Social criticism, the incorrigible glutton
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
बरगासाटीं खादलें शेण । मिळतां अन्न न संडी ॥1॥
फजित तो केला आहे । ताडण साहे गौरव ॥ध्रु.॥
ओढाळाची ओंगळ ओढी । उगी खोडी नवजाय ॥2॥
तुका फजीत करी बुच्या। विसरे कुच्या खोडी तेणें ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
For lack of proper food he ate dung, but once real grain was found, he would not give it up. He has already been shamed and humiliated; he endured beatings but also received honor. A glutton's greed is filthy and incorrigible; his bad habits simply will not cease. Says Tuka, he makes a spectacle of the stubborn ones and shames them, yet even by that they do not forget their old ways.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
For lack of food he ate dung. But once real grain came, he would not give it up. He has already been shamed. He took the beatings, and he took the honor too. A glutton's pull is filthy and dragging. The bad habit simply will not leave him. Tuka says: he makes a public spectacle of the stubborn ones and shames them, yet even by that they do not forget their old ways.
What it means
Tukaram paints a picture of a person ruled by appetite and uses it to expose a pattern in all of us. The eater started on dung out of need, but then clung to grabbing food even when good grain was offered, the habit outliving the reason for it. Public shame, beatings, even occasional honor, nothing reaches him; the craving is incorrigible. The warning is for the listener too: a fixed habit can survive every embarrassment and correction, so the work is to watch the pull itself, not just to mock the one who is dragged by it.
Worldly Metaphors
Poems using images from games, occupations, and daily life as spiritual teaching.
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