3 verses · ~1 min
डाल पर के मुरझाए फूल! हृदय में मत कर वृथा गुमान। नहीं है सुमन कुंज में अभी इसी से है तेरा सम्मान॥
मधुप जो करते अनुनय विनय बने तेरे चरणों के दास। नई कलियों को खिलती देख नहीं आवेंगे तेरे पास॥
सहेगा कैसे वह अपमान? उठेगी वृथा हृदय में शूल। भुलावा है, मत करना गर्व डाल पर के मुरझाए फूल॥
इति
The Poet
सुभद्राकुमारी चौहान
Subhadra Kumari Chauhan
1904 · 1948
There is a moment in every liberation movement when the struggle finds the poem that becomes its most essential utterance, not because the poem is merely rhetorical, but because it crystallizes an emotion so precisely that an entire people recognize themselves inside it. Subhadra Kumari Chauhan provided such a moment with Jhansi Ki Rani, her electric account of the warrior queen of Jhansi. This poem was so concentrated in its energy and so clear in its moral architecture that generations of Indian schoolchildren have carried it inside them as something closer to memory than memorization. But to reduce Chauhan to a single poem would be a severe literary injustice. She was an active participant in the independence movement who walked the path of satyagraha herself, becoming one of the first women to be imprisoned for civil disobedience. She was a poet of domestic tenderness, exploring childhood and the complex inner life of Indian women that formal literature had largely chosen to ignore. Born in 1904, she died in a road accident in 1948 too soon and too abruptly. Her voice remained fully alive and deeply necessary. She gave the warrior women of Indian mythology a voice, and in doing so, she became one herself.
Paired Painting
Damayanti in the Forest
In this poignant composition, Raja Ravi Varma captures the profound solitude of Damayanti, the princess of Vidarbha, as she traverses the wilderness. Following the heartbreak of being separated from her husband Nala, she wanders through the dense forest, her spirit tested yet her grace undiminished. The artist masterfully employs the golden light of the setting sun to mirror the inner luminescence of her soul, even amidst the wild landscape. The towering palm tree and the distant, rugged terrain emphasize her vulnerability, yet her contemplative gaze speaks of a quiet, enduring resilience that defines her character in the epic Mahabharata.
Open the viewer →