Complaint of love, the withholding God
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
आपुले वरदळ नेदा । एवढी गोविंदा कृपणता ॥1॥
यावर बा तुमचा मोळा । हा गोपाळा कळेना ॥ध्रु.॥
सेवा तरी घेतां सांग । चोरिलें अंग सहावेना ॥2॥
तुका जरी क्रियानष्ट । तरी कां कष्ट घेतसां ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
He will not give even His own leftover garland. Is this Your miserliness, O Govinda? This stubbornness of Yours is beyond my understanding, O Gopala. You do accept our service, that much is clear; yet You cannot bear to give even a bit of Yourself. Says Tuka, even if I am unworthy in action, then why do You keep laboring over me?.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
You will not give even Your leftover garland. Is this Your stinginess, O Govinda? This way of Yours, O Gopala, I cannot make out. You do accept our service, that much is plain. Yet You cannot bear to hand over even a scrap of Yourself. Tuka says: if I am ruined in my conduct, then why do You keep taking such trouble over me?
What it means
This is the lover's grievance, half scolding and half pleading. Tukaram accuses God of meanness: He takes all the service offered and gives back not even His worn garland, withholding His own self. The complaint sharpens into a logical trap he springs on God: if I am truly worthless, why do You bother laboring over me at all. The hidden frame is that God's continued effort is itself the proof of love the poet pretends not to receive, so the charge of stinginess is really a way of begging to be given more.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
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