Longing, the exile waiting for word
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
आपुले गांवींचें न देखेसें जालें । परदेसी एकलें किती कंठूं ॥1॥
ह्मणऊनि पाहें मूळ येतां वाटे । जीवलग भेटे कोणी तरी ॥ध्रु.॥
पाहातां अवघ्या दिसतील दिशा । सकळ ही वोसा दृष्टीपुढें ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे कोणी न संगे वारता । तुझी वाटे चिंता पांडुरंगा ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Nothing of my own homeland can be seen anymore. How long shall I endure this foreign land alone? Therefore I watch the road back home, hoping some life-dear one will come to meet me. Looking in all directions, everything appears desolate before my eyes. Says Tuka, no one brings me tidings of You. I feel only anxiety for You, O Panduranga.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
I can no longer see anything of my own homeland. How long can I endure this foreign land, all alone? So I keep watching the road back home, hoping some dear one will come to meet me. I look in every direction, and all I see before my eyes is desolation. Tuka says: no one brings me any news of You. I am sick with worry for You, O Panduranga.
What it means
Tukaram speaks as one stranded far from where he belongs, and his true home is God. The world he lives in is the foreign land; nothing of his real country, Panduranga, is in sight, and he asks how long a soul can bear that separation alone. So he watches the road, longing for some life-dear one to come with word of the Beloved. The poem turns the usual fear around: he is not anxious for himself but anxious for God, aching because no message comes, and that ache is itself the proof of his love.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
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