Krishna, the sulking playmates
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
गडी गेले रडी । कान्हो नेदीस तूं चढी ॥१॥
आम्ही न खेळों न खेळों । आला भाव तुझा कळों ॥ध्रु.॥
न साहावे भार । बहु लागतो उशीर ॥२॥
तुका आला रागें । येऊं नेदी मागें मागें ॥३॥
हाल - अभंग २
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
The friends have gone off crying. Krishna, you will not let anyone else climb up! We refuse to play, we refuse to play; now we see through your ways. The burden is too much to bear, and you take far too long. Says Tuka, he has come in anger and will not let anyone follow behind him.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
The friends have gone off crying. Krishna, you will not let anyone else climb up! We will not play, we will not play; now we see through your ways. The burden is too much to bear, and you take far too long. Tuka says: he has come in anger, and will not let anyone follow behind him.
What it means
Krishna's playmates are sulking: he always climbs up first and lets no one else take a turn, so they go off in tears, swearing they will not play and claiming they have seen through his tricks. It is the small drama of children with a domineering favorite, here the Lord himself. Tukaram adds that Krishna comes back in a temper and will not let anyone trail behind him. Beneath the quarrel lies a gentle truth about devotion: the soul protests God's seeming favoritism and delay, his refusal to let us keep pace on our terms, yet the relationship holds, sulking and all, within the larger play.
Krishna Leela
Poems celebrating Krishna's birth, childhood, and divine play.
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