KarunaAdvanced

यह किसका मन डोला

Yeh Kiska Man Dola

Makhanlal Chaturvedi

2 min read 14 versesMind Heart Rain

14 verses · ~2 min

यह किसका मन डोला? मृदुल पुतलियों के उछाल पर, पलकों के हिलते तमाल पर, नि:श्वासों के ज्वाल-जाल पर, कौन लिख रहा व्यथा कथा?

किसका धीरज `हाँ' बोला? किस पर बरस पड़ीं यह घड़ियाँ यह किसका मन डोला?

कस्र्णा के उलझे तारों से, विवश बिखरती मनुहारों से, आशा के टूटे द्वारों से- झाँक-झाँककर, तरल शाप में-

किसने यों वर घोला कैसे काले दाग पड़ गये! यह किसका मन डोला?

फूटे क्यों अभाव के छाले, पड़ने लगे ललक के लाले, यह कैसे सुहाग पर ताले! अरी मधुरिमा पनघट पर यह-

घट का बंधन खोला? गुन की फाँसी टूटी लखकर यह किसका मन डोला?

अंधकार के श्याम तार पर, पुतली का वैभव निखारकर, वेणी की गाँठें सँवारकर, चाँद और तम में प्रिय कैसा-

यह रिश्ता मुँह-बोला? वेणु और वेणी में झगड़ा यह किसका मन डोला?

बेचारा गुलाब था चटका उससे भूमि-कम्प का झटका लेखा, और सजनि घट-घट का! यह धीरज, सतपुड़ा शिखर-

सा स्थिर, हो गया हिंडोला, फूलों के रेशे की फाँसी यह किसका मन डोला?

एक आँख में सावन छाया, दूजी में भादों भर आया घड़ी झड़ी थी, झड़ी घड़ी थी गरजन, बरसन, पंकिल, मलजल,

छुपा `सुवर्ण खटोला' रो-रो खोया चाँद हाय री? यह किसका मन डोला?

मैं बरसी तो बाढ़ मुझी में? दीखे आँखों, दूखे जी में यह दूरी करनी, कथनी में दैव, स्नेह के अन्तराल से

गरल गले चढ़ बोला मैं साँसों के पद सुहला ली यह किसका मन डोला?

इति

Rasa: Karuna
Stanzas: 14
Lines: 50
Reading time: ~2 min
Form: Geet (lyric song)
Metre: geet
Rhyme: irregular

The poem evokes a profound sense of karuna (pathos), capturing the internal fragmentation of a soul caught between longing and desolation amidst the suffocating humidity of the monsoon. A visual interpretation would feature a lone, sorrowful figure standing near a muddy, rain-drenched village well, their silhouette fractured by the interplay of deep shadows and the pale, mocking light of a veiled moon. The imagery of broken braids, choked gullets, and the violent tremors of a wilting rose signifies a collapse of emotional stability, where the steady mountain-like endurance of the heart is suddenly undone, swinging violently like a chaotic pendulum. The artistic tone is one of tragic instability, transforming the romantic symbols of the moon, flute, and blooming flowers into instruments of psychological entrapment and the bitter taste of poison.

यह किसका मन डोला (Yeh Kiska Man Dola), by Makhanlal Chaturvedi runs to 50 lines across 14 stanzas, set as Seven stanzas of varying lengths with a repeating question. Its governing rasa is Karuna, shaded by Shringara. The metre is geet. Rhyme falls as irregular.

It belongs to the 1889 · 1968 span of Makhanlal Chaturvedi's working life, and keeps the plain, spoken register that period is known for.

Read it for हृदय की गहरी विरह-वेदना और अस्थिरता and प्रकृति के माध्यम से आंतरिक रुदन की अभिव्यक्ति. 3 words in it carry older or regional senses, so the poem rewards a second pass.

The verse is hung beside Dussasana Humiliating Draupadi: This emotionally devastating scene radiates a mood of profound sorrow, vulnerability, and impending violation within the confines of a tense royal assembly. The narrative captures the heartrending Vastraharan episode…

Words worth pausing on

मनुहार: मनाने की क्रिया या खुशामद
पंकिल: कीचड़ से भरा हुआ
गरल: विष या जहर

Threads

Mind Heart Rain Monsoon Moon

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.