‘Don’t Give Us Your Nows and Thens’

Urgency

What’s to come tomorrow
let it come today.
What’s to come today
let it come right now.

Lord white as jasmine,
don’t give us your nows and thens!

(Akka Mahadevi: A. K. Ramanujan)

Rana
this shame is
so sweet

condemn or
commend me
I’ll carry on

there’s no
turning back
on this
one-way street

hermits
speak wisely
sinners
vilify

but Girdhar’s
my master
the sinners
can go die

(Mirabai: Rahul Soni)

This songbird craves
but for a glimpse of you.
Come, Sudhakar my love,
wring me dry.

(Rahim: Mustansir Dalvi)

Water soon drains away
from a fish caught in a net.
Observe, Rahim, its pangs of love,
as it chooses death over separation.

(Rahim: Mustansir Dalvi)

Yes, you can stand around
When the oven is burning
But where can you flee
When the whole earth is burning?
When the bank drinks up the water
And the fence grazes the field,
And the housewife steals from her own house,
And the mother’s poisoned breast milk kills,
O Kudalasangamadeva
To whom shall I complain?

(Basavanna: H. S. Shivaprakash)

With white hoops on moist mud
with moonlit sand I worship You

and Your brother: You two who stroke ardor’s ache.
You, burnt bodiless, save my body as I char

for his sooty resplendence: send me
to him who grasps the sphere spitting fire —

I’ll follow him
as liquid shadow.

invisible god of love
with white on wet umber
with rings of serene shimmer

I encircle you with prayer
as my body blazes:
fire me

at him who’s cosmic flame
scorch desire: douse
me in his pouring grace

(Andal: Priya Sarukkai Chabria)

I lie here yearning for the familiar sight
of Kannan, my dark lord.
Do not just stand there, mocking me
It is like pouring sour juice upon a raw and open wound.
Instead, bring the golden silk
wrapped around the waist of my great lord
who does not know
the agony of a woman’s heart.
Fan me with it and cool my burning fever.

(Andal: Archana Venkatesan)

I cannot bear the day; I cannot bear the night.
I am so much ashamed that I cannot even admit it.

I waste my words like the wind; you do not even taste them.
Your indifference humiliates me; I seethe with rage.

My mind cries to itself;
It chokes, and then it is spent.

Says Tuka, after all, You are omniscient!
How can I argue my hopeless case?

(Tukaram: Dilip Chitre)

Tell me, O God, why you and I
Are cast in the roles of enemy?
Why must you always reveal to me
Only mountainous burdens of suffering?

You give me into that all-consuming hand of time,
Without an iota of liberty.
Muzzled and tied up. Why?
What made you think of this design?

Lord, we placed all our hope in you.
Now we know better!
Hrishikesha, it’s you
Who makes us suffer.

Says Nama,
O Lord!
Either have pity on me
Or kill me now.

(Namdev: Dilip Chitre)

I throw ashes at all laws
Made by man or god.
I am born alone,
With no companion.
What is the worth
Of your vile laws
That failed me
In love,
And left me with a fool,
A dumbskull?

My wretched fate
Is so designed
That he is absent
For whom I long.
I will set fire to this house
And go away.

(Chandidas: Deben Bhattacharya)

While you’re busy perfuming
Your body with sandalwood,
Someone else is chopping
the wood for your funeral.

A kite string in your hand,
Paan dribbling from your mouth,
You forget that when you die
They’ll truss you up with rope,

Just like a common thief,
And put you on the pyre
To burn. Can’t you see that
Rama is the only truth, says Kabir,

Everything else a monstrous lie?

(Kabir: A. K. Mehrotra)

Death is standing on your head.
Wake up, friend!
With your house in the middle of traffic,
how can you sleep so sound?

(Kabir: Linda Hess and Shukdev Singh)