6 verses · ~1 min
जब तक मैं मैं हूँ, तुम तुम हो, है जीवन में जीवन। कोई नहीं छीन सकता तुमको मुझसे मेरे धन॥
आओ मेरे हृदय-कुंज में निर्भय करो विहार। सदा बंद रखूँगी मैं अपने अंतर का द्वार॥
नहीं लांछना की लपटें प्रिय तुम तक जाने पाएँगीं। पीड़ित करने तुम्हें वेदनाएं न वहाँ आएँगीं॥
अपने उच्छ्वासों से मिश्रित कर आँसू की बूँद। शीतल कर दूँगी तुम प्रियतम सोना आँखें मूँद॥
जगने पर पीना छक-छककर मेरी मदिरा की प्याली। एक बूँद भी शेष न रहने देना करना खाली॥
नशा उतर जाए फिर भी बाकी रह जाए खुमारी। रह जाए लाली आँखों में स्मृतियाँ प्यारी-प्यारी॥
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
Radha and Sakhi
In this tender scene, we witness a moment of quiet grace, where Radha, the eternal beloved of Krishna, is attended to by her devoted sakhi. The artist captures a delicate ritual of affection, as the sakhi applies a tilak to Radha's forehead. It is a work that breathes with the spirit of domestic divinity, blending the refined aesthetics of academic oil painting with the intimate warmth of Indian tradition. Through the medium of the oleograph, this image transcended the walls of galleries, entering the hearts and homes of millions, and forever shaping the visual language of devotion in the Indian consciousness.
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