Seeker of Spirituality? Lover of Exquisite Poetry? Look No Beyond "One Hundred Poems of Tukaram"! This book is a collection of selected poems of Tukaram, the greatest poet from India, who finely blends worldly wisdom with spirituality. Though written in the seventeenth century, Tukaram's poetry hold its relevance in our own twenty-first century that is facing so many self-created evils! These poems will heal your bruised mind with their spiritual touch and at the same time enrich it with their worldly wisdom! Much needed fine balance indeed!!! Tukaram was a seventeenth century Indian poet who challenged the norms of the day, whether literary, social or religious in his poems that not only energized a decaying society but also influenced the centuries to come. Tukaram's poetry hold its rejuvenating powers even in the turbulent times of our own twenty-first century. One Hundred Poems of Tukaram is a translation of selected poems of this visionary poet who makes his reader see every aspect of life in a new light, enabling them to rethink the whole world in more positive terms. Tukaram's reputation as one of the greatest poets born in India resides on his four thousand or so extant poems which he composed in Marathi, his mother tongue. Unlike most of the poets of the seventeenth century, Tukaram did not write in highly Sanskitised Marathi, instead he chose the colloquial language spoken by the common-most people of his times. This has given a distinct vigour to his compositions which appeal straight to the heart of his readers. By temperament, Tukaram is as candid and as forthright as imaginable and does not hesitate to write about anything under the sun nor does he consider anything too holy to be left untouched. This makes his poems penetratingly consistent in taking aim at the very core of the questions grappling human existence. Though he wrote almost four hundred years ago, in a very different social milieu than today's globalised and digitized world, somehow he seems to be dealing with and overcoming exactly the same dilemmas faced by the human populace in the twenty first century the world over. This continuum of human condition is what draws us more and more to the poems of Tukaram. While reading Tukaram, one gets an eerie feeling that Tukaram is a contemporary poet, that the content of his poems is of the present times, that he writes for the current generations. Thus we come across in his poems all that angst that we today experience on seeing innocent people suffering at the hands of the terrorists, when he exclaims: "Eyes cannot bear to see Such is the devastation Pains of others grieve My heart" It hardly matters that Tukaram is writing in this poem about the horrific droughts of his times that wiped out an entire generation; this becomes an expression of my heart writhing in pain seeing the images of the thousands of Nigerians killed in the Boko Haram attack. It hardly matters that Tukaram is talking about a nature-inflicted calamity, while our miseries today are self-inflicted. Tukaram's words catch hold of our aching nerve like no contemporary of ours can.
About the Author: Chandrakant Kaluram Mhatre is a bilingual poet and writer of short fiction from Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra State of India, writing in English as well as his mother-tongue Marathi. He is a translator of Marathi literature into English and is also a keen researcher of folk culture, language and literature. He teaches English language and literature to undergrads in a Mumbai college and is a native of Navi Mumbai.