your bridge home
Saints and Poets
He told God he had been kept waiting, that this was not good enough, and that he was owed an answer.
The thing to understand about the abhangas is who Tukaram is talking to, and how.
He is talking to Vithoba. The deity at Pandharpur.
He stands on a brick with his hands on his hips, waiting. And he has been waiting for a very long time. And he talks to him the way you talk to somebody you have known your whole life and are currently furious with.
In one verse he is completely certain and the joy in it is unmistakable.
In the next he is telling God, flatly, that he has been calling and nobody has answered.
That he has done what was asked, and got nothing back. And that this is not acceptable behaviour.
He accuses. He tells Vithoba he is being ignored on purpose. He asks what kind of arrangement this is supposed to be. He points out that he has no other options and that God knows it, which makes the silence worse rather than better.
The rest of this story, read aloud, and a new one every day.