Longing, the child crying for milk
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
आळवीन स्वरें । कैशा मधुरा उत्तरें ॥1॥
यें वो यें वो पांडुरंगे । प्रेमपान्हा मज दें गे ॥ध्रु.॥
पसरूनि चोंची । वचन हें करुणेची ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे बळी । आह्मी लडिवाळें आळीं ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
I will call out in sweet tones, with tender and beautiful words. Come, O Panduranga, come! Give me the flowing milk of your love. With open beak, these are words of mercy. Says Tuka, we are your children, insistent in our playful pleading.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
I will call out in sweet tones, with tender, beautiful words. Come, O Panduranga, come! Give me the flowing milk of your love. With open mouth, these are words of mercy. Tuka says: we are your children, insistent in our playful pleading.
What it means
Tukaram speaks as a hungry child crying for its mother, asking Panduranga to come and let down the milk of love. The sweet calling and tender words are not flattery; they are the only language the helpless infant has. The open mouth waiting to be fed makes the relationship plain: the devotee can only ask, the giving rests entirely with God. By calling himself a child stubborn in playful pleading, he claims the child's right to demand, for a true child does not earn the milk, it simply belongs to it.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
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