6 verses · ~1 min
तुम मिले, प्राण में रागिनी छा गई!
भूलती-सी जवानी नई हो उठी, भूलती-सी कहानी नई हो उठी, जिस दिवस प्राण में नेह बंसी बजी, बालपन की रवानी नई हो उठी। किन्तु रसहीन सारे बरस रसभरे हो गए जब तुम्हारी छटा भा गई। तुम मिले, प्राण में रागिनी छा गई।
घनों में मधुर स्वर्ण-रेखा मिली, नयन ने नयन रूप देखा, मिली- पुतलियों में डुबा कर नज़र की कलम नेह के पृष्ठ को चित्र-लेखा मिली; बीतते-से दिवस लौटकर आ गए बालपन ले जवानी संभल आ गई।
तुम मिले, प्राण में रागिनी छा गई।
तुम मिले तो प्रणय पर छटा छा गई, चुंबनों, सावंली-सी घटा छा गई, एक युग, एक दिन, एक पल, एक क्षण पर गगन से उतर चंचला आ गई।
प्राण का दान दे, दान में प्राण ले अर्चना की अमर चाँदनी छा गई। तुम मिले, प्राण में रागिनी छा गई।
इति
The Poet
माखनलाल चतुर्वेदी
Makhanlal Chaturvedi
1889 · 1968
There is a poem that lives at the absolute center of the Indian literary imagination of sacrifice a poem in which a flower, offered for worship, instead asks to be pressed into the wreath of a martyr, to fall upon a brave man's chest as he marches into the cannon's mouth. That poem is Pushp Ki Abhilasha The Flower's Longing and its author, Makhanlal Chaturvedi, composed it with the hand of a man who had already offered himself in exactly the same spirit. He was imprisoned multiple times by British colonial authorities for his journalism and his poetry. He was the editor of Prabha, one of the luminous literary political journals of the independence era. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi's very first prize in 1955, and the Padma Bhushan followed. But what no institutional recognition can fully capture is the texture of his moral life the extraordinary combination of burning patriotic fire and absolute personal humility, a man who wrote about martyrdom while quietly being available for it himself. Born in Babai in 1889, he lived to see the independence he had helped dream into existence, and then he wrote on for two decades more, finding in a free India new obligations for the literary conscience. He is the poet of pure sacrifice not sacrifice celebrated from a distance, but sacrifice inhabited, practiced, and offered without expectation of return.
Paired Painting
Sita Swayamvar
In this momentous scene from the Ramayana, Prince Rama stands at the center of the court of King Janaka. The tension is palpable as he lifts the heavy celestial bow of Shiva, a feat required to win the hand of Princess Sita. Raja Ravi Varma captures the intersection of divine grace and human valor: he portrays the young prince with effortless poise while onlookers watch in a mixture of awe and anticipation. This work served as a bridge between traditional Indian iconography and Western academic realism, effectively bringing the ancient epics into the living spaces of countless families across the subcontinent.
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