Longing, the loving complaint
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
बोलतां वचन असा पाठमोरे । मज भाव बरे कळों आले ॥1॥
मागतिलें नये अरुचीनें हातां । नाहीं वरी सत्ता आदराची॥ध्रु.॥
समाधानासाटीं लाविलासे कान । चोरलें तें मन दिसतसां ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे आह्मां तुमचे चि फंद । वरदळ छंद कळों येती ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
When I speak, You turn away. I have come to understand Your disposition well. What is asked for does not come willingly; there is no authority that can compel Your love. You lend Your ear for the sake of pacifying me, but I can see that Your mind has been stolen away elsewhere. Says Tuka, we understand Your ways; Your superficial whims are transparent to us.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
When I speak, You turn Your back. I have come to understand Your nature well. What I ask for does not come willingly; there is no power that can force Your love. You lend an ear just to quiet me, but I can see that Your mind has been stolen away somewhere else. Tuka says: we know Your games; Your surface whims are easy for us to read.
What it means
This is a lover's complaint addressed straight to God. Tukaram says that when he speaks, God turns away, and he claims to have read God's disposition: love cannot be compelled, and what he begs for is given grudgingly if at all. He sees through the half-attention, the ear lent only to pacify him while the heart is elsewhere. The teasing, intimate tone is the point; the verse names the soul's frustration at a God who withholds, while insisting that the devotee knows these games well enough to see past the surface.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
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