Longing, the cry against God's silence
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
गंगा गेली सिंधुपाशीं । जरी तो ठाव नेदी तिशी॥1॥
तिणें जावें कवण्या ठाया । मज सांगा पंढरिराया ॥ध्रु.॥
जळ क्षोभलें जलचरां । माता बाळा नेदी थारा ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे आलों शरण । देवा त्वां कां धरिलें मौन्य ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
If the Ganga goes to the ocean and the ocean refuses her a place, where shall she go? Tell me, O Lord of Pandhari. If the water turns hostile to the fish, if a mother denies shelter to her child, what then? Says Tuka, I have come seeking refuge. O God, why have You maintained this silence?
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
The Ganga goes down to the ocean. If the ocean will not give her a place, where is she to go? Tell me that, Lord of Pandhari. If the water turns against the fish that live in it, if a mother gives her child no shelter, then what? Tuka says: I have come to you for refuge. God, why have you kept silent?
What it means
Tukaram presses his complaint as a string of impossible refusals. The river belongs in the ocean, the fish belong in the water, the child belongs with its mother; if even these last refuges turned someone away, there would be nowhere left to go. He sets himself in that place: he has come to the only one who could shelter him, and the Lord has answered with silence. The poem is not doubt so much as a wounded demand, holding God to the bond a refuge owes whoever runs to it.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
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