Social criticism, a life gone to waste
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
कीविलवाणा जाला आतां । दोष करितां न विचारी॥1॥
अभिळाषी नारी धन । झकवी जन लटिकें चि ॥ध्रु.॥
विश्वासिया करी घात । न धरी चित्ता कांटाळा ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे नाहीं आला । वृथा गेला जन्मासी ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
He has become pitiable now, committing sins without a second thought. He lusts after women and wealth, deceiving people with lies. He betrays those who trust him and feels no revulsion in his chitta. Says Tuka, he has not truly been born; his life has gone entirely to waste.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
He has become a pitiful thing now, doing wrong without a second thought. He lusts after women and wealth and cheats people with plain lies. He destroys the one who trusted him and feels no disgust in his heart. Tuka says: he was never truly born; his whole life has gone to waste.
What it means
Tukaram sketches a man so given over to wrongdoing that he no longer pauses before doing it, driven by craving for women and money and content to deceive openly. The sharpest charge is the betrayal of trust done without a flicker of revulsion in the heart, for the deadened conscience is worse than the act. The verdict is severe but pointed at the pattern: a person who lives this way has wasted the very gift of birth. Tukaram's measure of a human life is not its length or its gains but whether it was lived toward truth, and by that measure such a life never began. The listener is left to ask whether their own conscience can still feel that disgust.
Social Criticism
Rebuke of hypocrisy, caste pride, false teachers, greed, and religious pretence.
More in this theme →