I’ve been meaning to create content around Navras for a while now. I know its a task of enormous proportions, delving into its philosophical and aesthetic depths, attempting to understand the transformative potential of each rasa, its intricate nuances, and how it intersects with our lived experiences, while remaining rooted in the foundational framework laid down by Bharata Muni in the Nāṭyaśāstra.
When I started writing this poem, two questions were very clear in my mind:
1. What does it mean to love?
2. Does love always mean loving another person?
That’s when a seed of an idea for writing about Navras was planted. It’s a humble attempt to explore the essence of the Rasas through my own interpretation and understanding of each Rasa, shaped by my lived experiences.
Śṛṅgāra, is the first of the Nine Rasas I’m exploring. I wanted to capture the yearning and longing that lie beneath our experience of love. That insatiable desire to belong, to be loved, to feel accepted completely and wholeheartedly, without conditions, expectations and preconceived notions.
Hence, Śṛṅgāra became less about romance, passion, and adornment, and more about the journey, from longing, to looking within, to recognition, acceptance, and eventually, surrender.
For me, love extends beyond the physical; it becomes a process of looking inward rather than outward. Because everything that we seek to experience in the world already exists within us.
There’s an untapped reservoir of energy within us, an indescribable ecstasy that gives our desires momentum; a fountain of boundless happiness and bliss. That is the feeling I wanted to embody in this poem and give it a voice of its own.
This poem is my interpretation of Śṛṅgāra.
It’s not merely love but the unquenchable need of a seeker to belong in communion with the divine!
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