Literary links

“Saint Tukaram was truly the greatest poet in the history of Marathi literature. In the year 2000 when we were searching for literature written on Sant Tukaram,there was hardly any information available on the net. We thus thought of launching a website dedicated to Tukaram and that’s how tukaram.com was launched in 2002. The website provides information about the literary poet in 14 Indian and eight international languages,” says Dhonde,a software professional.

With a humongous response from across the globe right since its inception,the feedback section of the website boasts of comments such as the one by Ganavya Iyer Doraiswamy from Miami who says,“I was born in New York,and raised up in Jacksonville. My mother,Vidya introduced me to this website. Now,at the age of 15,words cannot show how much I have learnt. All this came only due to Tukaram maharaj’s abhangs. I have fallen in love with Pandharpur and Lord Vittal. We are so blessed to have such a rich culture and great saints like Tukaram maharaj.”

“Another important comment I received was from one Michelle Green who were family friends of George Harrison of Beetles. She says that Harrison was a fan of Robindranath Tagore and Tukaram,” says Dhonde adding,“And that is the reason I thought of coming up with the e-copy of the biography so that everyone would know who Tukaram really was.”

Written by Sridhar Maharaj More Dehukar,ninth generation descendant of Sant Tukaram,along with inputs by author late Di Pu Chitre,the book covers all the major aspects of Tukaram’s life such as- his birth,social and political significance,literature,Tukaram’s association with Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj,followers and his contribution towards the society. With the cover picture drawn originally by director Satyajit Ray,the e-copy of the book is available in languages such as- Marathi,English,Hindi,Rajasthani,Gujrathi,Sanskrit,Tamil,Kannada,Kashmiri and Sindhi. An added feature of the e-copy is also the availability of Braille version of the book. “The book is translated into Braille and made available on the website along with addresses of two organisations that can provide printed versions of the same,” adds Dhonde.

An addition to the already existing material about Saint Tukaram that includes translation of 16 abhangas by Mahatma Gandhi,800 abhangas in Gujrathi by Neelkanth Panchbhai along with audio files of his compositions,Dhonde is now hopeful that the biography will further enrich peoples’ views about the saint who carved a niche for himself in the history of Marathi literature.