Teasing the wanderer, the cows lost again
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
कां रे गमाविल्या गाई । आली वळती तुझी जाई । मागें जालें काई । एका तें का नेणसी ॥१॥
केलास फजित । मागें पुढें ही बहुत । लाज नाहीं नित्य । नित्य दंड पावतां ॥ध्रु.॥
वोला खोडा खळि गाढी । ऐसा कोण तये काढी । धांवेल का पाडी । तुझी आधीं वोढाळा ॥२॥
चाल धांवें । मी ही येतों तुजसवें । तुका म्हणे जंव । तेथें नाहीं पावली ॥३॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Why have you lost the cows again? Your mother has come looking for you. Do you not know what happened the last time? You have been made a fool, again and again, and yet you feel no shame at being punished day after day. Your habit of mischief is deeply rooted; who can cure it? Will anyone restrain this wandering one? Come, run, I will come with you. Says Tuka, let us hurry before she arrives there.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Why have you lost the cows again? Your mother has come looking for you. Do you not know what happened last time? You have been made a fool, before and after, many times over, and still you feel no shame though you are punished day after day. Your mischief is a stubborn, deep-set habit; who can pull it out? Will anyone hold back this wandering one of yours? Come, run; I will come with you too. Tuka says: let us hurry, before she gets there.
What it means
On the surface this is a friend scolding little Krishna, who has wandered off and lost the cows yet again and will catch it from his mother. Tukaram lets the teasing carry a second sense about habit: a pattern of straying so deep-rooted that punishment never cures it, and no one can pull it out. Read on oneself, the wandering one is the restless mind that strays again and again and feels no shame at the repeated cost. The tenderness is that the speaker does not abandon the wanderer; he runs alongside, racing to soften the reckoning. The poem holds both the affection for Krishna and a quiet mirror for our own incurable straying.
Krishna Leela
Poems celebrating Krishna's birth, childhood, and divine play.
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