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Picture Yāvaṭa in the slow gold of late morning. The kiṅkarī, the maidservant who lives only to serve, moves about her duties near Śrīmatī's house, and the day is ordinary in the way the most luminous days always begin. Then, from a grove not far off, the flute. Śyāma has lifted it to His lips, and the soft notes come threading through the leaves.

Everyone in Vraja leans toward that sound. But She, O Rādhe, leans the way a serpent sways when the charmer's mantra finds it: helpless, drawn from the center of the body, no thought in it at all. The flute carries on its breath the fragrance of Śyāmasundara, and She catches it the way a bee catches the first sweetness of a flower and lifts, all at once, into the air. She rushes from the house. And the maidservant, who follows Her like Her own shadow, hurries alongside, murmuring sweet talk of Kṛṣṇa to steady Her trembling.

Now watch what happens to beauty when love arrives. As Śrīmatī comes within sight of Śyāma, Her loveliness does not merely shine; it pours. It is as though beauty itself can no longer be held inside Her body and gushes out at the seams. Dekho, dekho, the tradition sings: just see, just see, how many waves of ecstatic rasa rise in the ocean of Their love when the two of Them turn their moon-faces toward each other. The hairs of Their bodies stand erect, and tears of joy brim and spill from Their eyes. On those very waves the fish-eyes of Śyāma swim, and the eyes of the maidservant swim there too, in that nectar-sea of beauty and sweetness adorned with the soft ornaments of hāva and bhāva. This is the beauty the heart can never release.

And it is true of Him as well, this not-forgetting. Mahāprabhu sings, in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, of how Kṛṣṇa's dark form is like the glue of a mango tree: once it touches the eyes, it rises forever in the heart, and once it enters the minds of the women of Vraja, no effort, however great, can pry it loose again; it lodges like the thorn of the seya-berry tree, a thorn that will not be drawn. Yet He who enchants every woman is Himself the One who cannot forget Her. In the first dawning of love, the pūrva-rāga, He confesses it in the words Govinda Dāsa gives Him: aparūpa rūpa nayane majhu lāgi, anukhana mādhurī marama hi jāgi, this wondrous form appeared before My eyes, and ever since, its sweetness keeps waking in the marrow of My heart. The enchanter is enchanted. The forgetter of all the worlds cannot forget one girl of Barsānā.

The kiṅkarī, watching, drinks in the marvel the verse names piece by piece, and we may follow her gaze. First, the very entrance of youth into Her body, nava-vayo, the threshold-hour where childhood thins and womanhood is only just beginning to break like dawn. In this age the breasts are barely beginning to swell, the eyes turn just slightly restless, a mild smile keeps coming and going at the corners of the mouth, and the mind is faintly stirred by feelings it cannot yet name. O the tenderness of this hour, this freshness arriving. It is not a thing to be forgotten. And the ācāryas, the tradition says, have been merciful to us latecomers, blessing the neophyte by setting down what they tasted in books like this very Rādhā-Rasa-Sudhā-Nidhi, so that we who came after might catch even a drop. Yet so long as we are sunk in the consciousness of this material body, these things cannot truly be understood; they can only be longed for, and approached on bended knee.

Then the eyes. What gestures She makes with them, dṛg-bhaṅgī, casting glance after delectable glance toward Śyāma, and with each glance the whole of Vṛndāvana grows more beautiful and Śyāma grows more captive. The tradition reminds us, from the Kṛṣṇa-karṇāmṛta, that Kṛṣṇa's own gaze is called cooling, śītalaṁ dṛṣṭi-pāte, a glance that soothes wherever it falls; and yet Her sidelong look soothes even His scorched and longing heart. His coolness itself must be cooled by Her glance. And the maidservant feels the whole exchange shiver through her own breast, savouring Śyāma's savour as her own.

Then the wonder the verse calls rasa-ghana, dense and brimming with flavour: those two golden pitcher-like vessels at Her breast, the vakṣoja-kumbha that hold, it seems, the very concentrate of sweetness, astonishing to behold. Bewitched, Śyāma rests His eyes there, and the maidservant, through the agitated tenderness of the divine Pair's hearts, tastes that sweetness too, never as a grasper, always as the one who serves the tasting of the Two.

And now, immersed, as if some mantra has bound Him, Śyāma comes slowly toward the golden-statue stillness of Rādhā and speaks, half-feigning, all-trembling. O beautiful one, who are You? Have You risen on the paths of Vṛndāvana to light up the whole forest with this form that enchants the three worlds? Are You the household deity of radiance herself, or the very goddess of youthful beauty? Are You a new-found treasure of sweetness, a flood of grace, a river of bliss, a stream of nectar? No, You can be none of these, for all of them heaped together could not equal You. I am desperate to know You. O Kalyāṇī, auspicious lovely girl, tell Me who You are.

Hearing this, a faint nectarean smile breaks over Her bimba-fruit lips, that red ripe sweetness, and the maidservant floats away on that smile right alongside Śyāma. And then Her voice, Her vāṇī. Lightly smiling, She answers: and why should You want My acquaintance? I am here worshipping the sun-god and gathering flowers, nothing more. Can no one protect honest housewives from Your loose and reckless roaming through Vṛndāvana? Why do You come where women are meant to walk in peace? Go, go quickly. He is undone by these sweet words. The light from Her teeth, He thinks, cannot be likened to pearls; the rays from Her body cannot be likened to gold; Her voice cannot be likened even to the cuckoo's, for all comparison falls short.

Full of longing, Śyāma reaches to catch the hem of Her garment, and laughing She slips away. How sweet, how unforgettable, this play. The bimba-red lips, the smile that follows the question, the speech that pretends rebuke and pours honey, the līlā-gati, that slow sauntering walk by which She turns and flees only to draw Him on. Not one of these can be set down by the heart that has once seen it. And so Śrīpāda, in his servant's form, does not ask to own this beauty. He prays only this: may these unforgettable pastimes find a fitting seat in my heart, and stay.