Bold complaint, matching God's indifference
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
जैशासाठीं तैसें हावें । हें बरवें कळलेंसे ॥1॥
उदास तूं नारायणा । मी ही ह्मणा तुह्मी च ॥ध्रु.॥
ठका महाठक जोडा । जो धडफुडा लागासी ॥2॥
एकांगी च भांडे तुका । नाहीं धोका जीवित्वें ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
For whatever purpose, one must become accordingly. This good thing has become known. You are udasina, O Narayana. I too, I say, am You Yourself. Cheat, great cheat, a pair. The direct one is the one who gets it. Says Tuka, I argue alone, on one side. There is no danger to the jiva.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
You must become whatever the situation asks of you; I have learned this well. You stay indifferent, Narayana, so I say I too am only You yourself. Cheat and great cheat, we make a pair; the one who comes at it straight is the one who gets caught. Tuka says: I will quarrel alone, one against you, and there is no risk to my life.
What it means
Tukaram answers God's coldness by mirroring it back. If God can stay detached and aloof, then Tukaram will claim he is no different from God himself, and meet indifference with indifference. He casts the two of them as a matched pair of tricksters, where the one who approaches honestly is the one who gets fooled. The defiance is the point: he will press his case alone, unafraid, because in his own life there is nothing left to lose.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
More in this theme →