The Song Immortal

HONAJI BALA

[This morning song is very popular in Maharashtra for more than sixteen or seventeen decades. In accordance with tradition, Honaji Bala, the son of a milkman, successfully sang devotional songs of this nature at a time when lesser compositions like Lavnees and Tamashas were popular.]

Thou, Beautiful as the Blue Cloud, O, Lord of Lakshmi, it is the break of day!

Wake up, Thou Lord of Forests! The Sun is up on eastern hills.

Thou, Beautiful as the Blue Cloud, O, Lord of Lakshmi ...

O, Lord of Joy! It is the break of day; Awake from thy pleasant sleep of night.

The cows keep lowing with their pregnant udders trickling milk;

In tens and thousands run the calves to suck the udders of the cows.

Wake up, Thou Lord of Forests! .......

In the evening-hour, flocks of birds settle to rest on tree-tops

And at break of day they fly away in search of food.

In the morning tens and thousands fill their kavdees* with drinking water.

The Gopis tidy the floor and decorate it with rangolees.**

With earthen pots poised on their hips

They go the banks of Yamuna, O, Mukunda! and have their morning rice and curds.

Thou, Beautiful as the Blue Cloud, O, Lord of Lakshmi ... ... ...

The splendour of a million Suns lights your face.

I, Honaji, daily tell the beads of your name, in my heart.

Wake up, Thou Lord of Forests! The Sun is up on eastern hills.

* a device adopted by Indians to carry water-pots.

** a popular house-hold decoration of Maharashtra.

–Translated from Marathi by V. V. Tonpe

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