Chokhoba’s Meeting with Vitthal: An Abhang
एकांत बैसोनी करि गुज गोष्टि
धरोनि हनुवटी बुझावित
नको ब मानूं संसाराचा शीण
तुज एक खूण सांगतो मी
होणार ते होय न होणार ते न होय
सुख दुःख पाने कर्माधीन
देवा म्हणे चोख्या नको मानूं शीण
तुज माझी आण भक्तराया
Sitting, talking, alone, on our own
He held my chin, soothed my moan
Don’t take to heart the world’s cruelty
He said, let me give you this key
What must be will be, what will not won’t be
Joy and sorrow owe to our deeds, you see
Says God, you’ve my word, don’t fret Chokhya
You’re the king amongst devotees, oh yeah
Does Vitthal really care for Chokhoba as much as Chokhoba cares for Vitthal?
In this moving abhang, Chokhamela, amongst the finest and earliest poets of Marathi, speaks of one of his rare encounters with God.
In this abhang, we are told that Lord Vithhal of Pandharpur holds his devotee’s chin and assuages him. God tells him, rather predictably, what is is what it is, what must be will be, what will not won’t be.
God says, it’s all karma, and says our happiness and sorrows owe to our deeds.
What does it mean? Is this not a restatement of the Bhagvad Gita’s guna-karma ideology, of each knowing their place? The message is: Chokhamela in the fourteenth century and millions of Dalits like him must grin and bear it. If this is all God has to say to the King Amongst Devotees, damn it.
Chokhamela’s very existence entailed the everyday, brutal experience of ceaseless, life-threatening violence done to his mind and his body – and to thousands of untouchables like him, including his family and friends. He speaks fearlessly of and for the many who did not leave behind a legacy of abhangas like he and members of his family did. While his experience of untouchability conditioned his experience of the material world, including the fiercely enforced ban on his entering the temple of Vitthoba, he often transcends these conditions with his singular thinking and his powerful song-poetry.
Even in abhangas that appear to speak of abject surrender, where we seem to hear a voice reconciling itself to the endless pile of troubles, there’s a deep irony, a scathing critique. Yet when these abhangas – rendered by a broken man – come to be remembered and performed in the Savarna circles of both the varkaris (the thousands who undertake the vari, the annual pilgrimage by foot to Pandharpur in the month of ashadh, under way now), and the elite-oriented classical and semi-classical raga music genres, the irony and critique become muted, and the literary works appears generic and apolitical.
Chokhoba’s life in the town Mangalvedha and his poetry revolve around Vitthal: the beloved god he was not allowed to see. The author of over four hundred abhangas, several of them autobiographical, Chokhamela is a pioneer of anticaste consciousness. Along with his great predecessors, Namdev and Jnaneswar, he is one of the inaugurators of Marathi literature, and of what later comes to be called Dalit literature.
How did he die? It is believed that he died while doing “Mahar work”, working on the repair of a wall in Mangalvedha, near Pandharpur. The wall collapsed, burying him and other Mahar workmen alive. Many believe the death was not accidental but murder. This is why, for us, Chokha awaits us, standing on a brick wall.
There’s some solace that Chokhamela imagines for himself in this deceptively plangent abhang: it ends with God addressing him affectionately as ‘Chokhya’ and promising him that he’ll be remembered as one of his finest bhaktas, भक्तराया, bhaktaraya – king amongst devotees. It is an assurance of posthumous fame in lieu of the humiliations and pain of untouchability and eating leftovers in the present world. But we now know, and know it well, that this too is a lie.
Even today, in Pandharpur, a shrine for Chokhoba stands outside the precincts of the grand Vitthal temple complex, while the shrines for Namdev, Tukaram and other saints are placed inside the premises. This is why Babasaheb Ambedkar effected a necessary bhang – a break – in this tradition.
I propose that we sing, read and interpret this abhang against the grain, and be alert to the irony that seeps between the lines. Chokha is here exposing God’s limitations. Chokha reports to us of the false promises God makes even when he meets his beloved devotee and soothes him with an “it’s okay” kind of lame advice. God is not here to alter anyone’s fate – neither in this life nor in the hereafter.
Last evening, July 5, I did not plan for this abhang or for this raga to happen during my riyaz. After I sang a nauha for Muharram I had picked from the legendary Ustad Bismillah Khan, Yaman flowed in a drut-gamak alap (fast tempo) without my volition, and to the end, in walked Chokhoba. I had composed this abhang in Raag Yaman in Gandhinagar on 25 March 2025 after listening to Hariprasad Chaurasia Saab that evening at a Spicmacay programme.
As my session ended, I recalled how my comrade, collaborator and fellow-traveller who learns music from me – Dhamma Muktiwadi (of the Yalgaar troupe and Nirmik Cultural Centre in Mumbai) – had suggested a few days ago that I record a Chokhoba abhang for the oncoming Ashadhi Ekadashi. This day marks the beginning of the 21-day pilgrimage or vari to the temple of Vithoba in Pandharpur and sees a very high footfall – and a lot of shit-fall in the thousands of temporary toilets that a section of Dalits are forced to deal with. After several protests by sanitation workers over the years, a mega toilet complex came up in Pandharpur recently. Yet as we know, in India everybody wants a clean toilet, but only Dalits are expected to clean a toilet.
I did not think much of singing on this rather inauspicious occasion – I am no bhakt of any god or Vitthal. And yet, Chokha walked into my music room and led me to this. Towards the end, with the signature couplet, the sweet lilt of Yaman segued into the ominous cry of Marwa, the dusk raga of thresholds that seemed befitting for a poet left standing on the threshold.
We do not need to remember Chokhoba, his wife Soyrabai and their son Karmamela and other cohorts only on such days as Ashadhi Ekadashi or some anniversary. We need to think of them and regard them every day. We must keep turning and returning to all their extant abhangs.
Dalit history is not about observing a month or a day. Dalit history unfolds every minute. And we are the minutes. These are the minutes. For we are still left with the problem of dishonest gods who deceive their most honest bhakts. And there’s a score to settle. Jai Bhim!
S. Anand is a poet, musician and translator. He is the author of The Notbook of Kabir: Thinner than Water, Fiercer than Fire.
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