Mayilpeeli - Bhakti in its finer forms can be found in Nature.

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HARI AUMIt is reported that Thyagaraja Bhagavatar had simplyrefused invitations from Kings to sing in their Courts! How could he do that? Of course he was leastinterested in the valuable presents or gold coins he would have got. But what about the displeasure ofKings? He could have even lost hislife! A true bhaktan of Sriraman, Thyagarajan was not afraid of anything – hewas always engrossed in singing in praise of Him. Just for a moment imagine that legendary figure inyour mind singing before his Lord, in praise of Him – the sage is so muchengrossed in his karma that he can not be tempted or distracted - he can not bethreatened or intimidated. That is thereal BHAKTI BHAVAM.My esteemed fellow devotees, yes; I had seen thisBHAKTI BHAVAM in the dancing Peacocks in Dhariba, Rajasthan (as described inanother post a couple days back)! When the Peacock was dancing he was fully absorbedin the dance; as if he was not at all concerned about the innumerable predatorsaround. May be the few peahens who arethe silent spectators would have been keeping themselves vigilantthroughout. Also this Peacock Dance reminded me of anenthralling love scene of Kathakali: Uthara Swayamvaram (By IrayimmanThapy). Scene: Duryodhanan & Bhanumathi in their Poonkavanam.(Palace Gardens)Padam: Kalyaaaanee Kaanka MaMa Vallabhe … Ragam: Padi, Thalam: ChempadaThis scene is described by Kathakali Connoisseursas a typical Dheerodatha Sambhoga Sringara Avishkara Scene in Kathakali. The Peacock scene that I had seen in Daribahillock also can very well be described as - Dheerodatha Sambhoga SringaraScene - ! The similarity was so striking that I believe thatIrayimman Thampi would have watched real Peacock Dance in some NaturalConditions somewhere.I had scanned the biographies of Thampi, availableon Internet; but could not come across any reference to his having had touredout of Kerala. May be in those days ofThampi there would have been some places in Kerala where Peacocks could dancelike that!However, Thampi had succeeded cent per cent indepicting the very Peacock Dance in SPIRIT and FORM in this scene. Hope some of our learned devotees who are wellversed in the Art of Kathakali can correct me or enlighten us more on thetopic.Regards to all,urs affly nb nair.PS: Thiswas not the only peacock dance I had seen. Earlier I had seen one in a Guest House Compound in Bihar, again a smallprotected place, and also another in Madras Zoo. But these dances were worlds apart from what I had seen in theserene Dariba Hillock.