Homecoming joy, the pilgrims arrive
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
आलें तें आधीं खाईन भातुकें । मग कवतुकें गाईन ओव्या ॥1॥
सांगितला आधीं आइकों निरोप । होइल माझा बाप पुसें तों तें ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे माझे सखे वारकरी । आले हे माहेरीहून आजि ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
First let me eat the gift that has come; then I will sing songs of joy. First let me hear the message; my Father will ask all that needs asking. Says Tuka, my dear friends, the Varkaris, have arrived today from my true home.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
First let me eat the sweet gift that has come; then with delight I will sing my songs. First let me hear the message; my Father will ask all there is to ask. Tuka says: my dear friends, the Varkaris, have arrived today from my true home.
What it means
Tukaram greets the Varkari pilgrims as messengers from his real homeland, the household of God. He is a child who has been away, and their coming is a child's homecoming: first the gift and the food, then the singing, then the news from home that the Father will want to hear. By calling Pandhari his maher, the home a daughter returns to from her in-laws, he names this world as a place of exile and the company of devotees as the proof that home has not forgotten him. The joy is not in arrival yet, but in the messengers who carry word that home is still there.
Ecstasy and Joy
Triumphant happiness: poems written from the far side of the struggle.
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