Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.12.29
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
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ghana-chadāḥ
—
hidden behind clouds
Compound: ghana (cloud) + chada (cover). The devas hide — they cannot bear to watch openly. Gauḍīyas: even demigods, with their long lives and powers, have only the courage to peek. The cowherd boys, by contrast, walked in laughing.
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hā-hā
—
alas, alas
Onomatopoeic vocative of grief. The same syllables that mark śoka in classical drama. Bhāgavatam uses everyday emotional sounds; the gods grieve in plain language.
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kaṁsa-ādyāḥ
—
Kaṁsa and others
Compound: Kaṁsa + ādi (etcetera). The demoniac faction. Gauḍīyas note: Kaṁsa's enmity is in fact constant smaraṇa — he thinks of Kṛṣṇa more than most devotees do. Vairānubandha is a form of bhakti in inversion, which is why Kaṁsa too is liberated by Kṛṣṇa's hand.
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agha-bāndhavāḥ
—
friends of Agha
Compound: agha (the demon, also 'sin') + bāndhava (kin, friend). 'Friends of sin' — a phrase that double-reads. Demoniac alliance is always alliance with sin itself. Gauḍīya satsaṅga logic: one is shaped by company.
The devatas, who were hiding in the clouds out of fear of Kamsa, began shouting, fearing Krsna’s safety. Though the devatas are aware of the Lord’s powers, because they are also devotees, they shouted in anxiety. The very nature of bhakti is to have affection, and the very nature of affection is to lose ones logical discriminatory powers. Kamsa and the raksasas (kauna pa—eaters of corpses), the sons and brothers of Aghasura, rejoiced on hearing the news from messengers.
The devatās hid behind the cloud because of fear of Kaṁsa and Agha. The word ca indicates other sinful people as well. Though Kaṁsa was a daitya demon he was also a Rākṣasa. There are considered the same here to indicate their extremely evil nature. Or the sentence can indicate demons like Kaṁsa and Rākṣasa. They were all overjoyed since by nature they hated the Lord. Glee arose within their evil minds. They became joyful because Kaṁsa heard about Agha swallowing the boys and Kṛṣṇa through spies who had arrived from Vraja.
- When I have taken a step toward Kṛṣṇa, whose 'Alas!' did I hear and whose cheering did I hear?
- Am I more shaped by the disappointment of one camp or the cheering of the other than by Kṛṣṇa Himself?
Picture two galleries watching the same act through opposite emotions: the demigods, who love Kṛṣṇa, cry 'alas, alas' from behind their clouds; Kaṁsa's people, who hate Him, cheer. The same event is heard in opposite registers depending on whether the heart belongs to Bhagavān. Bhakti is in part a question of which audience one is in.
My note
Source: vedabase.io