Complaint, the unanswered cry
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
आमची कां नये तुह्मासी करुणा । किती नारायणा आळवावें ॥1॥
काय जाणां तुह्मी दुर्बळाचें जिणें । वैभवाच्या गुणें आपुलिया ॥ध्रु.॥
देती घेती करिती खटपटा आणिकें । निराळा कौतुकें पाहोनियां ॥2॥
दिवस बोटीीं आह्मीं धरियेलें माप । वाहातों संकल्प स्वहिताचा ॥3॥
तुका ह्मणे मग देसी कोण्या काळें । चुकुर दुर्बळें होतों आह्मी ॥4॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Why does compassion for me not arise in You, O Narayana? How long must I call out to You? You do not know the life of the poor, wrapped as You are in Your own splendor. Others bargain and haggle, while You stand apart watching the spectacle. Day after day I count on my fingers, carrying the burden of longing for my own good. Says Tuka, when will You finally give? We poor ones keep stumbling.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Why does no pity for me rise in You, Narayana? How long must I keep calling out? You do not know what the life of the poor is like; You are wrapped up in Your own splendor. Others bargain and haggle and scramble, while You stand apart and watch the show. Day after day I count the days off on my fingers, carrying the burden of longing for my own good. Tuka says: so when, in what age, will You finally give? We poor ones keep stumbling and falling.
What it means
This is a frank complaint flung at a God who seems comfortable and distant. Tukaram accuses Him of not knowing the grinding life of the poor, of being so wrapped in His own glory that He merely watches the world's struggle like a spectacle. He paints himself counting the days on his fingers, the weight of his own longing pressing on him, asking when relief will ever come. The boldness of the poem is its refusal to pretend patience: he names the silence and the delay as real, and presses God to act. Beneath the reproach is the trust that only God can answer, which is why he keeps calling at all.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
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