Sanstha, he has been travelling with the theatre group for five years now, playing the role of Krishna. He takes his place on stage with a certain assurance, sitting on a shimmering throne, draping his arm around an eleven-year-old boy who plays the cherubic card to double up as Radha. A section of the Agra audience is given access to the stage. They throng at Sharma’s feet, they feed him prasad and garland him with impatience. Even before you can ask if any of this devotion is having an adverse impact on the egoistic impulses of a late adolescent, Sharma seems to have read your mind. “It’s not always like this,” he confesses. “There are always some who will look at you as Krishna. Some who won’t. It’s a bit like Krishna himself. Kansa never saw him the way his parents did. His friends always looked at him as a friend. If I think about it, I am no different.” Sharma’s constant self-association with a deity is not entirely the product of his own mind or imagination. The Braj Raas Lila Sanstha is run by Padma Shri awardee Swami Hargobind. Minutes before the 90-year-old is helped on stage to punctuate Sharma’s performance of the Raas Lila with little sermons of his own, he says that he has taken to calling his group’s Krishna natkhat. “Because that’s how I see him, a divine mischievous child.” While Sharma’s comfort with text messaging seems to have replaced the flute with the cellphone, for Swami Hargobind, no imperative of globalisation or need of commerce could ever trump the tradition of his art. Centuries ago, he says, a sage was ordered by god himself to travel with four Brahmin boys, performing various aspects of the Raas. “Till date, there have only ever been Brahmins in my productions, and never any girls.” the comfort of continuum Back in Vrindavan, there are many who speak of Swami Hargobind and his Raas Lila with a rare respect. In a land where there are now nearly a hundred mandalis or groups that perform the Raas through the year, pedigree and repertoire have come to mean much. No one knows the importance of that quite as keenly as Hari Vallabh Sharma, who after playing the role of Krishna from when he was five to when he was twenty, has come to be recognised as the town’s Chotte Thakur. Sharma starts with an assertion and then goes on to follow it up with a definition. “In my family, I am the 16th generation of descendants who facilitates the Raas Lila. And in my mind, the performance of the Raas Lila incorporates everything from entertainment and dance to divinity and sringar. This is our culture, this is its wealth and it is our duty to save it.” A Raas Lila often incorporates varied dances that have Krishna at the centre and the gopis on the periphery. Much of the time these enactments are followed by the staging of little episodes from Krishna’s life, scenes where he is often the only male. The question seems a bit too obvious. Why haven’t these theatrical Raas Lilas been able to finally incorporate women and girls in their fold? Hari Vallabh Sharma, who now runs the group Shri Shyamashyam Lila Sansthan is candid in his answer. “As theatre groups, we travel a lot. We cannot run the risk of something untoward happening between our cast members when we are away. Also, what if the menstrual cycle of a girl ruins the sanctity of our stage? We definitely can’t risk that.” Swami Devkinandan Maharaj of the Vrindavan Raas Lila Sansthan is even more vociferous in his refusal to adapt. Sitting on a coloured makeshift throne, this yesteryear Krishna and present day preacher says, “None of the groups that have come up in the recent past have conformed to the strict rules that were once laid out. When they travel, they take girls to perform on stage with them. People are already going in the wrong direction. We have to check them.” Swami Devkinandan’s authoritarian approach gets strangely reflected in the nostalgia of Govind Shankar Sharma, who runs a curio shop outside Vrindavan’s ISKCON temple. He says, “While there might be more glamour and glitter now, the Raas Lila of today lacks the divine emotionality it had 25-30 years ago. It’s all about the profit now.” Swami Avdhesh Sharma, the 54-year-old son of Swami Hargobindji, tries to provide some conciliatory balm. Sharma, who runs a mandali of his own, says that there are at least 5,000 people in Vrindavan who make their livelihood from the Raas. “There are people that need to be paid. Earlier, the minute a child grew a moustache, he would be taken off stage. These days he is allowed to go on till at least eighteen for the sake of the audience. Sometimes you will have to cater to the gallery.” World that was a stage After having navigated the little lanes alongside Vrindavan’s cows, you finally reach a derelict theatre that goes by the name of Kishore Van. The gallery at Kishore Van remains vacant. The stage, which was once used for varied performances of the Raas now plays house to dusty furniture and silent pigeons. Govind Kishore Goswami is 78. His family has been the custodian of this property for centuries, informs Goswami. Ever since a gopi in Radha and Krishna’s inner circle had been reincarnated to again spend her time her in Vrindavan. The stories that Goswami tells blur the lines between myth and history, but there’s a realistic certainty to how Kishore Van lost its shade of glory. “The mandalis would first come here and perform free of cost. There would be an audience to sustain the cast and crew. But now, you could never have that. Every group has a fee of at least Rs1,500.” As the surprisingly alert Goswami points to a section of the stage, he says in a hushed tone,“Remember one thing though. Neither Krishna nor Radha were born in Vrindavan. Their love was discovered here. It’s a land where anything can happen. Anything can be invented in these parts.” For now that ‘anything’ is perhaps just a hundred adolescent Krishnas.