Social criticism, the wrong thing in the wrong place
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
क्षीर मागे तया रायतें वाढी । पाधानी गधडी ऐशा नांवें ॥1॥
समयो जाणां समयो जाणां । भलतें नाणां भलतेथें॥ध्रु.॥
अमंगळ वाणी वदवी मंगळी । अशुभ वोंगळी शोभन तें ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे नेणें समयो ठाया ठाव । राहाडी ते वाव नरकाडी ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
When milk is requested, he serves buttermilk instead; such is the conduct of a fool. Know the right occasion; do not put the wrong thing in the wrong place. An impure tongue speaks auspicious words; what is unclean and inauspicious parades as sacred. Says Tuka, the one who does not know the proper time and place turns a shrine into a cesspool.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Ask him for milk and he serves you buttermilk; a fool earns such a name. Know the occasion, know the occasion; do not put the wrong thing in the wrong place. He makes an impure tongue speak the auspicious words; the foul and unclean is paraded as fine. Tuka says: the one who does not know the right time and place turns a holy shrine into a cesspool.
What it means
Tukaram is warning against the failure to fit the act to the moment. Serving buttermilk when milk was asked, speaking sacred words with an unclean tongue, dressing up the foul as fine: each is the right thing put in the wrong place, or the wrong thing where the right belonged. The repeated call to know the occasion is the heart of it. He drives the point home with a sharp image: without that sense of time and place, even what should be a shrine is turned into filth, and the failing is meant to make the listener examine his own sense of what fits where.
Social Criticism
Rebuke of hypocrisy, caste pride, false teachers, greed, and religious pretence.
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