Warning, death is already at your shoulder
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
काळ जविळ च उभा नेणां । घाली झांपडी खुंटी कानां ॥1॥
कैसा हुशार सावध राहीं । आपुला तूं अपुलेठायीं॥ध्रु.॥
काळ जविळच उभा पाहीं । नेदी कोणासि देऊं कांहीं ॥2॥
काळें पुरविली पाठी । वरुषें जालीं तरी साठी ॥3॥
काळ भोंवताला भोंवे। राम येऊं नेदी जिव्हे ॥4॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Death stands right beside you, but you do not know it; it covers your eyes and plugs your ears. How will you remain alert and watchful, present to yourself in your own being? Death stands right next to you; see how it will not let you give anything to anyone. Death has pursued you steadily for sixty years. Death circles around and around, not letting Rama come to your tongue.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Death stands right beside you and you do not know it; it has covered your eyes and plugged your ears. How will you stay alert and watchful, present to yourself, in your own place? Look, death stands right next to you; it will not let you give anything to anyone. Death has been on your trail steadily; sixty years have passed. Death circles round and round, and will not let Rama come to your tongue.
What it means
Tukaram speaks like someone shaking a sleeper awake. Death is not far off in the future; it is already at the shoulder, and it works by dulling the senses so we never notice the years going by. He counts sixty of them already gone. The sharpest line is the last: death's real theft is not the body but the chance to say the Name, keeping Rama from reaching the tongue. The urgency of the poem is that the only safe use of the time left is to call on God now, before the senses close for good.
Appeals and Exhortations
Direct calls to action: wake up, seek God, do not waste this human birth.
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