a new marathi abhanga · sung on the old melody
koṇyā vāṭe jāū
अवघ्या वाटा विसरल्या मज, सजणा रे
कोण्या वाटे जाऊ मी सजणा
All the paths have been forgotten by me, beloved. Which path do I take now?
An original composition in Marathi, in the viraha register of the Varkari
abhanga — Dnyaneshwar, Janabai — and of Meera's padas.
Written to the metre of Jaiye Sajana so it can be sung to that tune, beat for beat.
the song in sequence · for singing
Every line lands on the original's beat count.
अंतरापहिली ओळ ×2
चरण
कोरस×2
रचना / form: अंतरा → कोरस ×2 → अंतरा → कोरस ×2. The first line doubles each time the अंतरा comes round, exactly as the original's opening couplet does.
ओळीओळीने · line by line
The dots under each half-line are its sung beats — the last one saffron, where the rhyme lands. They are counted from the text itself, not asserted.
आकाश ढाळितो अश्रूंची धार
9परी हा नयन रडे ना
8ākāsh ḍhāḷito aśrūñchī dhār / parī hā nayan raḍe nā
The sky sheds a stream of tears — and still this eye of mine does not weep.
नयन is the abhanga's word for the eye. Making आकाश the one who sheds keeps the original's conceit exactly: creation performs the weeping the lover will not permit herself.
अशी प्रीत जडली विठू
8जी आणिक कोणा घडे ना
8aśī prīt jaḍalī Viṭhū / jī āṇik koṇā ghaḍe nā
Such a love has fastened on me, Vithu, as has come to no one else.
विठू — the warkari's affectionate diminutive for Vitthal. It puts the address in the bhakti register where the original petitions रब्बा, and keeps the complaint aimed at the one who caused it. जडली — fastened on me, not chosen.
तू गेल्यापासुनी एक दिन निजे ना
11tū gelyāpāsunī ek din nije nā
Since the day you went, not one day have I slept.
-उनी is the older participial ending of the Varkari poets rather than the modern -ऊन — and it buys the syllable the modern form would cost.
गाव अवघे परके
7मज आपुले उरे ना
7gāv avaghe parke / maj āpule ure nā
The whole town has turned stranger; nothing of mine is left here.
मज for मला and आपुले for आपले — both Dnyaneshwar-era forms. They are shorter, and they place the voice in the tradition in two words. गाव rather than शहर: the warkari's world is villages and the road between them.
मग ती प्रीत कोणाशी कधीच जुळे ना
11mag tī prīt koṇāśī kadhīch juḷe nā
After that, love never once joined with anyone.
जुळे ना — did not join. A mechanical failure reported, not a vow taken: the apparatus simply would not start again.
जग हे निर्दयी
5तरी रडे ना
5jag he nirdayī / tarī raḍe nā
The world is merciless — even so, I do not weep.
रडे ना returns deliberately from line i. The original repeats royi na in exactly this position; the withheld tear is the song's signature, so the Marathi repeats it too.
सारे रंग पाहिले
6आता भीती नाही
6sāre raṅg pāhile / ātā bhītī nāhī
I have seen every colour there is; now there is no fear.
रंग is the gift of this whole exercise. In Meera and in the Varkari poets, रंग is the colour one is dyed in by the Lord — the same freight as the Qur'anic dye of God. One native Marathi word carries both traditions at once.
ही प्रीती जिवंत राहणार
8कधी मरणार नाही
7hī prītī jivant rāhaṇār / kadhī maraṇār nāhī
This love will live on; it is never going to die.
राहणार / मरणार — the -णार future begins the yamak that runs through the next line. Living and dying rhymed against each other is the point of the couplet.
चालत राहिले तरीही
8भेट कोठेही होणार नाही
8chālat rāhile tarīhī / bheṭ koṭhehī hoṇār nāhī
I kept walking, even so — the meeting is not going to happen anywhere.
कोठेही — anywhere at all. This takes the harder reading of the original: not a missing home but no location in the world that could host the meeting. होणार completes the -णार chain.
मनीचे गूज सांगावे
7मज कोणी ना
4manīche gūj sāṅgāve / maj koṇī nā
The heart's secret is there to be told — and I have no one.
गूज is the precise Marathi word for a secret confided to one person only — native Varkari vocabulary, and the exact equivalent of what the commentary calls asrar. Janabai's plainest note: maj koṇī nā.
कोरस · the refrain
अवघ्या वाटा विसरल्या मज, सजणा रे
14avaghyā vāṭā visaralyā maj, sajaṇā re
All the paths have been forgotten by me, beloved.
कोण्या वाटे जाऊ मी सजणा
10koṇyā vāṭe jāū mī sajaṇā
Which path do I take now, beloved?
सजणा needed no carrying across. Marathi has its own sajaṇā for the beloved — the exact cognate of the Punjabi sajana — and its own vocative रे answering the Punjabi वे. The most important word in the song, and the particle beside it, were already waiting in the language.
कोण्या is the older oblique of कोणत्या, the form the abhanga poets use. It is two beats shorter than the modern word, which is the only reason the line fits — so the archaism is not decoration here; it is load-bearing.
And the question stays a question, addressed aloud to someone. A soul that has forgotten every road but still knows whom to ask has not lost its way.
यमक आणि काफिया · the rhyme engine
अंतरा — radif ना, kafiya -े. The chain runs रडे ना · घडे ना · निजे ना · उरे ना · जुळे ना · रडे ना, closing on कोणी ना. This mirrors the original exactly: there the radif is also ना and the kafiya is -ओई (royi · hoyi · soyi · koi). Marathi's negated present — raḍe nā, "does not weep" — happens to be three beats, the same as royi na. The rhyme scheme transferred without being forced.
चरण — radif नाही, with a -णार yamak. The second movement rhymes on नाही, and the internal chime is carried by राहणार · मरणार · होणार — will live, will die, will happen. Three futures rhymed against each other under a line that says the love has no future to worry about.
The one repetition is deliberate. राडे ना — रडे ना — returns in line vi after opening the song in line i. The original does the same with royi na. In a ghazal a repeated kafiya is a fault; here it is the refusal to weep stated twice, which is the whole argument of the verse.
the metrical proof
| ओळ | Jaiye Sajana | कोण्या वाटे जाऊ | |
|---|---|---|---|
| i | 9+8 | 9+8 | ✓ |
| ii | 8+8 | 8+8 | ✓ |
| iii | 11 | 11 | ✓ |
| iv | 7+7 | 7+7 | ✓ |
| v | 11 | 11 | ✓ |
| vi | 5+5 | 5+5 | ✓ |
| vii | 6+6 | 6+6 | ✓ |
| viii | 8+7 | 8+7 | ✓ |
| ix | 8+8 | 8+8 | ✓ |
| x | 11 | 11 | ✓ |
| ch1 | 14 | 14 | ✓ |
| ch2 | 10 | 10 | ✓ |
गायकासाठी · notes for the singer
1. The voice is feminine, and Marathi marks it. राहिले and पाहिले are the forms a woman sings. A male singer changes them to राहिलो and पाहिलो — one syllable each, so the metre is unaffected. The original's lead vocal is a woman's and the abhanga tradition puts the soul in a woman's voice regardless of the poet, so the feminine is the default here, not an assumption about who is singing.
2. Hold the कोरस open. सजणा falls exactly where sajana falls in the original, so whatever the tune does on that word — the sustain, the fall — works unchanged.
3. Where I chose meaning over literalness. The brief was a new song, not a translation, so several lines say the thing a different way: the sky sheds the tears rather than tears falling from clouds; गाव (a village) rather than a city, because the warkari's world is villages and the road; विठू where the original petitions Rabba. What is preserved throughout is the argument — the withheld tear, the love with no precedent, the sleeplessness, the strangeness of the world, the exclusivity, the endurance, the colours, the immortality, the walk with no arrival, the untellable secret, and the lost road that ends in a question.