Metaphor, the ruined son
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
देखोनि हरखली अंड । पुत्र जाला म्हणे रांड ॥ तंव तो जाला भांड । चाहाड चोर शिंदळ ॥१॥
जाय तिकडे पीडी लोकां । जोडी भांडवल थुंका ॥ थोर जाला चुका । वर कां नाहीं घातली ॥ध्रु.॥
भूमि कांपे त्याच्या भारें । कुंभपाकाचीं शरीरें ॥ निष्टुर उत्तरें । पापदृष्टी मळिणचित्त ॥२॥
दुराचारी तो चांडाळ । पाप सांगातें विटाळ ॥ तुका म्हणे खळ । म्हणोनियां निषद्धि तो ॥३॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
At the birth, the mother rejoiced: a son is born! But the son turned out a wretch, a buffoon, a betrayer, dissolute. Wherever he goes he torments people and earns nothing but spit. What a dire blunder; why was a noose not placed at birth? The earth groans under his weight; his body is fit for Kumbhipaka. His words are cruel, his gaze sinful, his chitta soiled. Says Tuka, such a vile one is truly fallen; sin and defilement walk at his side. He is forbidden.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
At his birth the mother rejoiced, a son is born. But the son grew up a wretch and a clown, a betrayer, a debauchee. Wherever he goes he torments people and earns nothing but their spit. What a ruinous mistake, the family thinks; why was a noose not put at his birth? The earth groans under his weight; his body is fit only for the hell of boiling cauldrons. His words are cruel, his look is sinful, his heart is soiled. Tuka says: a vile man like this is truly fallen, sin and defilement walk beside him, and he is to be shunned.
What it means
Another full portrait of corruption, deliberately unsparing. Tukaram traces the arc from a mother's joy at a birth to the grief of a family wishing the child had never lived, because the man became a source of harm to everyone around him. The violent images, the noose, the boiling hell, the groaning earth, are the felt weight of a life spent injuring others. As with his other dark portraits, the function is moral warning, not relish: he is mapping where cruelty and a soiled heart finally lead, so the listener will not walk that road. The sin is the target, never a person to be enjoyed.
Worldly Metaphors
Poems using images from games, occupations, and daily life as spiritual teaching.
More in this theme →