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2013 25: 165Psychology Developing SocietiesRekha Sharma Sen and Shilpa Pandit

Exploring Vatsalyam: The Emotion of Love for the Child

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Editor’s Introduction 165

Environment and Urbanization AsIA, 1, 1 (2010): vii–xii

Article

Exploring Va–tsalyam: The Emotion of Love for the Child

Rekha Sharma Sen Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi

Shilpa Pandit Psychologist, Chennai

Abstract The emotion of vātsalyam is perceived as central to the construc-tion of love in the Indian cultural context. Usually understood as the love of the parents for their children, it is not confined to paren-tal love alone. The article examines the historicity of the concept of vātsalyam as well as its contemporary expression. It combines enquiry from three domains—Indian philosophical thought, literature and folk psychology. The first section of the article provides the theoretical framework within which the concept is situated in Indian psychol-ogy. Drawing from the rasa theory, we explicate how experiencing of worldly emotions can simultaneously be the means of transformation. In the second section, we attempt to bring out the centrality of the emotion of vātsalyam in Indian psyche and its pan-Indian expression by drawing from the literatures in Tamil, Hindi, Bengali and Marathi. The third section of the article uses a short qualitative enquiry to examine contemporary understanding of vātsalyam based on responses of lay persons and artists relating to nature of vātsalyam, their modes of expression of this emotion, its manifestation in various relationships, and their views on the uniqueness of this emotion, or otherwise, to the Indian cultural context

Psychology and Developing Societies 25(1) 165–193

© 2013 Department of Psychology, University of Allahabad

SAGE PublicationsLos Angeles, London,

New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC

DOI: 10.1177/0971333613477303http://pds.sagepub.com

Address correspondence to Rekha Sharma Sen, Centre for Early Childhood Development and Research, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. E-mail: [email protected]



166 Rekha sharma sen and shilpa Pandit

Psychology and Developing Societies, 25, 1 (2013): 165–193

Keywords vātsalyam, rasa, bhakti, emotion, mamata, parental love, culture, folk theories, Indian philosophical thought, literary expressions, Indian psychology, transformative emotions, indigenous psychology

Introduction

An uplifting feeling of happiness on seeing a small child though unknown to you; a desire to protect the child from all harm; a surge of emotion on coming across expressions of tender nurturing filial love in music, art or literature; a reminiscing of your own childhood or that of your children as you see a grandfather cradling his grandchild; an unquenched thirst to listen and see enacted time and again the bal lilas (the childhood pas-times) of Krishna, Murugan or Meenakshi1—none of us is a stranger to these feelings. These are the emotions evoked when you experience vātsalyam, which is typically described as the feeling of tender nurturing love for the offspring or more generally, the feeling of nurturing love felt by an adult towards the child.

In this article, we attempt to explore the emotion of vātsalyam histori-cally and in the present within the Indian cultural context. We trace the origin of the term vātsalyam, identifying the texts in which it is first rec-ognised; we attempt to uncover whether there is something uniquely Indian about this undoubtedly universal parental emotion towards one’s children and whether vātsalyam can be felt only for children or it is more expansive. Our framework of enquiry developed as we explored, leading us to finally explore vātsalyam from an interdisciplinary standpoint through three interrelated strands, drawing upon philosophy, literature and psychology to uncover the historical roots and the contemporary expression and relevance of this emotion. Our article is in three sections. In the first section of the article, we describe the origin of the emotion of vātsalyam in philosophical discourse, based on the analysis of Indian texts, and also discuss the theoretical framework within which the con-cept is situated in Indian psychology. The second section of the article is an illustration of the rich and varied expressions of vātsalyam as embed-ded in literatures in Tamil, Hindi, Bengali and Marathi languages. The central premise prompting our foray into literature was that literary



Exploring Vātsalyam� �� 167


expressions, as also those through art forms and folk culture, are sym-bols of a collective consciousness and reflect that which is valued in a cultural context. Using exemplars from these languages, we attempt to bring out the centrality of this emotion in the Indian psyche and its pan-Indian expression. The third section of the article uses a short qualitative enquiry to examine folk theories in order to understand the contemporary relevance of vātsalyam.

Vātsalyam in Indian Philosophical Thought

The word vātsa—an endearing term meaning the calf of a cow—and the origin of the term vātsalyam, is mentioned in the Vedic texts especially in Rig Veda,2 where one finds descriptions of a the society that valued ownership and nurture of cows. The term vātsalyam is used to describe the emotions perceived in the cow towards its calf. The cow and the calf, thus, become the signature metaphor for vātsalyam. Later, the word was expanded to mean the emotion of love directed towards the divine child and further, a human child. The word vatsal came to refer to the adult person experiencing vātsalyam.

We first look at vātsalyam as love directed towards the divine child. Intense love directed towards divine as such is the domain of Bhakti—a significant movement in the Indian cultural and historical context. Scholars have traced the roots of Bhakti in Vedic texts (Upanishad Sangraha, 2009). The Svetasvatara Upanishad3 is an elegant and poetic exposition of Bhakti. Bhakti has also been traced to Puranas and Itihasas especially Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita,4 However, Bhakti as a social-historical movement originated from the ninth to 11th century onwards in the ancient land of Dravidas (hence the term Draavidi Bhakti); the modern-day state of Tamil Nadu in India.

When Bhakti emerged thus, India was facing tumultuous times, with socio-political instability in the north of India. Bhakti, in this historical context, emerged and engulfed the whole of India bringing joy, fellow-ship and a sense of meaning to the people suffering through difficult times. First expressing itself in the ecstatic songs of the Vaisnavite (Alzhwars) and Saivite (Nayanmars)5 saints poets in Tamil Nadu, Bhakti saints—wandering minstrels—from all regions roamed across the lands,





singing and dancing; their songs which were praises of the divine, break-ing down the barriers of caste and creed and binding people into love for the divine, each other and the whole animate and inanimate world.

Over a period of a few centuries, different streams of Bhakti tradi-tions—from south, east (hence also the term Gaudi-Bhakti),6 west and north—flowed and mingled with their unique flavours: a confluence. Bhakti gripped the cultural imagination. It led to intellectual, artistic, literary and philosophical churning across India causing deep social, political and spiritual transformation.

In the Bhakti songs as well as in their living practice, the saints appropriated various modes of relationships with the divine and one of the relational modes they adopted to adore the divine was in the form of adult–child love, where the divine was seen as a child. Among the many great saint-philosophers, one who gave an authoritative interpretation to Bhakti as such, and specifically to love for the divine as a child, was the Gaudiya Vaisnavite philosopher, Rupa Gosvamin (1489–1564).7 Rupa Gosvamin, discussed vātsalyam as one of the foundational emotions for expressing Bhakti. For Rupa Gosvamin, the divine was in the form of Krishna.

To appreciate vātsalyam in the context of Bhakti, thus, we start with the story of Krishna. Krishna, the avatar (incarnation) of God Vishnu in Hindu mythology, was born to parents facing persecution. Since his uncle was planning to kill him soon after his birth (so as to forestall the prophesy that this infant would be responsible for his death), his father Vasudeva ensured that infant Krishna was safely transported to a village of cowherds called Gokul/Vrndavan in north India, to be brought up in the household of Nanda in safe obscurity. In this pastoral village, Krishna grew up with his playmates, elder gopas and gopis (men and women cowherds), cows and calves; he lived the rhythms of a cowherd’s life.

Krishna’s mischievous childhood is filled with the imagery of taking the cows to graze at sunrise and playing the flute by the river Yamuna amidst trees and creepers of the nearby groves. During his childhood in Vrindavan, which is celebrated in cultural imagination, he was loved and nurtured by the entire community. Rupa Gosvamin created a conceptual framework of Bhakti with the story of Krishna as the substratum.

In the text Bhakti-Rasamrita Sindhu (BRS) (Gosvamin, 2003),8 keep-ing love for the divine as criterion, Rupa Gosvamin delineated five forms of love-relationships presented in ascending order. First step was the single





minded devotion filled with equanimity, which he called Shanta (Peaceful).9 The second relationship of love towards the divine saw the divine as a master; this was called Preeti (Dasya; servant). The third form of relating to Krishna was to look at Him as a friend, and was called as Preyo (Sakhya; friendship). The fourth form of love according to Rupa Gosvamin was vātsalyam, where the devotee took the role of parent and looked at the divine as a child. Finally, the fifth, and the highest, form of love was Madhura, where the person related to the divine as a lover/beloved.

Vātsalyam was, thus, placed as the second highest form of love for the divine, because the child, even if it was a divine child, would not show all the glory and power (for the sake of authenticity of the role that he/she took) and therefore, the human had to take a protecting, nurturing role! (see Paranjpe, 2009) It was, thus, an inversion of the normative relationship between the divine and the human. Second, all other forms of love are based on some conditions of give and take, while vātsalyam and madhura show the highest emotional connectedness yet are uncon-ditional. Vātsalyam, thus, shows the deepest, unchanging and selfless love for a child (Krishna) by his elders.

Rupa Gosvamin defined vātsalyam in the Dakshin Vibhaga (southern quadrant) section, Panchama Lahari (Fifth Wave) chapter, 33rd sloka (canto) as: Anugrahamayi teshaam ratir vātsalyamuchyate (Gosvamin, 2003, p. 360).

When translated, this means: the all-consuming desire to bless, to confer grace, to nurture and nourish is vātsalyam. The text substantiated its thesis by giving illustrations, citing concepts from other scholarly texts of the time and also listed some persons who experienced vātsalyam: Yashoda, Nanda (foster parents), Devaki and Vasudeva (biological par-ents), Kunti (Krishna’s aunt), the elder cowherds in Vrindavan and his teacher Sandipani. Vātsalyam, thus, was not limited to parental love alone, even though the love of Yashoda and Nanda for Krishna was placed highest in the text.

Further, in his work, Rupa Gosvamin, also explicated the behavioural indications of vātsalyam as:

anubhāvā shiroghrānam, karen angābhimārjanam āshirvād-nirdheshashcha, lālanam pratipālanam: hitopadeshanādya Vatsale Parikīrtitā (ibid., p. 518)





The above translates to mean that love for the child is shown in fol-lowing behaviours (anubhāvā)10—inhaling the child’s forehead; massag-ing and caressing the child’s limbs like back, forehead, hands and feet; blessing and giving instructions; nourishing and nurturing through acts like serving food etc; and commanding and giving advice to the child as a form of mentoring.

Vātsalyam�as Bhakti Rasa

In his work, Rupa Gosvamin reinterpreted and expanded the concept of rasa. Rasa, a significant term used by earlier philosophers in Indian thought has been translated in English to mean ‘essence’ or ‘taste’ when an emotion is presented and experienced in an aesthetic context, through drama and art. This is presented in the Indian conceptualisa-tion of emotion in the text Natyashastra (1000 BCE) and its subse-quent commentaries (Bharatamuni, 1971; Gnoli, 1968). Haberman (2003) in his translation overview on Bhakti Rasamrita Sindhu notes that, bhakti as a ‘distinctive’ rasa was first introduced by a 13th cen-tury Marathi philosopher Vopadeva in his text ‘Muktaphala’, where he described types of devotees/bhaktas based on rasa as a concept. Further detailing on Bhakti as a rasa, was done by later Vaisnavite scholars. Vallabha (1479–1531), one of the great teachers within the Indian philosophical tradition and a founder of a school of bhakti—the Vallabha sampradaya (school), preceded Rupa Gosvamin and, fre-quently used the term rasa in reference to bhakti in his writings. However, the credit to establish an authoritative thesis on bhakti as well as vātsalyam as a foundational rasa undeniably goes to Rupa Gosvamin.

Vātsalyam�Rasa as a Transformative Emotion

Rasa clearly is a central concept in the framework of emotions within Indian psychology and culture. According to rasa theory and its subse-quent developments, including the flowering of the bhakti movement, the purpose of emotions in Indian thought is not just their enactment or





presentation. Rather, through presentation and experience, emotions are meant to transform the person towards greater awareness; Natyashastra proposes eight rasas (transformed affect) with their corresponding sthayi bhavas (primary/dominating subjective emotion/experience) in an elab-orate conceptual framework, which is used even today, by performers and dancers in the Indian context, to present an Indian theory of emo-tions (Paranjpe, 2009, first proposed rasa theory as an Indian theory of emotions). In recent decades, when psychologists have looked at the role of culture in the experience and expression of emotions, feelings and affective states, rasa theory, has received wide attention (Bhat, 1984; Lynch, 1990; McDaniel, 1989, 1995; Paranjpe, 2009; Shweder et al., 2008). When vātsalyam is discussed in Indian theoretical tradition, it is in the context of Bhakti rasa and, therefore, the element of emotional transformation is underlined. It is important to note that prior to Rupa Gosvamin, conceptual frameworks on emotion do not mention worldly relationships as capable of creating emotional transformation. The ear-lier framework of Natyashastra, and a significant commentary on the text by the 10th century Kashmiri Saiva master, Abhinavagupta, are in the context of drama and aesthetics, where the performance on stage leads to materialisation of emotions and their transformation. It is only in the radical framework of Rupa Gosvamin that the worldly relationships ‘enacted’ and experienced on the worldly ‘stage’ yield the possibilities of their fruition into well-being. When we love the divine as a child, for example, it presents the possibility of loving the child as divine. In such a manner all worldly relationships are possible to be catalysed towards fulfilment. Thus, bhakti, and specifically vātsalyam as a rasa, is concep-tualised as an intense love emotion and a relationship that can transform the mere experience of worldly emotion and living into greater aware-ness and spiritual bliss.

Love for the young/child—vātsalyam—is a universal emotion, as old as humankind, which is experienced and expressed in contemporary contexts as well. What is perhaps unique to the Indian theoretical tradi-tion is the conceptualisation of its role in self-transformation. It is diffi-cult to find an equivalent term in English. The modern Indian languages still use this word and the feelings associated with the word vātsalyam are celebrated in Indian literary and artistic traditions to this day. In the next section, we present the luminescence of vātsalyam in the various streams of Indian literature.





Culture Speaks: Expressions of Va–tsalyam in Literature

By drawing exemplars from literature, in this section we attempt to find evidence for the historical and contemporary expression of the emotion of vātsalyam in India, based on the premise that literary and other modes of self-expression capture those emotions and relationships deemed sig-nificant by a culture. When examining literature, the older bhakti litera-ture and the more contemporary writings from 20th and 21st centuries have been explored.

As we engaged with these writings, we found the expressions to be distinct in flavour depending upon what their content was and whose ‘voice’ was being used by the writer to describe the emotion of vātsalyam. Using ‘voice’ as a framework, the compositions expressing vātsalyam can be classified into four categories as follows:

i. those describing the adult’s feelings towards the child in the voice of the adult

ii. those describing the adult’s feelings towards the child through the voice of the child

iii. those describing the child’s feelings towards the adults (typically parents) in the voice of the child

iv. those written by adults for the enjoyment of the child—children’s literature

While the works in the first category are direct expressions of vātsalyam and their selection is obvious, our interpretation of works in the other three categories as expressions of vātsalyam may seem unusual to the reader. We explain: when writers have used the voice of the child to express the feelings of adults towards children (second category), it cre-ates a unique genre of work with a distinct flavour, which enables the writer to straddle two worlds at once—we get a glimpse of the child’s own thoughts and feelings as a person and we also get to know the adults’ emotions for the child as the child perceives them.

In literary works in the third category, it is not the feelings of the adults towards the child that are described—the typical interpretation of vātsalyam—but the child’s emotions towards the adult. Our inclusion of this genre as expression of vātsalyam is based on the premise that the





expression of feelings in the child’s voice is possible only because the child has experienced the vātsalyam of the parent and yearns for it.

The works in fourth category are the most unusual as exemplars of vātsalyam. These do not describe emotions at all. But could the creation of literature for the reading pleasure of children be rooted in anything other than vātsalyam? The writer, we hold, is moved to create works which would specifically interest children because of the distinct emo-tion of love for the child.

While we have used the prototypical definition of vātsalyam as ‘love of the adult for the child’ to create our voice framework, works where vātsalyam has been conceptualised in a broader sense—as encompassing the whole of creation—have also been mentioned within the relevant categories. In the vast treasure house of literature, we have chosen one or two illustrative exemplars from only four languages—Tamil, Hindi, Bengali and Marathi.

Expressions of Vātsalyam in Bhakti Literature

The literature of the Bhakti era belongs to the first category of our ‘voice’ framework, describing the adult’s emotions towards the divine child in the voice of the adult. The most ancient expression of vātsalyam is perhaps to be found in the songs written by the Alzhwars who wove childhood into songs and poetry reflecting vātsalyam towards the divine. These songs, sung at dawn during the holy Tamil month of Margazhi (Margashirsha-Sanskrit; December-English), reverberate in the Vaisnavite households of Tamil Nadu to this day. Compiled as ‘Divya-Prabandham’ (see Kamalakannan, 2001), the songs detail each developmental milestone of the child with tenderness, love and care, describe the beauty, pranks and demands of the child and difficulties of child-rearing! The Alzhwar poetry inspired a whole genre of vātsalyam poetry in Tamil, referred to as Pillaittamil, directed towards all the child forms, including Karthikeyan (Murugan) of the towns of Pazhani and Thiruccendur, sweet Meenakshi of Madurai; even baby Jesus and baby Mohammed as well as political lead-ers in present times. The Pillaittamil poets, all male, assumed a voice of domesticity and showered their affection, love and care for a baby, weav-ing religious devotion, artistic excellence and playfulness. In common with present-day poetry, the moon seems to be a special companion of the





child in the Pillaittamil poetry, as well. Here is an example from Paula Richman’s (2008) compilation of Pillaittamil poetry:

This noble one resembles you, Oh! MoonThere is no other companion like him you see;With the one who created the world of Gods and all the other worlds as well;Moon, come to play…with Skanda who came,To make gorgeous Kantapuri prosper,Moon, come to play!

Moving to central India, we find vātsalyam to be expressed through poetry in the form of abhang which are bhakti songs written in the Marathi language. As an exemplar, we mention an abhang written by Bhanudas (1448–1513), one of the saint-poets of Maharashtra. This abhang is sung by the people of Maharashtra to this day and describes how the child Mukunda (Krishna) is eating butter mixed with sugar and mother Yashoda is watching him with ‘eyes filled to the brim’ (a phrase that shows the intensity of the gaze). The abhang concludes with the saint-poet requesting the child Mukunda to give him a little bit of his half-eaten leftover butter. This is especially poignant, because the lefto-ver food of a divine child is sacred (prasada). Additionally, in the Indian culture, where food sharing is strictly governed by norms, sharing of half-eaten food is an intimacy allowed only to lovers or children and parents. Eating the leftover food of a child is a special privilege of mother/father/grandmother.

In north Indian bhakti literature, the mention of the word vātsalyam foremost evokes the name of Sūradāsa,11 who was one of the astachap12 poets of the Vallabha sampradaya, and worshipped Krishna. Love, expressed through each of the five forms of relationships with the divine within the bhakti rasa is the keynote of Sūradāsa’s compositions with the element of filial love being one of the hallmarks of Sūradāsa’s poetry (Bahadur, 1999). Just the act of waking Krishna, for example, is described in different ways in Sūradāsa’s collection of poems Sur Sagar and effort-lessly evokes the vātsalyam in the listener. A composition is the following:

Friend, I could not wakeThat darling boy, For when I gazed on his charming face





My eyes, filled with greedTo keep drinking in its loveliness It did not let my tongue speak.

Vātsalyam expressed through many bhakti compositions, and espe-cially those describing Krishna lilas (divine deeds; divine play), reflects the community or the ‘we self’ (Roland, 1991) of the Indians—the entire village rejoices at the birth of Krishna. These compositions bring out the centrality of the family as the basis of Indian society with space for cel-ebrating children and childhood. The epitome of vātsalyam in such poetry is the urge of the human parent (Yashoda) to protect the divine baby, forgetting, in the surge of emotions, that the divine child is the saviour himself.

The transformative power of vātsalyam as a rasa is evident in bhakti poetry. The bhakti poets, while composing in the mood of vātsalyam, experienced every conceivable aspect in the rearing and development of the divine child, right from birth, as supra-mundane or alaukika. Consequently, their compositions enable the readers to transcend their own worldly concerns adhibhautika and transmute it to adhidaivaika, since alaukika lies dormant within every individual. The readers thus move from the ordinary world into sudden recognition of the divine, expe-riencing the emotions experienced by Krishna’s parents, as for example in Sūradāsa’s poetry, as alaukika response (Martin, 2003; Sharma, 1981).

Vātsalya�Rasa�in Contemporary Literature

Using the voice framework to organise the multitude of expressions in literature, we present further samples of poetry from three languages—Hindi, Bengali and Marathi.

Works Describing the Adult’s Feelings towards the Child in the Voice of the Adult

The vātsalya bhava in the poem Mera Naya Bachpan (My New Childhood) by the Hindi poetess Subhadra Kumari Chauhan (1904–1948)13 (http://www.geeta-kavita.com/indian_poetry_list.asp?author=Subhadra_Kumari_Chauhan) is couched in her longing to return to the phase of childhood, which she celebrates as innocent, pure, simple, uncomplicated, ‘sinless’, free





from care, a period of receiving nurturance from all the adults around. She reminisces:

When I cried, mother left her work and ran to hold me And kissed the wetness of my cheeks away.As grandfather showed me the moon, my tear filled eyes sparkled with joy My fresh smile brightened everyone’s face.

The poem concludes with a flash of insight when the poetess realises that childhood is to be re-claimed and re-lived through her own child. She is filled with a new life when, experiencing motherhood, she comes full circle seeing her own childhood in her daughter’s:

I have found my childhood again; it has returned as my daughterSeeing her lovely presence, I have found a new life.

Among the many poems of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941)14 rich in vātsalya bhava in the collection of poems titled Shishu (Child; written in 1909) and Shishu Bholanath (Child Bholanath; written in 1910), perhaps the poem Janamkatha (‘Birth Story’) in the collection Shishu is one of the most poignant (Tagore, 1986a). The child’s simple question, Mother, where did I come from? evokes in the poet a surge of emotion and taking on the voice of the mother, Tagore articulates the near universal longing for fulfilment through a parent–child relationship. How the vātsalya bhava resides in us like a seed even when we are chil-dren is brought out simply and yet so evocatively as the poet, assuming the voice of the mother, answers the child’s question thus:

You were in my mindAs my deepest wish.You were with meWhen I was a childAnd played with my dolls.15

The uniquely Indian tradition of viewing children in the image of God, worthy of worship, is evident when the poet further answers:

You were with my deity on the altarAnd with him I worshipped you too.





Using unique imagery and metaphor, a poem by a simple unlettered Marathi poetess, Bahinabai Choudhary (1880–1951)16, universalises the emotion of vātsalyam to the whole of creation, seeing it to be constitu-tive not only of humans but also of the animal world, emanating from the instinct to protect and care for the young. As the poet sees the tailor bird’s nest hanging from the branch of a tree, she is filled with empathy for the mother bird. As the nest sways precariously in the breeze with the little ones, the mother bird’s heart and soul—and in fact, that of the poetess’s too—is one with the little ones in the nest in concern for them. The poem is titled, Khopa (‘Nest’) and Bahinabai Choudhary (2002), observes:

The little ones rest in the nest, nest is a swaying bungalowHer soul is in her little ones; her life hanging (precariously)by the tree.

Works Describing the Adult’s Feelings towards the Child through the Voice of the Child

We present once again two samples in this genre by Subhadra Kumari Chauhan and Tagore.

In the poem Yeh Kadamb Ka Ped (‘This Kadamb Tree’: http://www.geeta-kavita.com/indian_poetry_list.asp?author=Subhadra_Kumari_Chauhan), Subhadra Kumari Chauhan uses the archetypical mother–child relationship of Yashoda and Krishna to depict children’s natural inclination to be naughty and the mother’s misgivings about the child’s pranks as she worries that he may get into some harm. Revealed in the process is the adult’s vātsalyam as beheld by the child. A short descrip-tion of the poem is as follows:

In the first half of the poem we see the child imagining himself to be Krishna, playing the flute sitting on a high branch of the kadamb tree. He knows that this would worry the mother and she would entreat him to climb down for his own safety. In the second half, the poem shifts to give us a glimpse of the mother’s emotions as perceived by the child. Visualising the mother’s anxiety, the poet (speaking as the child) says that when he would not come down:

Mother, then your mother’s heart would be full of worryThen spreading your saree there right under the treeYou would pray to God sitting with your eyes closed.





The poem concludes with the child understanding that it is time the mother’s worry was put to rest and he decides to come down and snuggle into her lap, knowing that her happiness would know no bounds…

You would open your eyes in worry, but would soon become happyWhen you would see your darling boy in your lap!

The poem ‘Bir Purush’ (The Valiant’/‘The Brave Man) in the collec-tion Shishu Bholanath by Tagore (1986b) is an all time favourite describ-ing the child’s deliberate, conscious and elaborate imagination of his heroism. As he imagines himself escorting his mother to ‘somewhere far’ riding his stallion, they encounter bandits on a lonely stretch. With the palanquin bearers (carrying his mother) having abandoned mother and son, it falls upon him to protect his mother. The security drawn from the knowledge of his mother’s love for him and his need for her expres-sion of it, gives him the emotional edge over the bandits who are defeated, the proof of which is the child’s body drenched with their blood! The poet, through the child’s voice, reveals the vātsalyam of the mother who expresses her tremendous worry about his safety and yet is grateful that he was around to protect her. Consider these verses, which reveal both these emotions of the mother:

You say, “Dear son, do not go!”I say, “Wait and watch!”Valiantly, I goaded my horse in the midst of the iniquitous mass…17

And when her son overpowers the bandits and proclaims ‘The fight is over’, the mother expresses her love and gratitude thus:

Hearing me, you step outLift me and embrace me hardYou say, “My child dear!What a disaster it would have been if you hadn’t been near!”

Works Describing the Child’s Feelings towards the Adult in the Child’s Voice

The works we encountered in this category conveyed three different moods—that of longing for the mother’s (adult’s) love, that of realisation





by the child of the integral role of the mother in her upbringing, and that of glorification of the mother. Samples, reflecting each of these moods, follow.

To depict the first mood—the child’s longing for the mother—we present two selections, one by Tagore in Bengali and the other by Yashwant (1899–1985)18 in Marathi.

The poem I Cannot Remember My Mother by Tagore (1986b)19 sensi-tively depicts how the child does not remember everything about his mother, who is no more. But specific experiences and events—the smell of a particular flower, the aura created during prayer at the temple, a particular song, and a particular moment in his play—remind him poign-antly of her.

I cannot remember my mother;Only when from my bedroom window I send my eyes into the blue of the distant sky, I feel that the stillness of my mother’s gaze on my face has spread all over the sky.

The poet Yashwant (Mahajan, 1989–1993), writing in Marathi, experiences the longing for his mother as he witnesses vātsalyam per-meating the entire creation. In pain, and acutely conscious of his loss, he writes:

The sparrows delicately feed their little ones; the calves get caressed in the cowshed;The vātsalyam of the animals, I see every day: Seeing such, my heart hurts;Oh! I cannot experience her vātsalyam, such misfortune, that I don’t have a mother.

The second mood—that of the child’s realisation of the integral role of the mother in her rearing—is evident in the series of poems titled Maa (Mother) by a contemporary Hindi poetess, Kamal Kumar20 (1999). It is a detailed reflection by the poetess of the ceaseless efforts made by the mother over the years and the countless difficulties she surmounts with-out a word of complaint to nurture her children to youth and beyond. Two powerful lines which convey the mother’s stoic resolve to protect





her children and the permanence of her support and presence, which the poetess now realises as an adult, are the following:

Beyond the darkness, embodied as the Light The one who is standing - she is mother.

For the third mood—glorification of the mother—there is no better example than an old, but still popular lyric of a song from the Hindi film Dadi Maa (Grandmother) where the grown-up children, comparing their mother to God, sing: ‘We have not seen God… but what is the need to see him now…we have seen your face, O mother!’ While the father too is vatsal like the mother, the emotion of vātsalyam in many poems and songs has been glorified with respect to the mother.

Having anchored the exploration of vātsalyam in philosophical thought and literary consciousness, we now move to the third section of our article where we attempt to seek corroboration of the contemporane-ity of vātsalyam through exploring meanings attributed to it in everyday usage.

Meanings of Vātsalyam in Everyday Life

In order to get a perspective on vātsalyam today, we attempted to uncover folk theories through a short qualitative enquiry based on convenience sampling of 35 participants. We identified the following two broad cat-egories for the sample:

• ‘artists’ (10), who because of their deep involvement with emo-tions as a part of their vocation, may have a significantly unique conceptualisation of vātsalyam and may engage deliberately with vātsalyam as a means of self-expression through their art form

• ‘lay persons’ (25) who were adults from any other walk of life.

Of these 35 participants, seven were Tamilians, six Punjabis, six Bengalis, five Biharis, three Marathis, three Kannadigas, two Hindi speakers from UP, one Telugu, one Jharkhandi and one Malayali.

The 10 artistes—three writers, three dancers, two singers and two painters—belonged to the middle and upper middle SES.





Among the 25 other adults, there was greater representation from middle SES (nine low SES and 16 middle and upper middle SES) and of women (16 women and nine men). In terms of parental status, there were 14 parents (five fathers, nine mothers), five grandparents (two grandfa-thers and three grandmothers); six were not parents, of whom four were unmarried.

In the total sample of 35, 10 were teachers as well. The themes we explored using the ‘active’ interview (Holstein and

Gubrium, 1995), which enabled achievement of inter-subjectivity and co-construction of meaning, are presented here. While we have focused on presenting general trends, at times we have also presented unique responses, as this is an exploratory study which may stimulate further work in this area.

Theme 1: Familiarity with the word ‘Vātsalyam’

Of the total sample of 35, the word vātsalyam was immediately under-stood by a little more than half the participants—all the 10 artistes and nine other adults, who articulated its meaning unambiguously. Of the remaining 16 participants, four had heard the word vātsalyam but needed to think what it meant, reflecting upon their experiences in order to con-struct a meaning, which was nebulous, lacked certainty and sought cor-roboration from the researcher. The other 12 (about one-third of the total sample) had not heard the word vātsalyam at all. In order to progress further with the interviews, the researchers introduced alternate words. These were mamata, which was understood by five participants from the north. In the case of another four participants from the north, this had to be expanded as ‘maa ki mamata’ or ‘maa ka pyaar’ and with the three Tamil participants the words passam (love), thaaye paassam (mother’s love), parivu (selfless love) or anbu (affection) were used in order to proceed further.

While the sample is rather small to conclude with certainty, there were regional, SES differences as well as differences between artistes and lay persons with respect to familiarity with the word vātsalyam. All artistes were familiar with the word vātsalyam, possibly because of their deep involvement with emotions as a part of their vocation, but there was a range of responses among the lay persons. The trend seems to be that





the term vātsalyam is not familiar to people from low SES across regions. Among the middle SES, many Punjabis were not familiar with this term. Vātsalyam is Sanskrit in origin which may be the reason for its unfamiliar-ity to the low SES sample. In the north, it is not a word in everyday usage, unlike in the South, and this may be a reason why it did not elicit an imme-diate response of recognition from even the well-educated Punjabis.

Theme 2: Meaning and Nature of Vātsalyam�

For 17 participants, the meanings of ‘vātsalyam’ in this section applied to the alternate words and synonyms, such as mamata. The other 18 par-ticipants, who were familiar with both the terms vātsalyam and mamata, distinguished between these which has been discussed briefly in a fur-ther section.

Based on their immediate response to the word vātsalyam (or alter-nate terms), participants grouped as those who:

• associated vātsalyam as love for children or a younger person in general, and did not restrict it to parental or motherly love (17)

• associated vātsalyam with parental love (15) • provided an expanded meaning of vātsalyam as encompassing

many relationships (3)

When the 32 participants in the first two categories were asked about the possibility of vātsalyam in other relationships, 22 (about two-thirds) extended their understanding of vātsalyam to include other relationships (discussed in a further section).

Participants articulated that the intensity of vātsalyam varied across relationships, with parents stating that this was most intense for one’s own children. Non-parent adults too identified one child/person for whom they felt this emotion most intensely. The nature of vātsalyam emerging through descriptions of these intense relationships is the following:

Love, Forgiveness, Accommodation and Permanence

Vātsalyam was foremost described in terms of love—a feeling of extreme, all encompassing, unconditional love, pure and selfless devotion, seeking





no return even emotionally. Permanence, almost eternal, was its chief characteristic. It was experienced as an inner source of affection, a con-nection, a feeling of immense happiness on seeing the child.

Understanding the child and forgiveness for even the gravest of the child’s mistakes, were central to vātsalyam, evoking the description ‘blind love’. All felt that vātsalyam was a ‘deep and accommodating’ feeling. Artistes invoked the colour ‘blue’ to represent this emotion, con-necting it to Krishna and Devi (Goddess) and to the sky and its capacity to shelter and accommodate everything like an umbrella. Another com-parison was with ‘Mother Earth’ and her capacity to forgive.

Care and Protection

Vātsalyam generated an intense desire to protect the child, a sense of responsibility and worry for all aspects of the child’s welfare, of doing all that was possible, including making sacrifices and wishing the best for the child. Statements such as ‘it is like your heart is walking outside’ reflect the intensity of adult’s emotion.

Expression of Vātsalyam

The participants stated that there was a lot of eagerness to express vātsalyam and a feeling of missing the child. The usage of nicknames and endearments and physical acts of cuddling, hugging, kissing and blessing the child and playing with the child were ways of expressing one’s love.

Changing Nature of Vātsalyam over Time

From the participants’ responses it was evident that experiencing vātsalyam had much to do with the fact of vulnerability of the child, with the emo-tion being felt most intensely when the child was young. Most partici-pants said that the nature of its expression changes as the child grows older, though its intensity remains the same. Some said that the nature of expressing love becomes deeper and more subtle, showing itself in respect. A mother (who used mamata and vātsalyam synonymously), explained:

There is mamata with acute intense involvement when children are younger; when they are older it is mamata with disengagement—they also do not want you to engage so much… You have to stop parenting and be a friend—the quality of mamata changes; you have to stop identifying them as ‘my’ chil-dren—they are their own persons.





Theme 3: Vātsalyam�across Relationships

About two-third of the sample (25 participants) articulated an expanded notion of vātsalyam, either spontaneously or as a process of self-reflection during the interview, stating that they experienced and expressed vātsalyam in different relationships, to different degrees. The emotion was evoked often in response to the vulnerability of the other.

Many participants stated that they experienced vātsalyam towards their parents as they grew old, were in pain or suffered ill health. Vātsalyam was also felt for one’s spouse, other adults in the family and colleagues at workplace and house-helps when they were in distress and pain or were vulnerable in any way. Vātsalyam could also be felt for plants and animals, stated the participants, as they cited examples of peo-ple who took care of their plants and pet animals ‘as if they were their children’.

While everyday association and processes of caring led to the emer-gence of vātsalyam, this emotion could also be felt in the absence of association. As one respondent said, ‘How do you feel when you see a small child? Your heart expands with love and you want to hold the child…That is mamata’ (she was familiar with the word mamata and not vātsalyam). It was because of this that one could feel vātsalyam for unknown street children.

In Teacher–student Relationship

Ten participants were teachers as well and all, except one, stated experi-encing vātsalyam for students and receiving it from their teachers when they were students. Interestingly, while four said they experienced vātsalyam for all students, for six of them experiencing this emotion was conditional, unlike for one’s own child. They stated vātsalyam was felt only for those students who held the teacher in regard, who showed the bhava (attitude) of ‘receiving’, who had samskars. Intentionally disrup-tive students, who did not care to learn, did not evoke vātsalyam in the teacher.

The counter view by the 10th teacher—a dance guru—who did not see vātsalyam as the substratum of guru–shishya (teacher–student) rela-tionship is interesting. She held that a guru having vātsalyam for the student would be unable to teach, as the element of forgiveness and





unconditional love in vātsalyam would make the teacher overlook the student’s shortcomings.

Vātsalyam in All of Creation

Two participants from different walks of life—an artist and a woman from low SES—expanded the notion of vātsalyam to include love for the whole of creation, seeing it as the seed emotion for sustenance of crea-tion. Said the latter, who was familiar with mamata but not vātsalyam, ‘We can feel mamata for anyone. If we did not feel mamata we would kill each other. When a bird flies we feel mamata for the bird…’

Theme 4: Comparing Vātsalyam�and Mamata

The discussion in this theme is based on responses of 18 participants who distinguished between vātsalyam and mamata. These participants were from middle SES and belonged to the southern states and Bengal. Some themes that emerged as they compared the emotions are as follows:

Vātsalyam and Mamata as Encompassing Different Emotions

The dominant emotion in mamata was identified by some of these 18 participants as compassion or karuna or daya leading to empathy, com-passion and concern, while karuna or daya were seen as incompatible with vātsalyam. The element of selfless love was seen to be much less in mamata, which was seen as the chief emotion in vātsalyam. Because of this, mamata was not seen to have the element of sacrifice and forgive-ness, which vātsalyam had because of the intense feeling of love. This led some to analyse that what they felt for street children was mamata and not vātsalyam. Vātsalyam was seen as long lasting, while mamata could be temporary.

Vātsalyam�and Mamata as Encompassing Different Relationships

Some felt that vātsalyam could not be felt for adults, while mamata could be. When asked how they could then feel vātsalyam for their parents, they responded that it was because they were now like children again, going through ‘second childhood’.





Vātsalyam�as Larger than Mamata

In general, those who differentiated between vātsalyam and mamata saw the latter as confined while vātsalyam was seen as the full emotion. In vātsalyam, they said, one felt all the dimensions of the relationship—the happiness, attempts to understand the child, the sadness, the pain, the permanence, the switching on and off with your child, the coming close and keeping a distance; the protection and the letting go.

Mamata as Larger than Vātsalyam�

This was one unique response from a respondent wherein mamata was defined solely as parental love and vātsalyam as the emotion experi-enced in other adult–child relationships, such as teacher–student. Since parental love was perceived as unconditional, whereas sometimes vātsalyam in teacher–student was not, mamata was seen as wider in con-notation than vātsalyam by her.

Theme 5: Culture and Vātsalyam�

All the participants spoke of vātsalyam as a universal emotion experi-enced by people across cultures—‘it is within’, they articulated. Many were reluctant to comment on the uniqueness of vātsalyam to the Indian culture, stating that they did not know enough about other cultures.

Yet, some participants from among the artists and laypersons did feel that there were elements of uniqueness of vātsalyam in the Indian cul-ture. The artists felt that its cultural uniqueness lay in its presentation and detailing and in the celebration of childhood. Foremost, is the tradition to look upon the divine both as a parent and as a child. Bal Krishna, Bal Murugan/Karthikeyan, Bal Saraswathi, Kanyakumari and Bal Rama are the many divine icons we have to show and share vātsalyam. Along with this is the tradition of seeing the human child in the image of God. It is commonplace to see children dressed as Hindu deities Krishna, Rama and Sita during festivals. Many Indian names are names of Gods.

The continued use of nicknames such as khokha or kaka (meaning ‘a small child’ in Bengali and Punjabi) well into adulthood was seen to reflect the celebration of childhood. A sense of collective responsibility for the community’s children, especially in the villages, was identified as uniquely Indian. Breastfeeding another’s child or giving food to older





children, if their mother was away, were articulated by the participants as common practices in the Indian rural contexts, reflecting vātsalyam bhava of the adult.

A couple of parents, who had lived as insiders in western and Indian cultures for many years, expressed the opinion that children were the cen-tral part of the parents’ life in India—the parents’ life revolved around the child for the rest of their life, much more than was the case with parents in the west. Some other participants disagreed with this articulation, hold-ing that there were high individual differences in experiencing vātsalyam and that these were more significant than cultural differences.

Conclusion

The exploration of the emotion of vātsalyam from different perspectives reveals continuity as well as a discontinuity in its meaning and expres-sion from the past to the present. It is true that the emotion of vātsalyam is undoubtedly pan-human and that it binds and nurtures the human com-munity. But, perhaps, its uniqueness in the Indian cultural context lies in the transformative power of the emotion. Vātsalyam is seen as enabling the person to progress towards self-realisation and self-transcendence, made possible because of the unique association of the emotion with the divine child. The rasa framework, and its adaptation to bhakti rasa, sees the chief purpose of all emotions as self-transformation.

Another aspect of uniqueness of the emotion in our cultural context may be seen as the expansion of vātsalyam to include children other than one’s own and to other relationships as well. This is quite in keeping with the ‘we-self’ of Indians (Roland, 1991) where nurturant relationships with community members are also significant. It is no surprise that par-ticipants saw vātsalyam as permeating the whole of creation and they themselves experienced vātsalyam for the whole creation, seeing it as the seed emotion for nurturance and sustenance of the creation. This is quite in keeping with Indian philosophical thought which conceptualises the whole world as one family: ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’, Verse 72, chap-ter 6 of the Maha Upanishad states:

ayam bandhurayam neti ganana laghuchetasamudaracharitanam tu vasudhaiva kutumbakam





When translated, this means:

Only small men discriminate saying: one is a relative; the other is a stranger.For those who live magnanimously the entire world constitutes but a family.

Our interviews brought out the usage of the word mamata as synomy-mous with vātsalyam in many cases. However, we are aware that for some, the synonymous usage of the word mamata with vātsalyam may seem incongruous. Mamata is seen by some to be negative in connota-tion and restricted to ‘me’ and ‘mine’. Vātsalyam, on the other hand, is open and expansive and reaches out to all. How do we reconcile these conflicting meanings of vātsalyam and mamata in one case and their synonymous usage in other cases?

As we explored this question, we propose that the answer lies in understanding that two simultaneous processes are at work: first, all languages as they evolve over a period, undergo a change in the mean-ings ascribed to words; second, all languages have at least two regis-ters—one that can be described approximately as ‘classical’ or ‘inherited from literary culture’ and another as ‘popular’. The negative sense-making of the word mamata in classical texts lies in theories of spiritual liberation where it has a negative connotation as it is seen to be tied with ‘possession, ownership, belonging’, which are impediments to lib-eration (A. Aklujkar, personal communication, 30 September 2012). In the folk usage or the common register, especially in the North, mamata is used in both negative and positive ways. Spoken in context of seek-ing liberation one would say, ‘Why are you embroiled in attachment (mamata)?’ and the person is advised to cut the bonds of belonging-ness/attachment in order to attain self-realisation. On the other hand, feeling of mamata is simultaneously a positive attribute so that when a person does not act out of out of love or concern for another/is not moved/appears stone-hearted, it is often said negatively about the per-son that ‘he has no mamata’. The multiple meanings of vātsalyam and mamata that have emerged through the interviews can be understood in terms of linguistic change which is inevitable as languages are created and transformed by usage in everyday life (apart from in texts). Chaudhary and Bhargava’s (2006) analysis of the meanings of mamata also notes the transformation or ‘a collective abduction’ of meaning of mamata from ‘love for the self’ to unconditionality, sacrifice and long





lasting commitment, possibly because of the Indian preference for other-oriented existence over and above the self.

We conclude this exploration into the historical and contemporary meanings and expressions of vātsalyam with the hope that this short study will stimulate further work in uncovering cultural modes of expres-sion of vātsalyam as also a nuanced study of the implications of rasa theory. The psychology of emotion needs to be taken up in-depth by researchers in India.

AcknowledgementsThe article owes its creation to insights provided by Professor T.S. Saraswathi for her original conceptualisation of researching on the theme vātsalyam; also, for her critical comments during the final stages of the manuscript and for being there all the time. The authors would also like to thank Dr Mugdha Gadgil, Dr Ashok Aklujkar, Dr Anand C. Paranjpe, Dr Vidyut Aklujkar, Dr Durgalakshmi Ms Margatham, Dr Subashree V., Dr Indirani Manian and Dr L.S. Saraswathi for Tamil literature sources. Rekha Sharma Sen is thankful to Ms Mandira Ghosh, Mr Aditya Sen, Mrs Bharti Sen and Mr Saugato Sen (husband of Rekha Sharma Sen), for Bengali poetry sources and their interpretation. And, Dr Kamal Kumar for sharing her poetry.

Notes

1. Deities in Hindu religion. 2. Some references from Rig Veda about vatsa are found in books II.2.2,

II.28.6, III.33.3, III.41.5, V.30.10, VI.45.25,VII.95.1, VIII.69.11,VIII.72.14, VIII.88.1. In all these instances, one finds the word vatsa in the sense of a calf and is usually accompanied by the terms like matr (mother) or gau—cow.

3. The Svetasvatara Upanishad is a later Upanishad and is the only text in the Vedic corpus that specifically mentions the word ‘Parabhakti’, rendered to mean ‘transcendental love’.

4. The Bhagavad Gita, in its 12th chapter describes Bhakti as meditation on the divine with a form. It further describes the descriptions of Bhakta as one who has surrendered himself/herself in the service of divine (Mayyiarpita), who is selfless (nir-mama, nirahankara) and forgiving (kshami).

5. The Vaisnavite saint-poets are called Alzhwars; the Saivite saint poets are called Nayanmars. Temples in Tamil Nadu keep a temple record as Kshetra Purana. The places where, these saints have sung songs for the deity, hold special sanctity.





6. Gaudiya or Bengali Bhakti traditions have been celebrated in Indian thought. However, the Vaisnavite Bhakti tradition found fruition in the northern regions of Vrndavan and Mathura.

7. Rupa Gosvamin was a disciple of Chaitanya, a celebrated Bengali Bhakti Saint. Rupa wrote two foundational texts, Bhakti Rasamrita Sindhu or The Ocean of Nectar of Bhakti Rasa and Ujjvala Nilamani or Shining Blue Jewel among others.

8. Bhakti Rasamrita Sindhu or The Ocean of Nectar of Bhakti Rasa is a voluminous text where, Rupa Gosvamin presents an elaborate conceptual framework on Bhakti Rasa. In keeping with the metaphor of an ocean, it is divided into four directions (quadrants) and waves (chapters). For Rupa, all rasas are rooted in the single foundational emotion of love for Krishna Krishnarati. In the southern quadrant, he describes five foundational love relationships. He organises and elucidates these within the classical framework of Natyashastra.

9. Shanta is a significant rasa, because, it was not in the original list of eight rasas given by Sage Bharat in Natyashastra. Shanta rasa was contributed by the Kashmiri Saiva Master Abhinavagupta, to complete the ‘navarasa’, the nine foundational rasas. According to Abhinavagupta, Shanta was the hightest rasa since it meant ‘tranquillity’ of emotion or a non-emotion emotion! It is significant to note that Rupa Gosvamin places Shanta Bhakti rasa as the first and lowest step. This inversion indicates the sense of emotional abandon that Rupa Gosvamin’s framework emphasised in relation to the divine and the divine alone (Ananya-exclusively). For Rupa Gosvamin, how could anybody feel equanimity in relating with Divine Krishna!

10. The rasa framework, in the Natyashastra looks at four aspects of presentation of emotion. They are: anubhava—behavioural expression, vibhava—causes, sthayi bhava—the dominant felt emotion and the sanchari and vyabhichari bhavas—consonant and dissonant transitory emotions.

11. Sūradāsa (Sant Kavi Sūradāsa) was a 15th century blind saint, poet and musician, known for his devotional songs dedicated to Lord Krishna. Sūradāsa is said to have written and composed a hundred-thousand songs in his magnum opus Sur Sagar (Ocean of Melody), out of which only about 8,000 are extant.

12. Hindi word which literally means ‘Eight Seals’—the word refers to a group of 16th century Hindi poets, four of whom are claimed to have been disciples of Vallabha and four of his son and successor, Vit t halnāth. The greatest of the group is held to be Sūradāsa.

13. Subhadra Kumari Chauhan (1904–15 February 1948) was an Indian poetess who wrote in the Khariboli dialect of Hindi, in a simple, clear style. She is famous for her heroic poems inspiring patriotism as well as poems for children. Mera Naya Bachpan (1946) and Yeh Kadamb Ka Ped are among her six collected works of poems.





14. Rabindranath Tagore (May 1861–7 August 1941), sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region’s literature and music. Tagore introduced new prose and verse forms and the use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, thereby freeing it from traditional models based on classical Sanskrit. His works span music, theatre, art, novels, stories and poetry.

15. English transcreation: Kumud Biswas. http://allpoetry.com/user/show/Rabindranath_Tagore?fb_xd_fragment=&page=3

16. Bahinabai or Bahinaai was poet of contemporary times whose work is marked by simplicity. She sang her songs as she went about doing her chores and routines. The songs in the rustic Khandeshi dialect touch and move the hearts of the readers.

17. English translation: Barnali Saha, http://www.washingtonbanglaradio.com/content/tagore-poem-birpurush-brave-man-rabindranath-tagore-translation-barnali-saha

18. Kavi Yashwant, also a poet of recent times, was honoured with the title ‘Rajkavi’ and also presided over the prestigious Marathi Sahitya Sammelan in 1950.

19. Originally written in Bengali in 1910, titled Mone Kora in the collection Shishu Bholanath, published in Tagore, 1986b; English translation by Tagore.

20. Dr Kamal Kumar is a contemporary Hindi writer who has written in all literary genres and has published 33 books of creative writing. Retired as Associate Professor from University of Delhi, she is presently teaching Media as Guest Faculty at IMCS, New Delhi.

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Rekha Sharma Sen is chair Professor at the Centre for Early Childhood Development and Research (CECDR), Jamia Millia Islamia, on deputation from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi. She has published in the areas of early childhood care and education, teacher education, creativity, disability and gender.





Shilpa Pandit is a Counsellor and Applied Psychologist based in Chennai. She has worked with suicide and crisis intervention, PTSD sur-vivors in the aftermath of earthquakes and Tsunami, child sexual abuse and domestic violence survivors as well as with alternative sexualities. Rasa and emotional transformation, Indian thought and meditation are some of her enduring research interests. She has published in the areas of Rasa and emotional transformation. She is also professionally associ-ated with dance and music institutions in Chennai.



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