no one wants to break a man’s heart, especially when he’s heartbroken. and i was young - i liked the idea of seeing her. a woman who can do this to a man has got to be something.
so i say, sure thing, whatever you say.
he lights up his cigarette and i light up mine and we lie down on the wet grass. i never did lie down like that ever again.
now i look back and realise, you don’t need to be in love to feel that. you just need someone else to be in love; you need a lazy evening and you need a sense of humour. and, if the time is right, rain.
i looked for it many times after,
but i never did lie down like that ever again.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
before the rains, 15
yeah,
i am sharp, right? that’s why i work out; i do ten kilometres everyday. except sunday. sunday i sleep.
praise from men makes me nervous, though. that actually scares me, just in case.
but the man in the park wasn’t gay. he said she liked men like me. she liked hard men, apparently.
he said i should wear a black jacket and black pants when i ride to her place because - and i quote him, verbatim -
in the traffic light you will look like man from sin city,
that’s what a real raincloud is, man from sin city in the sky, and the lights catching his chest and thigh
from all the streets, roads, houses, cars, all the people
below.
i think he might have wanted to be that man in the sky, but i didn’t tell him
that i thought so
i am sharp, right? that’s why i work out; i do ten kilometres everyday. except sunday. sunday i sleep.
praise from men makes me nervous, though. that actually scares me, just in case.
but the man in the park wasn’t gay. he said she liked men like me. she liked hard men, apparently.
he said i should wear a black jacket and black pants when i ride to her place because - and i quote him, verbatim -
in the traffic light you will look like man from sin city,
that’s what a real raincloud is, man from sin city in the sky, and the lights catching his chest and thigh
from all the streets, roads, houses, cars, all the people
below.
i think he might have wanted to be that man in the sky, but i didn’t tell him
that i thought so
Saturday, June 06, 2009
before the rains, 14
there was drizzling and the grass got wet, but it wasn’t the rains really, just some. my neighbour’s wife sends more water down washing her balcony.
so we sit there like that and get wet.
now the man, he’s got a clean look about him, everything in place, hair, shirt, shoelace, buttons, cufflinks – i mean for someone lives alone and talks to me only – cufflinks,
weird.
and with his neat fingers, he draws his map in the mud complete with landmarks. it’s got leaves, sticks, stones, pebbles and what-not he’s picked up from the park. nuts
we huddle over it and he looks deadly serious and points at two odd shaped pebbles in the map, these,
cloud, these
are our apartment blocks, you start here
and ride north down
the park the f block market left
from the main gate, and down here
the bus-stop. here call-centre girls are growing frisky because it's evening
and it's time.
they think you're a movie star with the wind behind you. but you're just my cloud,
on my map,
no?
so we sit there like that and get wet.
now the man, he’s got a clean look about him, everything in place, hair, shirt, shoelace, buttons, cufflinks – i mean for someone lives alone and talks to me only – cufflinks,
weird.
and with his neat fingers, he draws his map in the mud complete with landmarks. it’s got leaves, sticks, stones, pebbles and what-not he’s picked up from the park. nuts
we huddle over it and he looks deadly serious and points at two odd shaped pebbles in the map, these,
cloud, these
are our apartment blocks, you start here
and ride north down
the park the f block market left
from the main gate, and down here
the bus-stop. here call-centre girls are growing frisky because it's evening
and it's time.
they think you're a movie star with the wind behind you. but you're just my cloud,
on my map,
no?
Sunday, May 31, 2009
before the rains, 13
then, he pulled out two cigarettes from his trouser pocket, right one, and a matchbox from his left pocket, lit up, and smoked for a while. i made a few calls, one to my brother who heads sales in a mobile company, and one to my mother who lives in gurgaon.
it’s amazing how you remember some things and forget so much. i don’t remember the man’s face. but i remember him drawing out a detailed map to her house with his finger, on a wet patch near the bench. i remember him advising me to avoid the office hour, the traffic, cp in the evening. I remember him saying go early and have a drink at volga.
and i remember him smile as if he could see me sitting at volga with a beer. and i remember him say, it’s a good place to relax, it’s got large windows, and when it rains outside, you can drink yourself dead watching the waters run down the panes slowly all evening.
i even remember me asking him where tunisia was, and him chuckle.
that's when the sky cracked up bright like a carnival and the kids in the park and the girls all ran for cover to the trees
it’s amazing how you remember some things and forget so much. i don’t remember the man’s face. but i remember him drawing out a detailed map to her house with his finger, on a wet patch near the bench. i remember him advising me to avoid the office hour, the traffic, cp in the evening. I remember him saying go early and have a drink at volga.
and i remember him smile as if he could see me sitting at volga with a beer. and i remember him say, it’s a good place to relax, it’s got large windows, and when it rains outside, you can drink yourself dead watching the waters run down the panes slowly all evening.
i even remember me asking him where tunisia was, and him chuckle.
that's when the sky cracked up bright like a carnival and the kids in the park and the girls all ran for cover to the trees
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
before the rains, 12
a woman is a city. really,
give her december, she gives you dark. give her the sun, she gives you laburnums. send her a large cloud, twenty one something, crouched young over his motorbike, dark brows
fast fast faster
ha, and will she give you rain
laughter
give her december, she gives you dark. give her the sun, she gives you laburnums. send her a large cloud, twenty one something, crouched young over his motorbike, dark brows
fast fast faster
ha, and will she give you rain
laughter
Saturday, May 23, 2009
before the rains, 11
it was a pleasant evening.
the sun is gone, the sky is dark, half, and stray dogs are chasing squirrels in the lawns.
when we were young, he says, when we were young, she and i would wake all night during the rains. i’d tell her ghost stories and we’d push buckets into corners where water leaked down from the roof.
she loved the sound of thunder. loves, i mean.
when you see her, tell her
a white bird followed you. tell her it’s still on her terrace. that it won’t go. that
it means she’ll travel far: tunisia, istanbul...
she loves to travel far.
she won’t believe all of it, but she might just believe one half.
besides, it might make her laugh
again
the sun is gone, the sky is dark, half, and stray dogs are chasing squirrels in the lawns.
when we were young, he says, when we were young, she and i would wake all night during the rains. i’d tell her ghost stories and we’d push buckets into corners where water leaked down from the roof.
she loved the sound of thunder. loves, i mean.
when you see her, tell her
a white bird followed you. tell her it’s still on her terrace. that it won’t go. that
it means she’ll travel far: tunisia, istanbul...
she loves to travel far.
she won’t believe all of it, but she might just believe one half.
besides, it might make her laugh
again
before the rains, 10
and the poor man must have made up his lines for her, sitting there.
must have thought she’s waiting, that she’s kept an exact count of days in a diary, or on the bathroom wall. or wherever girls keep count.
i hope i never age like him. my heart’s just a pump man; I hope it never catch his pains,
and never acts funny before the rains.
must have thought she’s waiting, that she’s kept an exact count of days in a diary, or on the bathroom wall. or wherever girls keep count.
i hope i never age like him. my heart’s just a pump man; I hope it never catch his pains,
and never acts funny before the rains.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
before the rains, 9
what an evening that was!
if i shut my eyes, i can play it right back again.
this man’s sing-song, his happy, fun, sad, wrong, ramble, and
swoosh the wind over the park in waves, you know, very soft, and sounds of birds doing it in the bushes, in the jasmine bushes –
walking through that corner always smelled like walking through women in a night party.
and yes, a crow
on the head of a ten feet cactus, frowning and cocking his head at
me. cloud
if i shut my eyes, i can play it right back again.
this man’s sing-song, his happy, fun, sad, wrong, ramble, and
swoosh the wind over the park in waves, you know, very soft, and sounds of birds doing it in the bushes, in the jasmine bushes –
walking through that corner always smelled like walking through women in a night party.
and yes, a crow
on the head of a ten feet cactus, frowning and cocking his head at
me. cloud
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
before the rains, 8
you’ll go riding with the winds and the truckers,
and girls waiting for boys on the kerb and women waiting for husbands at windows will look up at the sky
they’ll pretend they’re not trying to catch your eye.
it’s that season.
all men go home in this season.
and i go walking in the park, many circles
and girls waiting for boys on the kerb and women waiting for husbands at windows will look up at the sky
they’ll pretend they’re not trying to catch your eye.
it’s that season.
all men go home in this season.
and i go walking in the park, many circles
before the rains, 7
and after that day, he never called me by my name. it was always hi cloud, you look tired cloud, it’s hot cloud – need a bit of you cloud. and much later, on a december evening, he returned a thousand rupees he’d borrowed. the money was in a white envelope with a
thanks cloud.
that day in the park, i am surprised though.
cloud, he says, can u carry a message for me? not very far, though it’s far for me.
i know where she must be. in another busy street, another cramped flat. same old place, but a different corner
of delhi
thanks cloud.
that day in the park, i am surprised though.
cloud, he says, can u carry a message for me? not very far, though it’s far for me.
i know where she must be. in another busy street, another cramped flat. same old place, but a different corner
of delhi
Sunday, May 17, 2009
before the rains, 6
we only met at the park, you know, weekday mornings, weekend afternoons, or sometimes at shambhu’s shack, getting our stock of late night cigarette’s. me, two packs of charms and he, a pack of benson and hedges. lights.
i am sure he didn’t read me right. because a while after calling me good boy, he leans to my side of the bench and says
i want you to tell her for me.
even if you don’t actually tell her. i want you to.
better you, on your royal enfield, beautiful, jobless, wild, young, every girl’s dream, and reckless like
a cloud who loses his way
than someone like me who does not
i am sure he didn’t read me right. because a while after calling me good boy, he leans to my side of the bench and says
i want you to tell her for me.
even if you don’t actually tell her. i want you to.
better you, on your royal enfield, beautiful, jobless, wild, young, every girl’s dream, and reckless like
a cloud who loses his way
than someone like me who does not
Saturday, May 16, 2009
before the rains, 5
now,
i can drive you to connaught place at midnight, drink with you till morning, tell you what buttons to press when you’re necking.
but i wouldn’t know what to do with love.
if you’re looking for that kind of thing, you’d look for someone smooth, an older guy, someone good with words. someone into such things
as feelings.
not me.
definitely not me.
i can drive you to connaught place at midnight, drink with you till morning, tell you what buttons to press when you’re necking.
but i wouldn’t know what to do with love.
if you’re looking for that kind of thing, you’d look for someone smooth, an older guy, someone good with words. someone into such things
as feelings.
not me.
definitely not me.
before the rains, 4
must have been the rains. or he was scared for her? or because
he still cared for her?
perhaps he thought
if i told her
he was fine, she’d get back her old laughter.
i don’t know why, but he smiles at me, pulls out a white temple-flower from his pocket and sticks it into mine.
and says – you’re a good boy.
he still cared for her?
perhaps he thought
if i told her
he was fine, she’d get back her old laughter.
i don’t know why, but he smiles at me, pulls out a white temple-flower from his pocket and sticks it into mine.
and says – you’re a good boy.
before the rains, 3
so we sit on the park bench. he glares at the clouds, i watch the young girls jog by.
suddenly he says, you know,
even a young man grows sad before the rains, even if he has a woman by his side, if she’s making him warm, even then.
and i don’t have my woman, and i am not even young. and if i feel a little sad today, it’s ok I think.
i say yes,
it’s ok
because i can see him trying to hold down his mess
in his eyes.
suddenly he says, you know,
even a young man grows sad before the rains, even if he has a woman by his side, if she’s making him warm, even then.
and i don’t have my woman, and i am not even young. and if i feel a little sad today, it’s ok I think.
i say yes,
it’s ok
because i can see him trying to hold down his mess
in his eyes.
Monday, May 11, 2009
before the rains, 2
and there - between the park and the flat with no number, he was many months drifted. you could tell by the hunger in his eyes, by the way his hands held. or his fingers felt,
where once there was something.
a ring, perhaps.
it was an evening in july, and the sky had come down upon the rooftops like a hundred black helicopters.
where once there was something.
a ring, perhaps.
it was an evening in july, and the sky had come down upon the rooftops like a hundred black helicopters.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
before the rains, 1
this man i know lives in a flat like mine, across the park with the white temple-flower trees and the water-pump station. he's got the place on a one-year lease,
he says. he says he'd messed up something - back in the old days when he still had a woman - a home - and was not quite so alone. in delhi
he says. he says he'd messed up something - back in the old days when he still had a woman - a home - and was not quite so alone. in delhi
Friday, March 27, 2009
English! Come home to mama!
The apparent purpose of translation is to convey truthfully in one language what has already been conveyed in another. The politics behind the purpose, a most fiercely discussed contemporary affair, is neither my area of expertise nor the purpose of this essay. I shall, instead, discuss translation as a revitalising and a significant shaping influence on language and literature.
The most crucial of the revitalising influences of translations lie in its ability to create what I’d like to term the ‘first utterance’ affect. By ‘first utterance’ affect I mean the use of a word, a combination of words, in a manner that is reminiscent of that phase of language when the metaphoric potential of an expression is still relatively uncharted as its meanings are not yet fixed across multiple contexts. Since it is often difficult to find equivalent words while translating, the equivalent phrase, neologism or compound expression manufactured to approximate the original word, tends to create the ‘first utterance’ affect in the language it is carved from.
Girdhar Rathi and Mahendra Bhalla have translated Bhalla’s Hindi story Kuttegiri into English (published in Indian Literature). While I haven’t had opportunity to read the Hindi ‘original’, the title of the translated version, ‘Doggery’, should sufficiently illustrates my point about ‘first utterance affect’. The translators explain the term in a rather curious footnote: “In India most dogs are stray. The term (here it is not clear whether they’re referring to Kuttegiri or Doggery) has come out of their way of existence.”
True to the promise of the footnote, a great deal of Doggery does stray into the story. The narrative opens with a declaration made by the narrator’s friend – “I import dry fruits from Pakistan. That keeps me going. As for the rest, well, I’m free to indulge in my doggery.” In another dialogue between the doggers, the word is re-constructed:
“We human beings have just one Coffee House, but these parakeets –they have by the thousands, I bet...”
“Doggery?” I needled him.
“They are all real doggers…and not just them. All birds.” He insisted.
“Then why not call it parakeetery?”
“Do, if you wish. However, doggery is the thing. Dogs are dogs even if they live in a city.”
The term is further fleshed out later in the story: “Suddenly it occurred to me that he was making a fool of me, and that he had been doing this all along. Always cheating me – drinking coffee and whisky out of me, all under the guise of a feigned submission. If that was part of his doggery, he was certainly a successful dogger.”
The use of the term Doggery is possible only because it was being translated from the Hindi kuttegiri, a term in circulation; if one were for a moment to assume that the story was not a translation, that the writer were penning it in English as the original, a whole set of paradigms involving ‘doggery’ would change. Doggery, to begin with might be replaced by loafing, or described through a phrase or description where loafing is the functional word. Doggery, with all its associations of life in the alleys, stray dogs, cunning, sexual scavenging, is less likely to seek birth in a work that is not a translation because the local social context within which ‘doggery’ functions precludes English. If kuttegiri lived long enough, and got translated more often, not only will loafing have a more lively bastard sibling, but doggery is likely to inject a new spirit into an idea that is now socially passé.
My experience with translating texts, especially ones that are removed from contemporary language not only by linguistic difference but also by time and taste, has led me to that oft acknowledged by-product of the process of translation – rediscovery and refashioning of literary form and the reconfiguring of contemporary sensibilities, however transitory and ephemeral they might be and however limited be their scope of influence. My interest is definitely not something novel. The blank verse owes its pedigree to tinkering with translations of the Greek Alexandrian line, the hexameter. The English sonnet, the villanelle, the ode, the eclogue – all were not native to the English tongue at the time they were fashioned. It was a combination of an active interest in the Latin and Greek forms and an ongoing process of translation from these languages into English and the consequent formal adjustments that gave English language more than half of its standard, canonised literary forms.
On wonders, however, why then, has English not been able to fashion in its three hundred odd years of interaction with languages of India, a single recognisable form? Perhaps, it has to do with the difference in the relationship that English shared with Latin and Greek, from the relationship it shares with Indian tongues. Perhaps the time was not ripe. But the possibilities are aplenty, and it is bound to happen when English transcends its function as a language of utilitarian functions and begins to seep into the collective consciousness of India, the moment we have sufficient versions of English that correspond to the innumerable micro-communities that make up the subcontinent.
There have been tentative beginnings. Rukmini Bhai Naiyar’s attempts at an English shloka, are delightful in the manner they mirror the Sanskrit form. Rukmini’s versions too, like the best shlokas in Sanskrit, lend different meanings if split at different points of the conjoint compound words; they are essentially based on a quantitative meter, and don’t rhyme as their Sanskrit originals don’t. Where they probably fail is in their inability to duplicate the compressive power of the shloka and their lack of courage to substitute ‘compression’ with a new function or functions.
Since, Rukmini’s English shlokas are not strictly speaking translations, here’s an example of a translation that learns from her formal experiments. The Sanskrit original, is probably one the best known shlokas from the Gita:
Nainum chindanti shastrani, nainamdahati pavakaha
Na chainam kledyantyapo, na shoshayatihi marutaha
Nevershallitshallnevernowordsever
Shallneverknowhurtshallitnever shrivelinnoflaming
Fire. shallitneverwetineverwetwater
Noraridairdryitshallnevernever
But there are other forms that are begging to be looked at: the chaupai, the epigrammatic doha (Pope would have flipped on it!), and in prose-poetry the paheli. Another interesting form from Tamil literature, an oral tradition of performed poetry that is essentially ‘travelogues in verse’, appears to hold great promise for anyone who has the courage to seize upon its potential as a literary form. I do not claim these as forms that will remain, that are sure to offer definite answers to how a fledgling Indian English can grow, but they are sure to point out directions for its growth and appear the best way to bridge the gap between a foreign tongue and an appropriated one.
My own translations from Sanskrit and Hindi literature have, I confess, offered me far more by way of formal possibilities and challenges than any contemporary work in English has. The forms are startlingly original. Had the author/authors of the Kathopanishada approached a modern publisher, he/she/they would have faced one pointed question – What kind of work is this? As a translator, I ask myself, what the answer should be? These are not extended poems, though they are in verse; these are not short stories, though they are stories too; and of course these are not just philosophic aphorisms and ruminations though there is a healthy matrix of both.
The verse form used in Taitriyopanishada, ‘the anuvakaha’ anticipates the modern prose poem in its terseness, its alternating use of heavily end-stopped lines and precariously incomplete sounding endings. Sample this:
Haa vu, Haavu, Haa vu!
I am anna, I am anna, I am anna.
I am annada I am annada I am annada.
I am the maker of shlokas, the maker of shloklas.
I am the first born among the seasons.
Before the gods out of the belly-button.
He who gives me away
Protects me.
I am anna who eats the eater.
I have contempt for the world.
- Taitrriyopanshida, Bhrigu Valli, Dashama Anuvakaha
And this
When man will be able to wrap the sky
Like skin around him,
Then,
Even without knowing gods,
Pain and grief will be destroyed.
- Shwetaashwataropanishad, Shashtha Adhyaya
And this
I am the bearer of the tree.
My fame is like the mountains.
High and pure of men
I am my own nectar.
The effulgent flow.
- - Taitrriyopanshida, Shiksha Valli, Dashama Anuvakaha
My translations of these verses, the anuvakaha, led me to fashion a corresponding English rhythm that was closer to the contemporary style, less earnest in tone, but one that retained the incantatory, prose-poem like sounds.
I am well versed in the rites of the visit.
I have stories and tales. I have talk.
I have he wisdom of laughter.
I have the wit of a smile.
I have the measure of the roads.
I know m city.
I am curious. I speak with strangers.
I listen to friends. I have no foes.
I balance my tongue with my ear
I balance my eye with my nose.
I am prepared. Always.
I wear light clothes.
I wear the fragrances of flowers on my sleeves.
I keep my feet clean.
I keep my coins in my purse.
I keep my hands in my purse alone.
Where I am invited there I go
And the bell rings always
When I am come at the expected time,
In my ladies chamber.
Over steps that lead to the shrine.
- From Atithi, (unpublished work)
In addition to the vigour that re-discovery of forms through translation infuses into a literature, translations also contribute in fashioning a new rhetoric of the language, first within literature, and gradually even in speech. My Penguin edition of Bhagwat Gita, a translation by Juan Mascaro opens thus:
“On the field of Truth, on the battle-field of life, what came to pass, Sanjaya, when my sons and their warriors faced those of my brother Pandu?”
Now, this is a translation of the celebrated opening:
“Dharmakshetrey, kurukshetrey, samveta yuyutsava,
mamakaha pandavascheyva kim kurvata sanjaya”
I do not pretend to stand judge on the quality of the translation; each translator has his own parameters of translation and seeks a different kind of truth-telling in the translation. I would, however, like to point out what gets left out, what added, and how the very manner of telling gets affected by the shift in language, and how this change in the manner-of-telling can affect subsequent literatures being produced in that language even if they are not translations.
In the above example there are several things happening: for one, the translator chooses prose over verse. The result is a certain flattening of the declamatory tone – not necessarily a negative as the English language is not given to a rich hyperbolic poetic tone (Swinburne was crucified for it, and Dylan Thomas escaped because he died too soon). The translation also loses out on the literal meaning rooted in the story of the Mahabharata, when it attempts to reach into the philosophical basis: “the field of truth” and Dharmakshetrey are not synonymous; while “the field of truth” points only towards the metaphysical battlefield of what is right and what is not, “Dharmakshetrey” signifies much more – duty, action and responsibility. Similarily, “the battle-field of life” misses out on Kurukshetra as a tangible geographical entity entirely. The term “yuyutsava” that means an anxious eagerness to do battle, so crucial to the opening scene of the Gita, is entirely left out for the sake of brevity and simplicity (perhaps).
Yet, the translation fashions a new rhetoric for English language in India. It sidles away from the heavy-laden-with-multiple-meanings construction to a simple more prosaic one where the metaphysical and the physical are kept neatly apart. It chose, however to retain a version of ‘elevated speech’ that is created by combining clichés from ‘oriental stories’ like ‘the field of Truth’, ‘the battle-field of life’ and ‘what came to pass’. Once the translator is better aligned with the contemporary post-modern ear, one is more likely to get a translation that reads like this:
“In the battlefield of Kurukshetra and Dharma, collected, arrayed, eager to battle, my sons and Pandu’s boys! Sanjay, what are they doing?”
Raja Rao’s Kanthapura benefits immensely from a combination of standard English and English usage that came into circuit and became acceptable only by the influence of translations into English of Indian works. Sentences that could never be conceived of in English except as translations from another tongue dot Raja Rao’s narrative and consciously help achieve two things: a) communicate the fact that while the language is English, the context, the narrator and the speakers are not speaking in English, and b) to thus attempt to synthesise an Indian English that could be read without their British, American or other foreign associations. Thus, the opening
“Our village – I don’t think you have ever heard about it – Kanthapura is its name, and it is in the province of Kura. High on the Ghats is it, high up the steep mountains that face the cool Arabian seas, up the Malabar coast is it, up up Mangalore and Puttur and many a centre of cardamom and coffee, rice and sugarcane.”
Now, where the “is it” and the “is its name” comes from, and where the seamless narrative will become clear from the following translation of the “translated tongue”:
“Humaara ganv (a sigh here) – mujhey nahin lagta tumney uskey barey mein suna hoga – Kanthapura hai uska naam, aur woh tehsil kura mein parta hai. Unchey Ghat par basa hai who, unchey paharon par jo samandar ko muh kiya hua hai, Malabar key tat sey uttar ko hai woh, Mangalore she bhi aagey, Puttur she bhi aagey aur…”
It’s a crude translation, and ideally should have been in tamil I think, but Hindi will do here to illustrate my point. The only reason why Raja Rao was able to use an alternative rhetoric and deviations from standard syntax is due to the pre-existing “translation English” that is recognised as “Indian” as against other standard forms of English.
Sometimes, this “translation tongue” can form a separate idiom by itself, almost a sub-language, a little like the Anglo-Indian community in India that can choose to lay claim to a dual parentage, but almost always, tend to align themselves to one or the other. Here’s are two amusing examples of this “translation tongue” that could easily form the basis of another poem on Pushpa T:
“Desirous of sustaining the life of his wife, as the month of Sravana was drawing nigh, and therefore intending to send tidings of his welfare (to her) by the cloud, the Yaksha (himself) delighted, bade welcome, in words full of affection, to the cloud to whom an offering of fresh Kutaja flowers had been made.”
- Cantos 4, Purvamegha, Meghdutam, The Meghduta of Kalidasa, Edited by Gopal Raghunath Nandargikar
And, in case it appears an exception, or a case that afflicts only Indian translators, here’s another:
With relish due ambrosia, a dog eats a meatless bone,
Wormy, spittle-wet, putrid, and vile. He would eat
Without qualm even if he saw the lord of gods nearby.
A wretch does not assess the poverty of his lot.
- Among Fools and Kings, Poem 30, by Bhartrihari, translated by Barbara Stoler Miller
These, obviously are no Ezra Pounds at work. But if they were, perhaps, English would have interiorised the shloka and the rasa, the ghazal and the nazm, as much as it has the Haiku. If English literature is to come home to India, creative translations, even mistranslations, if they are better than the ones I have just quoted, will need to lead the way. It is common knowledge that languages are always rooted to experience native to their people, but it is also a fact that languages change, grow and evolve, that when a word is appropriated by a powerful people, it will lend the meaning it is ascribed. If that were not the case, India would have been known by a different name.
The most crucial of the revitalising influences of translations lie in its ability to create what I’d like to term the ‘first utterance’ affect. By ‘first utterance’ affect I mean the use of a word, a combination of words, in a manner that is reminiscent of that phase of language when the metaphoric potential of an expression is still relatively uncharted as its meanings are not yet fixed across multiple contexts. Since it is often difficult to find equivalent words while translating, the equivalent phrase, neologism or compound expression manufactured to approximate the original word, tends to create the ‘first utterance’ affect in the language it is carved from.
Girdhar Rathi and Mahendra Bhalla have translated Bhalla’s Hindi story Kuttegiri into English (published in Indian Literature). While I haven’t had opportunity to read the Hindi ‘original’, the title of the translated version, ‘Doggery’, should sufficiently illustrates my point about ‘first utterance affect’. The translators explain the term in a rather curious footnote: “In India most dogs are stray. The term (here it is not clear whether they’re referring to Kuttegiri or Doggery) has come out of their way of existence.”
True to the promise of the footnote, a great deal of Doggery does stray into the story. The narrative opens with a declaration made by the narrator’s friend – “I import dry fruits from Pakistan. That keeps me going. As for the rest, well, I’m free to indulge in my doggery.” In another dialogue between the doggers, the word is re-constructed:
“We human beings have just one Coffee House, but these parakeets –they have by the thousands, I bet...”
“Doggery?” I needled him.
“They are all real doggers…and not just them. All birds.” He insisted.
“Then why not call it parakeetery?”
“Do, if you wish. However, doggery is the thing. Dogs are dogs even if they live in a city.”
The term is further fleshed out later in the story: “Suddenly it occurred to me that he was making a fool of me, and that he had been doing this all along. Always cheating me – drinking coffee and whisky out of me, all under the guise of a feigned submission. If that was part of his doggery, he was certainly a successful dogger.”
The use of the term Doggery is possible only because it was being translated from the Hindi kuttegiri, a term in circulation; if one were for a moment to assume that the story was not a translation, that the writer were penning it in English as the original, a whole set of paradigms involving ‘doggery’ would change. Doggery, to begin with might be replaced by loafing, or described through a phrase or description where loafing is the functional word. Doggery, with all its associations of life in the alleys, stray dogs, cunning, sexual scavenging, is less likely to seek birth in a work that is not a translation because the local social context within which ‘doggery’ functions precludes English. If kuttegiri lived long enough, and got translated more often, not only will loafing have a more lively bastard sibling, but doggery is likely to inject a new spirit into an idea that is now socially passé.
My experience with translating texts, especially ones that are removed from contemporary language not only by linguistic difference but also by time and taste, has led me to that oft acknowledged by-product of the process of translation – rediscovery and refashioning of literary form and the reconfiguring of contemporary sensibilities, however transitory and ephemeral they might be and however limited be their scope of influence. My interest is definitely not something novel. The blank verse owes its pedigree to tinkering with translations of the Greek Alexandrian line, the hexameter. The English sonnet, the villanelle, the ode, the eclogue – all were not native to the English tongue at the time they were fashioned. It was a combination of an active interest in the Latin and Greek forms and an ongoing process of translation from these languages into English and the consequent formal adjustments that gave English language more than half of its standard, canonised literary forms.
On wonders, however, why then, has English not been able to fashion in its three hundred odd years of interaction with languages of India, a single recognisable form? Perhaps, it has to do with the difference in the relationship that English shared with Latin and Greek, from the relationship it shares with Indian tongues. Perhaps the time was not ripe. But the possibilities are aplenty, and it is bound to happen when English transcends its function as a language of utilitarian functions and begins to seep into the collective consciousness of India, the moment we have sufficient versions of English that correspond to the innumerable micro-communities that make up the subcontinent.
There have been tentative beginnings. Rukmini Bhai Naiyar’s attempts at an English shloka, are delightful in the manner they mirror the Sanskrit form. Rukmini’s versions too, like the best shlokas in Sanskrit, lend different meanings if split at different points of the conjoint compound words; they are essentially based on a quantitative meter, and don’t rhyme as their Sanskrit originals don’t. Where they probably fail is in their inability to duplicate the compressive power of the shloka and their lack of courage to substitute ‘compression’ with a new function or functions.
Since, Rukmini’s English shlokas are not strictly speaking translations, here’s an example of a translation that learns from her formal experiments. The Sanskrit original, is probably one the best known shlokas from the Gita:
Nainum chindanti shastrani, nainamdahati pavakaha
Na chainam kledyantyapo, na shoshayatihi marutaha
Nevershallitshallnevernowordsever
Shallneverknowhurtshallitnever shrivelinnoflaming
Fire. shallitneverwetineverwetwater
Noraridairdryitshallnevernever
But there are other forms that are begging to be looked at: the chaupai, the epigrammatic doha (Pope would have flipped on it!), and in prose-poetry the paheli. Another interesting form from Tamil literature, an oral tradition of performed poetry that is essentially ‘travelogues in verse’, appears to hold great promise for anyone who has the courage to seize upon its potential as a literary form. I do not claim these as forms that will remain, that are sure to offer definite answers to how a fledgling Indian English can grow, but they are sure to point out directions for its growth and appear the best way to bridge the gap between a foreign tongue and an appropriated one.
My own translations from Sanskrit and Hindi literature have, I confess, offered me far more by way of formal possibilities and challenges than any contemporary work in English has. The forms are startlingly original. Had the author/authors of the Kathopanishada approached a modern publisher, he/she/they would have faced one pointed question – What kind of work is this? As a translator, I ask myself, what the answer should be? These are not extended poems, though they are in verse; these are not short stories, though they are stories too; and of course these are not just philosophic aphorisms and ruminations though there is a healthy matrix of both.
The verse form used in Taitriyopanishada, ‘the anuvakaha’ anticipates the modern prose poem in its terseness, its alternating use of heavily end-stopped lines and precariously incomplete sounding endings. Sample this:
Haa vu, Haavu, Haa vu!
I am anna, I am anna, I am anna.
I am annada I am annada I am annada.
I am the maker of shlokas, the maker of shloklas.
I am the first born among the seasons.
Before the gods out of the belly-button.
He who gives me away
Protects me.
I am anna who eats the eater.
I have contempt for the world.
- Taitrriyopanshida, Bhrigu Valli, Dashama Anuvakaha
And this
When man will be able to wrap the sky
Like skin around him,
Then,
Even without knowing gods,
Pain and grief will be destroyed.
- Shwetaashwataropanishad, Shashtha Adhyaya
And this
I am the bearer of the tree.
My fame is like the mountains.
High and pure of men
I am my own nectar.
The effulgent flow.
- - Taitrriyopanshida, Shiksha Valli, Dashama Anuvakaha
My translations of these verses, the anuvakaha, led me to fashion a corresponding English rhythm that was closer to the contemporary style, less earnest in tone, but one that retained the incantatory, prose-poem like sounds.
I am well versed in the rites of the visit.
I have stories and tales. I have talk.
I have he wisdom of laughter.
I have the wit of a smile.
I have the measure of the roads.
I know m city.
I am curious. I speak with strangers.
I listen to friends. I have no foes.
I balance my tongue with my ear
I balance my eye with my nose.
I am prepared. Always.
I wear light clothes.
I wear the fragrances of flowers on my sleeves.
I keep my feet clean.
I keep my coins in my purse.
I keep my hands in my purse alone.
Where I am invited there I go
And the bell rings always
When I am come at the expected time,
In my ladies chamber.
Over steps that lead to the shrine.
- From Atithi, (unpublished work)
In addition to the vigour that re-discovery of forms through translation infuses into a literature, translations also contribute in fashioning a new rhetoric of the language, first within literature, and gradually even in speech. My Penguin edition of Bhagwat Gita, a translation by Juan Mascaro opens thus:
“On the field of Truth, on the battle-field of life, what came to pass, Sanjaya, when my sons and their warriors faced those of my brother Pandu?”
Now, this is a translation of the celebrated opening:
“Dharmakshetrey, kurukshetrey, samveta yuyutsava,
mamakaha pandavascheyva kim kurvata sanjaya”
I do not pretend to stand judge on the quality of the translation; each translator has his own parameters of translation and seeks a different kind of truth-telling in the translation. I would, however, like to point out what gets left out, what added, and how the very manner of telling gets affected by the shift in language, and how this change in the manner-of-telling can affect subsequent literatures being produced in that language even if they are not translations.
In the above example there are several things happening: for one, the translator chooses prose over verse. The result is a certain flattening of the declamatory tone – not necessarily a negative as the English language is not given to a rich hyperbolic poetic tone (Swinburne was crucified for it, and Dylan Thomas escaped because he died too soon). The translation also loses out on the literal meaning rooted in the story of the Mahabharata, when it attempts to reach into the philosophical basis: “the field of truth” and Dharmakshetrey are not synonymous; while “the field of truth” points only towards the metaphysical battlefield of what is right and what is not, “Dharmakshetrey” signifies much more – duty, action and responsibility. Similarily, “the battle-field of life” misses out on Kurukshetra as a tangible geographical entity entirely. The term “yuyutsava” that means an anxious eagerness to do battle, so crucial to the opening scene of the Gita, is entirely left out for the sake of brevity and simplicity (perhaps).
Yet, the translation fashions a new rhetoric for English language in India. It sidles away from the heavy-laden-with-multiple-meanings construction to a simple more prosaic one where the metaphysical and the physical are kept neatly apart. It chose, however to retain a version of ‘elevated speech’ that is created by combining clichés from ‘oriental stories’ like ‘the field of Truth’, ‘the battle-field of life’ and ‘what came to pass’. Once the translator is better aligned with the contemporary post-modern ear, one is more likely to get a translation that reads like this:
“In the battlefield of Kurukshetra and Dharma, collected, arrayed, eager to battle, my sons and Pandu’s boys! Sanjay, what are they doing?”
Raja Rao’s Kanthapura benefits immensely from a combination of standard English and English usage that came into circuit and became acceptable only by the influence of translations into English of Indian works. Sentences that could never be conceived of in English except as translations from another tongue dot Raja Rao’s narrative and consciously help achieve two things: a) communicate the fact that while the language is English, the context, the narrator and the speakers are not speaking in English, and b) to thus attempt to synthesise an Indian English that could be read without their British, American or other foreign associations. Thus, the opening
“Our village – I don’t think you have ever heard about it – Kanthapura is its name, and it is in the province of Kura. High on the Ghats is it, high up the steep mountains that face the cool Arabian seas, up the Malabar coast is it, up up Mangalore and Puttur and many a centre of cardamom and coffee, rice and sugarcane.”
Now, where the “is it” and the “is its name” comes from, and where the seamless narrative will become clear from the following translation of the “translated tongue”:
“Humaara ganv (a sigh here) – mujhey nahin lagta tumney uskey barey mein suna hoga – Kanthapura hai uska naam, aur woh tehsil kura mein parta hai. Unchey Ghat par basa hai who, unchey paharon par jo samandar ko muh kiya hua hai, Malabar key tat sey uttar ko hai woh, Mangalore she bhi aagey, Puttur she bhi aagey aur…”
It’s a crude translation, and ideally should have been in tamil I think, but Hindi will do here to illustrate my point. The only reason why Raja Rao was able to use an alternative rhetoric and deviations from standard syntax is due to the pre-existing “translation English” that is recognised as “Indian” as against other standard forms of English.
Sometimes, this “translation tongue” can form a separate idiom by itself, almost a sub-language, a little like the Anglo-Indian community in India that can choose to lay claim to a dual parentage, but almost always, tend to align themselves to one or the other. Here’s are two amusing examples of this “translation tongue” that could easily form the basis of another poem on Pushpa T:
“Desirous of sustaining the life of his wife, as the month of Sravana was drawing nigh, and therefore intending to send tidings of his welfare (to her) by the cloud, the Yaksha (himself) delighted, bade welcome, in words full of affection, to the cloud to whom an offering of fresh Kutaja flowers had been made.”
- Cantos 4, Purvamegha, Meghdutam, The Meghduta of Kalidasa, Edited by Gopal Raghunath Nandargikar
And, in case it appears an exception, or a case that afflicts only Indian translators, here’s another:
With relish due ambrosia, a dog eats a meatless bone,
Wormy, spittle-wet, putrid, and vile. He would eat
Without qualm even if he saw the lord of gods nearby.
A wretch does not assess the poverty of his lot.
- Among Fools and Kings, Poem 30, by Bhartrihari, translated by Barbara Stoler Miller
These, obviously are no Ezra Pounds at work. But if they were, perhaps, English would have interiorised the shloka and the rasa, the ghazal and the nazm, as much as it has the Haiku. If English literature is to come home to India, creative translations, even mistranslations, if they are better than the ones I have just quoted, will need to lead the way. It is common knowledge that languages are always rooted to experience native to their people, but it is also a fact that languages change, grow and evolve, that when a word is appropriated by a powerful people, it will lend the meaning it is ascribed. If that were not the case, India would have been known by a different name.
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