Being in love with God. Filled with passion for God. Having a mystical connect with God. Having communication with God that bypasses organsied relgioun. Where you stop referring to God in the terrifying patriarchal formality – and refer to him in the second person. where you fight with God, personify him – dance for him, sing for him, want to marry him … these are just some of the aspects of the bhakti movement. Bhakti goes beyond mere devotion.
Some of the best poerty – be it bhakti or sufi - is a living testament to this obsession. If you listen to saqia aur pila, for example, you will realise that the poet is not talking about alcohol, but the high from loving god.
For, Meera - Krishna was her true husband – the man she married as a young child. Chaitanya saw himself as Radha and the gopis who performed the Raas Leela with Krishna; Aandal was so in love with Ranganatha that, it is said, that the Lord absorbs her as his bride; Jayadeva, it is said, has Krishna come by to finish his poetry.
In a way, Jayadeva began the bhaktification - if one can call it that – of Hinduis, a good two centuries before the rest of them, north of the Vindhyas. His work took away faith from the hands of the priests and put the individual at the centre of the relation with God.
I grew up listening to Jayadeva’s works in bits and pieces – primarily as Carnatic Music . The ashtapadis – or 8 line verses – are fairly popular in Carnatic music ; but i have never heard the Geeta Govinda in the Hindustani Classical style.
Here is M.S.Subhalakshmi in ragamalika singing the dashavatara that forms the prelude the Geetagovinda
And, here is a different take. the music is better than teh video. Geeta Dutt and Hemant Kumar in Ananda Math – a fabulous rendition of the Dashavatar .
if you know of others drop me a line.
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The colours were stark, yet hypnotizingly beautiful. Everything in Pushkar – from the ‘holy’ cow to the sadhu (mendicant), the pujari’s (priests) to the camels, from the street singers to the lanurs – everyone and everything seems to be geared towards the pilgrim tourist. 
one man and his calf – 
The holy cow on the steps of the temple – looking beatifically at the pilgrims who side step her to walk in. 
some great street food in Pushkar. Hot fried stuff on a cold winter’s morning- just what the doctor didn’t order ! Our guide told us that since this was a holy town, there could be no petrol pump here and people had to drive down to Ajmer to fill petrol. And Ajmer is not too far away. 
The car park where cycles, sumos, buses and camels jostle together for space. Pushkar is a visual treat – and if you are spiritual it is a great place to go to find solace. Even those who get after you in other temple towns, tend to leave you alone to your thoughts. I think that i would like to go back one day to Pushkar 
Pushkar Lake -where the bereaved, the penitent and the faithful ask for mukti (or liberation) from the cycle of birth and death. 
Devotees at the Brahma temple, Pushkar While Rajasthan tourism claims that this is the only Brahma temple in the world, I have been to another in the southern temple town of Kumbakonnam. But the fact does remain that Brahma – the creator – is not really worshipped in the country. 
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