In Vraja, love is never spoken straight. It comes slantwise — through teasing, through a staged little quarrel, through rivalry; the feeling runs so strong that they hide it away. Krishna comes to Radhika. She herself had sought this meeting, she herself longs for him to touch her — and she says: "Don't touch me." And at once she packs him off to do penance: "Go and bathe in every holy place in all three worlds, then come back, and we shall discuss it." She is so contrary. But Krishna is a village boy; he knows these ways through and through, and he hears every word backwards. Her "no" is no refusal at all but a lure: with every delay she only swells his eagerness, his hunger, his anuraga. More than that — she scolds him, calls him harsh names, "thief of other men's wives!", and Krishna confesses that this abuse from the gopis' lips is sweeter to him than all the Vedic prayers of Brahma and Shiva — "when I hear these words, my mind is stolen away". *"Don't touch me" means "yes". "No" means "yes".*