Krishna's flute steals every mind — Sarva-bhuta-manohara. At dusk, in the hour of pradosha, he plays and calls: "Come now, please come". The gopi hears that swara — and at once she is running to him. But until she has crossed into the kunja she trembles like a thief, like a parakiya: out there, beyond the grove, are strangers' eyes, a whole world watching, ready to judge. Then she steps into the kunja, into the rajamandala — and the world breaks off all at once. Is there any cosmos left, any world at all beyond this grove? She cannot recall a single one. Only three remain: "Krishna, and I, and my sakhi — only we are here". And she serves — freely, without a shadow of fear, as if the universe had never been. And only when a sakhi gently touches her — "Don't be bewildered, there is also another world out beyond" — does the fear rush back: someone is coming, someone may see.