Longing, hunger for the feet
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
क्षुधारथी अन्नें दुष्काळें पीडिलें । मिष्टान्न देखिलें तेणें जैसें ॥1॥
तैसें तुझे पायीं लांचावलें मन । झुरे माझा प्राण भेटावया ॥ध्रु.॥
मांजरें देखिला लोणियांचा गोळा । लावुनियां डोळा बैसलेंसे ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे आतां झडी घालूं पाहें । पांडुरंगे माये तुझे पायीं ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Like a starving person who catches sight of fine food during a famine, so has my mind become greedy for Your feet. My soul burns to meet You. Like a cat that has spotted a lump of butter and sits staring at it with fixed eyes. Says Tuka, now rain down Your grace upon me. O Panduranga, O mother, at Your feet.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Like a starving man in a famine who suddenly sees fine food, that is how my mind has gone hungry for your feet. My very life burns to meet you. Like a cat that has spotted a lump of butter and sits with its eyes fixed on it, so I sit. Tuka says: now let me pounce, O Panduranga, O mother, at your feet.
What it means
Tukaram makes his longing physical with two homely images of appetite. The famished man and the staring cat are not flattering pictures of piety; they are pictures of raw, fixed hunger, and that is exactly his point about how the mind craves God. The longing is not calm or polite, it burns, and he asks not merely to approach but to spring upon the feet the way the cat lunges for the butter. Calling Panduranga mother in the same breath keeps the hunger tender even as it is fierce.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
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