Jaao Re Jogi:Part 1

 Jaao Re Jogi

Part 1:

This is one of several melodious songs recorded by the music director duo Shankar Jaikishan in the voice of India’s nightingale Lata Mangeshkar for the film Amrapali released in 1966. Amrapali is the story of a courtesan who falls in love with a wounded king not knowing that he is the arch enemy of her own kingdom. The lead role of Amrapali is played by the talented Vijayanti Mala. This movie and the role gave her ample opportunity to showcase her dancing prowess in the movie.

This song came to mind after the random memory of two of its specific lines:

Gyaan ki kaisi seema gyani?

Gagar mein sagar ka pani!

Background: 

The movie is set in the times of Gautam Buddha in an ancient India.

The king of Magadha enters the kingdom of Vaishali in the disguise of an ascetic( yogi) to spy on the rival army. In this period he chances upon the royal dancer and is smitten by her beauty. Mistaking him for a real renunciate she lectures him on the futility of cold intellectual, theoretical knowledge of the spirit vs experience of the knowledge through the painful reality of a life lived in love. 

The plot of the movie takes her from being infatuated by physical love for the king towards a broader sense of love towards all creatures brought by her submission to the Buddha and his teachings. The heavy loss of life in a war fought to release her from imprisonment leaves her shattered and eventually makes even the victorious king realize the insanity provoked by passion. He too surrenders his material ambitions and become a disciple of the Buddha.

Although she mouths the lyrics of this song from a nearly hypocritical angle in the movie, when re-looked at from an independent perspective, these are precious words that call for introspection and greater understanding of passion, dispassion, spiritual pain, spiritual living and death, humility and surrender. 

Jaao re jogi tum jaao re

Yeh hain premiyon ki nagari 

Yahan prem hi hain pooja ……..

Prem ki peeda sachcha sukh hain 

Prem bina yeh jeevan dukh hain

Jeevan se kaisa chhutkara 

Hain nadiya ke paas kinara 

Gyaan ki kaisi seema gyani?

Gagar mein sagar ka pani!

Jaao re jogi tum jaao re

Oh Jogi, you ought to leave. There is no place for you here.

Yeh hain premiyon ki nagari 

This is a city of passionate lovers. 

Yahan prem hi hain pooja ……..

Here love is the one and only form of worship.

Prem ki peeda sachcha sukh hain 

There is genuine happiness in suffering brought on by being in love 

Prem bina yeh jeevan dukh hain

This life is miserable without love.

Jeevan se kaisa chhutkara 

How can there ever be liberation from life?

Hain nadiya ke paas kinara 

A river can never be separated from its banks.

Gyaan ki kaisi seema gyani?

How can wisdom be contained within limits, O wise one?

Gagar mein sagar ka pani!

It is like trying to fit the ocean into a pot. 

As mentioned earlier, she is speaking from half baked knowledge when she is speaking to the yogi( the king in disguise). While physically infatuated with a man, she is talking about this love being superior to a life of dispassion, and making the argument that wisdom derived from the pains of passion is more authentic than intellectual deduction of wisdom. 

Amrapali, in her pre-surrender phase, represents everyday people who seek happiness from physical love and material comforts. To be able to share their joys and sorrows with their loved ones is their understanding of a good life. They do not believe in a real liberation from life. For them, this is it. Momentary joys, momentary sorrows are to be cherished and life shall go on as it always has. The river of their life flows between these two banks of suffering and happiness. There is nothing beyond this. When anyone tries to make them look beyond the physical realm they counter the wisdom with cynicism and poke fun at the audacious claim of the so called wise people that she have “realized” the ultimate truth or knowledge of the universe. It is with that sarcastic tone she is questioning the ascetic that you should know better, knowledge is too vast to be grasped by anyone. Don’t try to fool me with your doctrine of spiritual truth and a life of renunciation. 

This song really opens a treasure trove for thought and discussion on some commonplace yet difficult concepts. 

Let’s see the various concepts here.