śrīrāmacaṃdrāṃcī āratī

A Marathi arati made almost entirely of ornament and sound. Earrings of jewels and a fine garland; the flash on the cheekbone against a body dark as a rain cloud; a bell and a small waist-bell, and cloth of a newly made colour, so that the movement itself becomes part of what is being looked at. The song works by accumulation rather than by argument, one bright thing set after another, in the manner of the aratis sung in front of a dressed image in a temple rather than in a house. The last line signs itself in the servant's voice, calling him the ornament of his servants and the breaker of the fear of becoming.