O my Lord, my all Almighty One, please come! Touch me once, speak with me. Aha! Your words are so sweet, so reassuring, I forget everything when I hear you. Please speak; you must talk to me. There is none other than you and me here; it’s just you and me. Speak, please speak. I know how lowly I am, how vile and sinful! I am also aware of how high you are in comparison; you’re in fact the greatest. Even so, I long for you alone.

Is it unfair for me to long for you like this? Should I not desire you? I am among those who covet women and gold, I am an abominable sinner. Should I not desire to attain you then? Pray speak!

Won’t you speak? What will you say? If I were your devotee, you would have perhaps spoken to me and come near me. But I am no devotee, that’s why you won’t come near me, or speak with me; you don’t even turn to see me.

See, my body is tingling, hair standing on end, there are tears in my eyes as well: is this your touch? Is this verily your touch? Won’t you speak out? Well, why will you tell me anything? You see, due to some karmic blemish, I become restless, I feel as though my mind unwittingly and helplessly strays out to different objects. But you are the indweller, it’s futile to conceal anything from you. You know everything; you tell me, do I not really desire you?

I really desire you!

I want to desire you in such a way that I am rid of every other desire. But I can’t attain you like that; to attain you is not possible for me because it is entirely in your control – only he whom you wish to give yourself to can have you. There is no way anyone can have you unless and until you yourself accept him. Please accept me, make me your own.

Won’t you speak even one word? Why? Why won’t you talk to me? Please speak, say something… Really! I must thank you for your patience! I have been going on talking to you, trying my level best to get you to speak and you aren’t speaking a word.

Okay, stay quiet. I will talk; you listen, because anyway you can’t but listen. Your ears extend in ten directions; you’ll have to listen to whatever I say. What’s more, you reside in the inmost chambers of my heart. You know everything even before I bring it to the lips, but I seek you nonetheless – see, I’ve a desire to see you once. You will come with my Mother to your left, bow and arrow in your hands. I will see you, decorate you, worship you, speak with you; will this desire of mine remain unfulfilled? Will I not able to see you? Speak, speak out…don’t keep mum. Speak, please…

Alright, now you stay quiet. You’re very cruel, heartless and stubborn. Whoever has refuge with you ends up crying! For aeons you have been making devotees cry. It is in your very nature to make people cry. You made Dasharatha and Kaushalya cry. You made my Mother (Sita) shed tears all her life; my mother never had a happy moment once she garlanded you in marriage. She spent her whole life chanting Ram Ram, crying all the time. You are so merciless, so stone-hearted; you didn’t even turn back and glance once. The way you behaved with my Mother, if it were anyone else, she’d have refused to even pronounce your name for the rest of her life, but my mother cried the name Ram her entire life; she prayed for you to be her husband life after life.

No, no…you are not stone-hearted. Even you had to lament so much when you were separated from her; you renounced everything, there is no comparison of your love. No one has the power to sufficiently sing the glory of your love. You love your child so much.

You see, I say so many things to you out of my ignorance, please don’t be angry with me. When you appeared in Dwapar Yuga, you made your heart so hard that even the rock, iron and thunderbolt would shy away in defeat. You only made all cry. It was the streams of tears dropped by the parents which welcomed you in Kamsa’s prison. After that, you played such cruel games in Braja. You came to Mathura to be the king. When you took leave of Nanda, he was so inundated with tears that he couldn’t find his way due to the tears. You are so cruel; you didn’t look back even once. Not a word escaped from your lips.

What’s more, look at Yashoda Ma. She knew nothing other than Gopal. She was crazy after him, saying Gopal, Gopal all the time… it was the same chant as she was awake and asleep, eating or drinking, coming or going. She gave up everything for your sake and cried away to blindness.

Think of the gopis of Braja, didn’t they lose everything for your sake? They renounced their husbands and children, home and abode, kith and kin and they loved you. Listening to the notes of your flute, they rushed alone in the dead of the night, to the Kadamba groves on the banks of Yamuna, in pitch dark where no soul could be seen in miles. That monsoon night was characterized by terrible rain, the path was perilous and they were out to see (you) merciless, deceitful Krishna. You’d just play the flute and they’d rush to you eagerly and impatiently, abandoning their home and hearth, what’s more, they renounced their very attachment to life. Their love was so pure and boundless, if ever one had to give a testimony to great love, it would be of the love of these gopis. It was this love that you trampled upon under your feet. Tell me O dear, was that compassion or plain heartlessness?

And Radha? Well, how limitless, unfathomably deep and boundless was her love! Radha had not even seen you; merely by hearing your name Shyam, that charming and captivating name, she fell for it. The name travelled from her ears to her being; your name Shyam got inscribed in every corner of her heart. And then the name Shyam got imprinted onto Radha’s flesh, it went into her blood- stream, into her bones and marrow. Her body, after constantly chanting your name, became languid and she said:

Naam Rasayan Jaare Emon Abhibhuto Kore
Anger Parashe Na Jaani Taar Ki baa Hobe!

If this is the state attained by merely chanting His name, then I wonder what would happen when I am blessed with His divine touch!

By blessing her with your touch, O cruel one, you robbed her heart and soul! O deceiver, you fled to Mathura!

Radha raged mad and delirious due to separation from Shyam. Lamenting and calling out Hey Shyam, Hey Shyam, she spent a hundred years in Braja. Her lament made the animals and the birds, trees and creepers of Braja cry, but you did not come even once, not even once. Nor did you care to send a single message. After a long, long, long time, you sent Uddhavaji.

To call you cruel would be like heaping praise upon you. In fact, to call you extremely cruel would mean being parsimonious with words. To love you and to marry tears is the same thing. Whoever has loved you, has cried. Not just a little, but incessant continuous crying, day and night.

Do you like to make people cry? Alright. I get it. You like crying. It gives you great pleasure to see tears in the eyes of the devotee, right? It appears, your worship through four quarters of the day, offerings of fifty delicacies and fifty-two offerings to God, and lavishing of gold and silver, jewels and gems, is not as dear to you as the tears from the eyes of your devotee! Fair enough, if tears are what endear you, then I shall worship you with tears. Come! Come and stand in front of me. I shall wash your lotus feet with my tears.