These lines are from Vishvanath Chakravarti’s Sanskrit rasa classic Prema Samput that Mumbiram has translated into English as “The Jewel Box of Highest Secrets of True Love”. It is one of the High Five of Love ensemble published by Distant Drummer Publications.

Krishna comes to his beloved Radha, disguised as a demigoddess who has secretly witnessed all of Krishna’s dalliances at the Vamshi Vat banyan tree on the Bank of the Yamuna. The disguised Krishna lustily criticizes Radha’s Krishna as an undependable lover unworthy of Radha’s love. Thereupon Radha speaks in defense of her beloved these precious words that are the ‘Highest Secrets of True Love’.

Mumbiram’s Prema Vivarta mood is the state of a lover of Krishna who is feeling great separation from Krishna, a feeling so strong that everything that happens in the lover’s life reminds him of something similar in Krishna’s dealings with his associates in his eternal abode : Goloka Vrindavan.

Mumbiram’s Rasa Art is pleasing and exciting even without knowing the esoteric underpinnings that make it ecstatic to those who are familiar with the secrets of self-realization.

People appearing in every one of Mumbiram’s paintings are real people. People with whom the artist has experienced real life situations that inspired the painting. They are not stylized stereotypes such as we see in Indian miniatures. Even when they appear juxtaposed with timeless Sanskrit classics of immortal rasa celebrity they are not created as illustrations for verses of those classics. That is why every person in Mumbiram’s painting is an individual of unique appearance, credible character and attains rare distinction of a universal rasa icon. Lucky were those who were witnesses to those extraordinary happenings in that unlikely abode in the bustling vegetable market place of Pune.

A Rasik has contributed: “These two looking steadily and lovingly into each other’s eyes could light up the entire creation.”