Demanding what is mine, a beggar's sit-in
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
बैसलोंसे दारीं । धरणें कोंडोनि भिकारी ॥1॥
आतां कोठें हालों नेदीं । बरी सांपडली संदी ॥ध्रु.॥
किती वेरझारा । मागें घातलीया घरा ॥2॥
माझें मज नारायणा । देतां ां रे नये मना॥3॥
भांडावें तें किती । बहु सोसिली फजिती ॥4॥
तुका ह्मणे नाहीं । लाज तुझे अंगीं कांहीं ॥5॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
I have sat down at Your door like a beggar staging a sit-in. Now I will not let You move from here; I have caught the right moment. How many rounds have I made to this house before? Give me what is mine, O Narayana; does it not trouble Your conscience to withhold it? How much longer must I argue? I have endured enough humiliation. Says Tuka, there is not an ounce of shame in You.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
I have sat down at your door. Like a beggar, I am staging a sit-in, blocking the way. Now I will not let you move from here. I have caught the right moment at last. How many rounds have I already made to this house? Give me what is mine, Narayana. Does it not trouble your conscience to hold it back? How long must I keep arguing? I have swallowed enough humiliation. Tuka says: there is not an ounce of shame in you.
What it means
Tukaram approaches God not as a polite suppliant but as a creditor who plants himself at the door and refuses to budge until he is paid. He insists that liberation is not charity but his own due, something already his, and he scolds Narayana for withholding it with no apparent prick of conscience. The complaint of having made many fruitless trips and endured much humiliation is the voice of a long, frustrated longing that has turned bold. The final jab, that God has no shame, is the freedom of the lover who can accuse the Beloved precisely because the bond is unbreakable; the rudeness is intimacy, not contempt.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
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