Longing, come to the orphan
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
मज अनाथाकारणें । करीं येणें केशवा ॥1॥
जीव झुरे तुजसाटीं । वाट पोटीं पहातसें ॥ध्रु.॥
चित्त रंगलें चरणीं । तुजवांचूनि न राहे ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे कृपावंत । माझी चिंता असावी॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
For the sake of this helpless one, O Keshava, please come. My jiva pines for You; I am watching and waiting. My chitta is absorbed at Your feet and cannot remain apart from You. Says Tuka, O compassionate one, keep me in Your thoughts.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
For the sake of this orphan, please come, Keshava. My life pines for you; in my heart I keep watching the road. My mind is dyed in your feet and cannot stay apart from you. Tuka says: O merciful one, keep me in your thoughts.
What it means
Tukaram speaks as an orphan, someone with no one else to turn to, and from that emptiness he calls God to come. The longing is physical: his very life withers, and he keeps his eyes on the road like a person waiting for one who is overdue. He says his mind has been dyed in God's feet, soaked through with that color so it can no longer hold a separate shape of its own. The small closing plea, keep me in your thoughts, is the whole of what an orphan dares to ask: simply not to be forgotten.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
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