‘VIRAH- Realizing Love from Separation’ by Tanya Shah

Thesis Abstract:

What happens when you’re isolated all of a sudden? When you find yourself staring right into an abyss and seeing the stark reflection of loneliness hitting the receptors of your eyes. Loneliness does not come from having no people around you, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to you. It is then when, oppositions fuse, ecstasy leads to oblivion, and the color of joy turns into the color of mourning.

Humans are social beings. Language is the way we make human contact and achieve intimacy. We speak and listen and in the process of linguistic interaction, intimacy is realized. To understand one another and be understood is an intimate transaction. While exploring Vrindavan, I came across three distinct forms of intimacy: the sense of belonging felt by widows who are largely isolated and ostracized by society, a common bond over loneliness and sisterhood as well as an undying love and longing for their dead husbands. Of all the imprints of history engraved in the ancient and archaic landscape of Vrindavan, widows are the oldest link accessible between Vrindavan’s written history and the present. Widows disposed by their families travel to Vrindavan to find solace in the devotion and worship of Krishna both as a God and a divine husband. These women have withdrawn themselves from the worldly affairs by immersing into religion to escape marginalization, personal loss and their anticipation of moksha from the cycle of mortal life by discovering faith through their devotion to lord Krishna. Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful. Using the page as a canvas to express how the Widows of Vrindavan feel towards their faithful lord Krishna, I aim to create Visual poetry by representing their themes, subjects, and sentiments through a variety of shapes, forms & color. Analyzing the nature of poems sung and written by these widows, to derive a certain kind of symbolic language through which they can express their feelings & emotions.