Nishi Pulugurtha |
Translations make literary texts more accessible and
reveal the sheer wealth and variety of world literature. The process of
translation is a difficult one, more so when it comes to poetry. The translator’s
task is hence a complex one and it is a pity that most of the time they remain
invisible. The volume under review is a translation of Bengali poems.
Alo, aro Alo, a volume of poems in Bengali by Alokeranjan Dasgupta was first
published in 2009. Sreemati Mukherjee’s translation under review has the
title - Light, and yet, more Light. Mukherjee notes
that with the exception of a couple of poems in the volume, she has translated
most of the other poems in this collection. One would surely like to know why
the translator has omitted translating all the Bengali poems in Dasgupta’s
collection. She mentions that she omitted poems like Bipralambhe oi baaje
Mandira and Platform e Bashishtha among a few others.
Mukherjee’s detailed Introduction to the volume is a
work of literary criticism as she locates the poems within the tradition of
modern European poetry, a tradition that she notes she is familiar with. The Introduction analyses some of the poems
that Mukherjee translates and includes in the volume. The translator is critic
as well and this brings to her translations a sense of depth and finesse. The
Introduction introduces Dasgupta to readers not familiar with the poet and the source
language and also prepares the groundwork which would help readers unfamiliar
with Bengali read and appreciate Dasgupta’s poems in their English
translations.
Dasgupta’s poems are characterized by a yearning for
the past, a sense of nostalgia along with a sense of history and nature that is
coloured by cynicism that brings a sharpness to the poems. A wry sense of
humour and irony work to create nuances that linger on. The poems are also
characterized by poetic restraint and economy in the use of words and images
along with a sense of stoic heroism.
Mukherjee provides detailed footnotes to explain
characters that figure in the poems, for instance, in the poem – “The offering to
the Guru (Gurudakshina)”. Mukherjee retains the
Bengali title of the poems that she translates putting that in parenthesis. The
poem (Self) Construction (Nirmiti) is characterized by nostalgia.
The title of the poem with its two brackets, one for adding finesse to the
English title and the other the original Bengali title highlights the
difficulty in retaining the finer nuances of the source language in the translated
text. The poem speaks beautifully of the need to assimilate and find a sense of
identity in a new milieu that does have a lot of cultural and linguistic
similarity. It voices a movement from East Bengal (present day Bangladesh) to
the Indian state of West Bengal. One needs to also note that in the poem Mukherjee
uses “folk songs” for the Bengali palligeeti,
however, the Bengali word is inserted in parenthesis as well. One wonders if the insertion of the source
word points to the failure or difficulty of the translated word.
My aunt‘s songs are
everywhere.
Mostly folk songs (Palligeeti),
and their inevitable strain
Oh, you, the
magical boatman—makes all endings and beginnings the same.
I don‘t need to go
anywhere after that.
Memories of life in East Bengal haunt many of the poems,
a small incident, a song, a simple scene evokes nostalgia of the land left
behind. Life here has much in common, yet a sense of yearning remains. Many of
the poems also evoke a rural ethos, again one that Dasgupta is no longer a part
of. Dasgupta’s poems are urban, and as Mukherjee notes in her introduction, he
is “like the best of modern poets a city poet”. The urbanity is seen in the way
Dasgupta uses images, themes and aesthetics.
The love poems in the volume are profound and reveal a
frank acceptance of desire and lust. Dasgupta’s poems speak of nature, love,
time, history and language as markers of identity. Some of the poems have a
sense of self-absorption, a self-love that lingers on.
When the entire sky hangs gloomy
During the month of Sravan
I almost did a ritual count of your name on its blackboard
Heavy rains wiped the name away;
Yet your name
Resounds in the pelting rain
and the wind chants it
if you become famous, my job will be done
What will remain
Will
only be the epilogue to the story. [“Myself unwritten” (Satwabilop)]
There are poems
that speak of the way the world reacts to his poems, to their reception. In the
poem “Stubborn (Nachhod)” he speaks of how his lines are not
conventional, how he is different from other poets and hence not liked.
Even if the Krishnachuda
Blooms on time
I don‘t sing about it anymore
That is why my peers
Have left me
To scatter in different directions
I will now suddenly write some
conventional lines
To the Krishnachuda
And
bring them all back….
Many of the poems use myths to refute ideas and institutions
in ways that might surprise and also reveal a historical sensibility at work.
One such institution that Dasgupta speaks of is Rabindranath Tagore. He brings in the reference to Mukunda Das, a
poet of East Bengal who wrote padabalis
(poems on the Radha Krishna love stories) in the poem “Charon” to speak of how
the apathy of the administrative system could be dealt with. He speaks of using
the padabalis for this and that the
older poet might provide succour in present times. Mukherjee retains the word padabali in the text of the poem and
explains it in detail in the note to the poem.
It is best that we hold on for dear life to
the charan padavali of Mukunda Das
It is
our last ray of hope
“The
Madhyamik, once again, in candle light” (Momer aloi, abar Madhyamike) weaves elements of nostalgia
and speaks of the inability of language to express. Speaking of Hindi, he
writes
I will certainly fail this time—through
the window I see
My little moonbeam standing outside with
my tiffin
The breeze plays in her tied up hair--
Her
beauty is such that even Bengali cannot capture it.
Such a great poet..poems are obviously enchanting..as if the poet was writing what I was feeling..and the review of course did really lead us to read the more again and again..and the translation lucid nd carrying all the feel with the original poet.
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