Radha - Was she married?

[Satish Kalra]

In a fund raising program by "Kala Bhavan" on 11-15-03 in neighboring
North Wales/Lansdale, the narrator, Dr. Meera Nerurkar mentioned that
'Radha' was a married woman, when she fell in love with Krishna's
'bansi', etc., etc.
{This was all in a build up for the Lagaan song/dance number "radhaa
kaise na jale...".}

I found this very unbelievable and took it up with her at the end of
the program. But she insisted that she was very sure bout it and that
Radha's husband's anme was 'Anay' (rhymes with Vinay).

Can any one shed some more light on this?

My take is she might have married AFTER Krishna left for Mathura.

Happy Listenings.

Satish Kalra

[Surjit Singh]

Post by Satish Kalra
In a fund raising program by "Kala Bhavan" on 11-15-03 in neighboring
North Wales/Lansdale, the narrator, Dr. Meera Nerurkar mentioned that
'Radha' was a married woman, when she fell in love with Krishna's
'bansi', etc., etc.
{This was all in a build up for the Lagaan song/dance number "radhaa
kaise na jale...".}
I found this very unbelievable and took it up with her at the end of
the program. But she insisted that she was very sure bout it and that
Radha's husband's anme was 'Anay' (rhymes with Vinay).
Can any one shed some more light on this?

According to Bengali tradition (Chandidas etc.) she was married to Ayana

http://www.mantraonnet.com/radha.html

I have always heard of her being a married woman when performing raas
with the Lord, although husband's name varies. Forgot what his name is
in Punjab.

Post by Satish Kalra
My take is she might have married AFTER Krishna left for Mathura.
Happy Listenings.
Satish Kalra

[Afzal A. Khan]

Post by Satish Kalra
In a fund raising program by "Kala Bhavan" on 11-15-03 in neighboring
North Wales/Lansdale, the narrator, Dr. Meera Nerurkar mentioned that
'Radha' was a married woman, when she fell in love with Krishna's
'bansi', etc., etc.
{This was all in a build up for the Lagaan song/dance number "radhaa
kaise na jale...".}
I found this very unbelievable and took it up with her at the end of
the program. But she insisted that she was very sure bout it and that
Radha's husband's anme was 'Anay' (rhymes with Vinay).
Can any one shed some more light on this?
My take is she might have married AFTER Krishna left for Mathura.
Satish Kalra

I don't know much about such legends. But Radha and
Meera are always compared. {Ravindra Jain came up with
a classic composition in RTGM.} And Meera was already
in unison with Krishna much before she got married. Her
marriage was just in name. It is quite possible therefore
that Radha too might have married "Anay" purely as a
platonic rite. Interestingly, the narrator for the prog-
ramme was a Meera too.


Afzal

[Sanjeev Ramabhadran]

Is that supposed to be Meera or (more likely in the Phila. area) Meena
Nerurkar?

Post by Afzal A. Khan

Post by Satish Kalra
In a fund raising program by "Kala Bhavan" on 11-15-03 in neighboring
North Wales/Lansdale, the narrator, Dr. Meera Nerurkar mentioned that
'Radha' was a married woman, when she fell in love with Krishna's
'bansi', etc., etc.
{This was all in a build up for the Lagaan song/dance number "radhaa
kaise na jale...".}
I found this very unbelievable and took it up with her at the end of
the program. But she insisted that she was very sure bout it and that
Radha's husband's anme was 'Anay' (rhymes with Vinay).
Can any one shed some more light on this?
My take is she might have married AFTER Krishna left for Mathura.
Satish Kalra

I don't know much about such legends. But Radha and
Meera are always compared. {Ravindra Jain came up with
a classic composition in RTGM.} And Meera was already
in unison with Krishna much before she got married. Her
marriage was just in name. It is quite possible therefore
that Radha too might have married "Anay" purely as a
platonic rite. Interestingly, the narrator for the prog-
ramme was a Meera too.
Afzal

[Surjit Singh]

Post by Sanjeev Ramabhadran
Is that supposed to be Meera or (more likely in the Phila. area) Meena
Nerurkar?

Definitely Meena.

Look at people honored by Brihan Maharashtra Mandal
in 1997

http://www.bmmonline.org/8BMMArchives.htm

[Satish Kalra]

Post by Surjit Singh

Post by Sanjeev Ramabhadran
Is that supposed to be Meera or (more likely in the Phila. area) Meena
Nerurkar?

Definitely Meena.
Look at people honored by Brihan Maharashtra Mandal
in 1997
http://www.bmmonline.org/8BMMArchives.htm

Thank you both, Sanjeev and Surjit, for pointing the name-error out.

Happy Listenings.

Satish Kalra

[UVR]

Post by Satish Kalra
In a fund raising program by "Kala Bhavan" on 11-15-03 in neighboring
North Wales/Lansdale, the narrator, Dr. Meera Nerurkar mentioned that
'Radha' was a married woman, when she fell in love with Krishna's
'bansi', etc., etc.
{This was all in a build up for the Lagaan song/dance number "radhaa
kaise na jale...".}
I found this very unbelievable and took it up with her at the end of
the program. But she insisted that she was very sure bout it and that
Radha's husband's anme was 'Anay' (rhymes with Vinay).
Can any one shed some more light on this?
My take is she might have married AFTER Krishna left for Mathura.

No, not quite. I do not know the name of Radha's husband, but
she was merely one (albeit the most famous one) of the multi-
tudinous married gopika-s who would frequently desert their
husbands in order to indulge in 'raas-kriiDaa' with Krishna,
who was supposedly more handsome than their men (and, if one's
inclined to take a Victorian view of such matters, definitely
much more of a cad)! I am ver surprised that you have not come
across descriptions of this aspect of the Radha-Krishna story.

For documentary "evidence" on how Krishna used to 'play' with
married women, refer to the Shrimad Bhagavatam.

Krishna's "indiscriminate lover of (married) women" persona was
also exploited by a 17th century Telugu poet named Kshetrayya
(aka Kshetragna). His poems belong to a class of compositions
known as "padam"-s. Kshetrayya's padams are often sung by South
Indian classical musicians, and choreographed for presentation
by Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi dancers. Lyrics of Kshetrayya's
poems can often be very risque and suggestive, e.g., "my man
has gone to town, o Lord, won't you come to embrace me tonight?",
"now's the moment, come, my Lord, don't hesitate", or "go! go
to *her* with whom you were all night", and so on.


-UVR.

[Sreenivas Paruchuri]

Dear Ravindra,

Post by UVR
For documentary "evidence" on how Krishna used to 'play' with
married women, refer to the Shrimad Bhagavatam.

I am tempted to write a long note on the above topic :-) but I guess
RMIM is not the right forum. If one is interested, tons and tons of
material has been published on _bhaagavata puraaNa_ (its south Indian
origins, archaism in language, date, the text in art, the _bhakti_
element, etc) and the development of _raadhaa_ cult, both in academic
journals/books and popular literature.

Obviously you are refering to the (most) popular _dazama skam.da_ of
-bhaagavata puraaNa_ above. But whether it refers to _raadhaa_, krshNa's
favourite _gopii_ is subject of great debate. Krishna appears here in
the company of one individual _gopii_, invisible to the others. Whether
this invisible _gopii_ is _raadhaa_ or not depends on how you interpret
the word _aaraadhita_, which the other gopii-s apply to Krishna in
relation to their unknown rival. As a matter of fact, she appears only
relatively late in the puraaNa-s; e.g. a text such as the
_brahmavaivarta puraaNa_ which glorifies _raadhaa_. There is a tendency
to accept that the cult of Raadhaa was earlier than Bhaagavata. It may
have been that no VishNava-s or at least not all of them adopted Raadhaa
at an early date.

Post by UVR
Krishna's "indiscriminate lover of (married) women" persona was
also exploited by a 17th century Telugu poet named Kshetrayya
(aka Kshetragna). His poems belong to a class of compositions
known as "padam"-s. Kshetrayya's padams are often sung by South

I *highly* recommend to check the exquisite translations and scholarly
essay on this _padam_ genre of poems by A.K. Ramanujan, Velcheru
Narayana Rao and David Shulman in _When god is a customer - Telugu
courtesan songs by Ksetrayya and others_ (U. of California Press and
Oxford Univ Press, 1992. Also available as paper back for $10-11.)

To make this message relavent to RMIM :-) theres a legendary film:
_krshNaprema_ from 1943, depicting the 'love' story of Raadhaa and
Krishna, based on _bhaagavata puraaNa_. The film is legendary for its
songs/music-track. 3 great singing ladies of Telugu screen from 1940s:
P. Santakumari, T. Suryakumari and P. Bhanumati were part of this film.
Even the 1961 version had some all time gems.

Regards,
Sreenivas

[Suresh S]

Post by Sreenivas Paruchuri
I *highly* recommend to check the exquisite translations and scholarly
essay on this _padam_ genre of poems by A.K. Ramanujan, Velcheru
Narayana Rao and David Shulman in _When god is a customer - Telugu
courtesan songs by Ksetrayya and others_ (U. of California Press and
Oxford Univ Press, 1992. Also available as paper back for $10-11.)

Another good book to know about Ksetrayya's padams is 'Muvvagopala
Padavali'. This is the translation of Ksetrayya padams by
Ranjanikantha Rao aka Rajani. Has a detailed life history of Ksterayya
and also explanations about the personalities of various women
depicted in the padams.

[Baradwaj Rangan]

Post by Satish Kalra
In a fund raising program by "Kala Bhavan" on 11-15-03 in neighboring
North Wales/Lansdale, the narrator, Dr. Meera Nerurkar mentioned that
'Radha' was a married woman, when she fell in love with Krishna's
'bansi', etc., etc.
{This was all in a build up for the Lagaan song/dance number "radhaa
kaise na jale...".}

Since you mention the movie, i wanted to point out - just preceding
the 'radha kaise na jale' number, Aamir Khan tells Rachel Shelley the
legend of Krishna, and he mentions that Radha had been married to
Anay. So maybe the information was from the film itself.

[Jan]

According to one version I heard, she was supposed to be much older
than Krishna and considered to be his 'aunt' (related to his foster
father 'nand').

Can't vouch for that......

[v***@gmail.com]

Radha meena

[v***@gmail.com]

Radha