English translation – Da Ra Bendre in English

Audumbara (ಔದುಂಬರ)

So far, all the poems I have translated or transcreated and published on this website are poems Bendre wrote in his early period or in his middle period or at the beginning of his late period. These poems have by and large been lyric poems; rich with the sound, rhyme, rhythm, euphony, and linguistic dexterity, felicity, and inventiveness that defined Bendre’s prodigious poetry.
However, as enjoyably challenging and creatively engaging as this endeavour has been, anyone who has indulged in an activity for long enough will understand how necessary a ‘change of pace’ is — for refreshment, for rejuvenation, for longevity.

*****

To read and listen to more (including the entire translation), please buy my book, The Pollen Waits On Tiptoe. If you are living in India, you can buy the book by going to this page.

THREE IMPORTANT MATTERS:

1. If you are living abroad, you will, unfortunately, not be allowed to buy the book on Amazon India. Therefore, if you would like one or more copies of the book, please write directly to me (mk.ajjampur@gmail.com) with your details.

2. Buying 10 or more books will entitle you an overall discount of 30%. To avail yourself of this discount, contact MUP directly at mup@manipal.edu.

3. The book is also available as an ebook. The app hosting the ebook is called VIVIDLIPI and the book can be purchased at this link. (Since the publisher does not have an agreement with Amazon, I am afraid the book is not available on Kindle.)

Happiness – Sadness (ಸುಖ – ದುಃಖ)

A simple, sensitive, beautiful little poem. I don’t know that I’d have paid as much attention to it if I’d only been reading Bendre rather than looking for poems of his to translate and transcreate. Indeed, I’d venture that nothing allows for a more active, wide-ranging creative engagement with a poem as translating it. I suppose it’s why I continue to do it.

Recitation of the Kannada poem:

Happiness – Sadness (ಸುಖ–ದುಃಖ)

In the shimmer of the shimmering dawn
the flowers begin to show;
they show their beauty, spread their scent –
in the evening leave and go.

In the same way when youth is fresh
desire sends out its shoot;
flowering ripening fruiting passing,
it grows old and is lost.

In the blowing of the wind
no sadness can be found;
when children laugh their pealing laugh
there is always happiness around.

Recitation of the English translation:

(Translated by Madhav Ajjampur)

Poem Details: From the collection “ಉಯ್ಯಾಲೆ”, first published in 1938.

Afterword:

The first line of the original Kannada poem — ಚುಮು ಚುಮು ನಸುಕಿನಲಿ (chumu chumu nasukinali) — is a good example of the sonic difference between the onomatopoeia a phonetic language (like Kannada) and a non-phonetic language (like English) can deploy. It is obvious that a phonetic language has a much greater onomatopoeic range and can create sounds that a non-phonetic language cannot replicate. Examples include ಕುಲುಕುಲು (kulukulu) for light laughter, ಪಿಸಿಪಿಸಿ (pisipisi) for whispering, and ಪಳಪಳ (paḷapaḷa) for something that glitters and dazzles.
In the case of this poem, you might have noticed that I’ve tried to compensate for this “lacuna” with a combination of alliteration and repetition, viz. “in the shimmer of the shimmering dawn”.
However, note that shimmer itself can be considered onomatopoeic (though the dictionary doesn’t say so explicitly). So too can the words whisper (the dictionary bears me out here) and glitter and dazzle. It’s just that, being non-phonetic, English finds it difficult to create, without compromising its peculiar temperament, the syllabic imitative words that phonetic languages can. (For instance, I chose “the shimmer of the shimmering dawn” over “the shim-shimmer of the early dawn” because the former seemed to better fit the English language’s natural temperament while the latter seemed a less-than-felicitous borrowing of a phonetic language’s tendencies. However, further consideration makes me see how the latter may be an equally good if not better choice.)

P.S: When I showed the translation to my mother, she observed (not critically but matter-of-factly) that the poem’s theme was rather “well-worn”. That is true. However, the sensitive handling afforded the theme, the unusual third stanza, the understated presentation, and all-around assonance give the poem a singular flavour – not all of which could be captured in the translation.

© Madhav Ajjampur

*****

NOTE:

Dear Reader,

If you have enjoyed this translation and the recitations, I hope you will consider buying my recently-released book (!) of English translations of selected Bendre poems. The book is titled The Pollen Waits On Tiptoe. If you are living in India, you can buy the book by going to this page.

THREE IMPORTANT MATTERS:

2. Buying 10 or more books will entitle you an overall discount of 30%. To avail yourself of this discount, contact MUP directly at mup@manipal.edu.

The Musk-of-Love (ಕಾಮಕಸ್ತೂರಿ)

To understand Ambikatanayadatta Bendre’s genius, it is vital to appreciate what may be called his “folk poetry”. (Indeed, to people who have not read his poetry but have only heard a couple of songs, he remains ‘just a folk poet’.) By “folk poetry”, I refer here to the poetry Bendre wrote using the idiom peculiar to the Dharwad region, an idiom that he single-handedly raised to rarefied heights. His use of the Dharwad idiom – essentially a regional vulgate – may be contrasted with his equally felicitous use of “High Kannada” (which, broadly speaking, refers to the Sanskritized Kannada that had been used through the centuries by some of the language’s best-known poets).

Imbued to overflowing with the sounds and scents of Dharwad, Bendre’s “folk poetry” may be characterized as the poetry that Yeats wished to write but couldn’t; a poetry that, deriving its ಸತ್ತ್ವ (sattva: ~ quintessence, lifeblood) from the people’s everyday speech and catalyzed by the poet’s peculiar genius, emerges as the expressive apex of a people’s culture. The poet, in such a case, is simply the “chosen one”, the representative” of his/her people’s poetic expression. Bendre himself alludes to this phenomenon in the foreword to his first poetry collection ‘ಗರಿ (gari: Feather)’. He says, “I have talked so far of ‘my poems’. That is simply a manner of speaking. In truth, these are not my poems; they are Kannada’s poems. The Kannada-language’s incorporeal voice is actualizing itself through a thousand throats. That my throat is one among this thousand is itself my blessing. That I am one among the group of poets singing in the dawn of Kannada’s renaissance is itself my source of pride. For if it were not so, why should anybody care about my poems? To say ‘my poems or ‘his poems’ is fallacious; for Kannada to lay claim to these poems is the truth.”
He makes mention of it again in his poem ‘ನಾನು (I)‘ when he speaks of how “as Ambikatanaya he mirrors here in Kannada the universe’s inner voice”.

All this talk above happened because the poem in question is basically drenched in the Dharwad (folk) idiom. Unsurprisingly, this gives the poem a warmth, a cosiness, a tenderness that eludes other more ‘serious’ poems.

As for the poem’s English translation (or, more correctly, transcreation), it may be useful to read what I said previously about such an undertaking. A point I did not make then but that needs to be made concerns the sheer impossibility of translating a poem’s native sound – regardless of whether the poem uses the vulgate or the formal form. Since “poetry is the suggestive sound”, the best the translator or transcreator can do is try to find equivalent sounds in the language the poem is being transferred to. In the case of a lyric poem especially, this “equivalency of sound” is perhaps the most felicitous way to convey the ಭಾವ (bhaava: ~ feeling, mood, spirit) that the original evokes in the native reader or listener.

While I am not sure the poem I just linked to did that very capably (though a friend of mine did say that the translation brought forth tears she had to hide from those around her by bowing her head), it’s my opinion that I’ve done a little better with this effort.

And now, on to the poem! I’ve (tried to) sing and recite both the original and the translation. Please make allowance for the background noise (and, if necessary, my singing). Thanks.

Kannada original (sung):

Kannada original (recited):

The Musk-of-Love (ಕಾಮಕಸ್ತೂರಿ)
(By the Field)

Thick-plaited girl
I’ve brought for you
a scented sprig
of the musk-of-love

When worn beautifully
upon your crowny crown
a little swirl of wind
will come my way and touch
and I will feel –
delighted – light – delight

People who talk
will talk and talk –
you are outside of them

English translation (sung):

English translation (recited):

(Translated by Madhav Ajjampur)

Poem Details: From the collection “ಕಾಮಕಸ್ತೂರಿ”, first published in 1934.

Afterword:

This poem is the very first poem in the ‘ಕಾಮಕಸ್ತೂರಿ (kaamakastoori)’ collection. In his foreword, here is what Bendre had to say about the first “batch” of poems in the collection: “The first sixteen poems were not all written at the same time. [However], they all exist upon the same wave[length]. The rasika reader can use their imagination to weave a story or stories around the collection; each to their own taste. [After all,] like musk, kaama too is a quarter intoxicant, three quarters earthy soil, but nonetheless a pulsing heady fragrance! kaama (sensual desire) and prēma (love) are like the mud and the lotus. Or to use the ‘language of poetry’ – one is descriptive, the other suggestive.”

Note: On Jan 26, as part of my January picture series, I published the translation of this poem’s first stanza. In it, I chose to translate “kaamakastoori” as “the musk-of-love”. (Incidentally, ‘kaamakastoori” is also the quite lovely Kannada name of the fragrant “sweet basil” plant.) Given Bendre’s explicit mention of the relationship (and difference) between kaama and prēma, translating “kaamakastoori” as “the musk-of-love” (and thereby drawing an equivalence between “kaama” and “love”) complicates the translation of “prēma” – whose translation as “love” would be more accepted. However, since there is no mention of “prēma” in this particular poem, I have chosen to stick with “the musk-of-love”.

P.S: Strictly speaking, “kaamakastoori” translates to something like “the sensual musk” or “the musk-of-desire”; neither of which quite captures the tender feeling associated with the poem (like “musk-of-love” does). Speaking even more strictly, “kaamakastoori” is actually the Kannada name for the sweet basil and sweet violet plants. In the light of this information, it would perhaps be accurate for me to change the phrase “musk-of-love” to “sweet basil” or “sweet violet”. It is a rather happy circumstance that doing so would not significantly alter the metre of the translated poem. However, such a change would alter the suggestive nature of the phrase “musk-of-love”. It is keeping this is mind that I have chosen to retain “musk-of-love”.

© Madhav Ajjampur

*****

NOTE:

Dear Reader,

THREE IMPORTANT MATTERS:

2. Buying 10 or more books will entitle you an overall discount of 30%. To avail yourself of this discount, contact MUP directly at mup@manipal.edu.

Benediction (ಹರಕೆ)

Kannada Poem’s Recitation:

Benediction (ಹರಕೆ)

The slow-paced step is slower now, within doe-
eyes’s about to sprout an anxiousness;
(the fresh-greenness of the body’s faded now.)
Its youth undone, the blood’s red-freshness’
quickly turning old. Coquette who wished to
count the feathers of the flying bird! Your
heart’s as desolate as an empty temple’s show;
sweet murmurs can be born no more;
now grown, you stand past outstretched hand.

Sister, let the day’s fatigue just fade away;
let the soaring hawk not swoop this way
or boy-wind tie you up in impish play.
Don’t visit here, you bee who steals the flower’s
scent; let spring’s desired-success-shower come;
above, let your moon-star act as your home.

English Translation’s Recitation:

(Translated by Madhav Ajjampur)

Poem Details: From the collection, “ಕಾಮಕಸ್ತೂರಿ”, first published in 1934.

Afterword:

I remember being at the 2016 Ranga Ugadi organized by Ranga Shankara, Bengaluru’s best-known theatre space. The year’s theme was Bendre and the centerpiece of the second day’s festivities was a reading session of his poems by various well-known Kannada cultural figures. One of them, I recall, prefaced her reading – of the poem ‘ದಶಾವತಾರ’ – with her description of Bendre as a man with a “ಮಹಾ ಹೆಂಗರುಳು” (mahā heṅgaruḷu), or in other words, “a great woman-like sympathy”.
The poem “ದಶಾವತಾರ (dashaavataara)” – the ten avataara-s – is part of a series of poems called “ಕರುಳಿನ ವಚನಗಳು (karuḷina vachanagaḷu)” – or “words [born] of the gut” – written from the point of view of a mother that relate her various happy and spontaneous exclamations at her beloved infant’s ways and plays. To those who know about Bendre’s growth as a poet, the influence of Rabindranath Tagore’s “The Crescent Moon” on these poems is obvious. (Speaking for myself, the poems in “The Crescent Moon” are some of the most exquisite poems I’ve ever read.)
If the incident mentioned above is relevant, it is because this poem too exemplifies the ಹೆಂಗರುಳು (hengaruḷu) Bendre possessed. While a deep sensitivity characterizes all great poets, Bendre’s sensitivity was (for a male poet) unusually “female directed”. A number of his early lyric poems are either written from a woman’s point of view or are sympathetic responses to a woman’s various life experiences.
It is notable that this is another oct-sestet – one that rhymes this time. You’ll notice that the translation has, in spite of my trying, 15 lines rather than 14. Its rhyme scheme too is different from the original’s. Then again, that’s the reason I prefer to think these poems are as much transcreations as they are translations.
P.S: I think it worth reading this poem in conjuction with this one.

© Madhav Ajjampur

*****

NOTE:

Dear Reader,

THREE IMPORTANT MATTERS:

2. Buying 10 or more books will entitle you an overall discount of 30%. To avail yourself of this discount, contact MUP directly at mup@manipal.edu.

Gumma (ಗುಮ್ಮ)

The literature of the Navōdaya period (that began in the early 1900s) in Kannada literature was inspired by the emergent literature of the Bengal Renaissance as well as by the Romantic tradition of English poetry. This inspiration extended to the verse forms of the Romantic tradition and included the sonnet.

As the foremost lyrical poet of Kannada’s Navōdaya period, and an inveterate seeker (and inventor) of new poetic forms, Bendre’s experiments with the sonnet began in the early 1920s. However, it was in his 1938 collection “ಉಯ್ಯಾಲೆ (Uyyāle: The Swing)” that the sonnet-fruit swelled forth in all its fullness. Naming his avatāra of the sonnet the ಅಷ್ಟಷಟ್ಪದಿ or the oct-sestet (and, by doing so, choosing the Petrarchan form over the Shakespearean), Bendre says in his introduction that “the new qualities [of his sonnets] are their lack of rhyme, their unpredictable use of enjambment, and the strangeness of the twist imparted [when moving from the octet to the sestet]”.

*****

To read and listen to more (including the entire translation), please buy my book, The Pollen Waits On Tiptoe. If you are living in India, you can buy the book by going to this page.

THREE IMPORTANT MATTERS:

2. Buying 10 or more books will entitle you an overall discount of 30%. To avail yourself of this discount, contact MUP directly at mup@manipal.edu.

Beyond the Mind (ಅಚಿಂತ್ಯ)

Among Shankar Mokashi Punekar’s many affectionate and insightful quotes about Bendre’s poetic genius is his description of Bendre’s poetry as “a poetic essence born of the constant embrace of the heart (ಭಾವ: bhaava) and the intellect (ಬುದ್ಧಿ; buddhi)”.

Interpreted judiciously, one may understand this to mean that every poem of Bendre’s holds within it, in varying degrees, elements that appeal to both the heart and the mind; that both stir the heart and stimulate the mind. Given the exquisite romanticism of Bendre’s lyric poems and the intellectual inquisitiveness of his early sonnets and later poems, Punekar’s assertion seems very reasonable.

This particular poem seems a good example of the “intellect” of Bendre’s poetry. Like Bendre says himself in his foreword to “ಮೂರ್ತಿ (moorti: ~ idol)” – a set of connected poems that, through their exploration of the birth, life, and death of a stone, allegorically describe the human experience – this “first part of the [longer] narrative–poem is the philosophical face of a metaphoric symbolism”.

*****

To read and listen to more (including the entire translation), please buy my book, The Pollen Waits On Tiptoe. If you are living in India, you can buy the book by going to this page.

THREE IMPORTANT MATTERS:

2. Buying 10 or more books will entitle you an overall discount of 30%. To avail yourself of this discount, contact MUP directly at mup@manipal.edu.

Hothot Sky (ನಿಗಿ ನಿಗಿ ಮುಗಿಲು)

Original Kannada Poem:

Hothot Sky (ನಿಗಿ ನಿಗಿ ಮುಗಿಲು)

Hothot sky
hothot day
pours forth an emberous heat;
strips all cover
steals all power
the life-breath’s fully beat;

Dries the throat
drops the fruit
the hot breath of the air –
full-flaming
sky-swimming
is arriving in fine flair.

Showers the rain
uplooks the grain
the dark clouds break and burst;
cheep-cheep the birds,
their laughter-words;
here’s mercy for the cursed!

Transcreated English Poem:

(Translated by Madhav Ajjampur)

Poem Details: From the collection “ನಾದಲೀಲೆ”, first published in 1938.

Afterword:

ಹಾಡೆ ಹಾದಿಯ ತೋರಿತು (haaḍē haadiya tōritu: ~ the song itself showed the way) said Bendre of (his) poetry. The variousness of his poetry’s metre, rhythm, rhyme, prosody, and syllablism testify to the truth of this statement: the song really did show him the way. All too often, all he did was follow its lead.

In this particular poem, it may be argued that the short (staccato-ish) syllabic lines lend the poem an urgency – alluding, at first, to the withering heat and, later, to the wet relief of the rain. In any case, the poem is a wonderful example of the famous ನಾದ (naada: ~ euphony) inherent to Bendre’s poetry. Just listen to that assonance, that rhythm, that rhyme, that onomatopoeia!

In this transcreation, a particular concern was to mirror the (short) syllablism of the original poem’s lines. Trying to work the English language to achieve such effects is an especially satisfying aspect of translating Bendre’s poetry.

© Madhav Ajjampur

*****

NOTE:

Dear Reader,

THREE IMPORTANT MATTERS:

2. Buying 10 or more books will entitle you an overall discount of 30%. To avail yourself of this discount, contact MUP directly at mup@manipal.edu.

Question (ಸಮಸ್ಯೆ)

There is almost always, in a great poem, that line that stands out, that so impresses itself on the reader that it serves as the focus for the reader’s every feeling about the poem (and poet even).
It could be a metaphor so completely new as to astonish, a delicacy of feeling so exquisite as to overwhelm, a play of language so buoyant as to delight, a commonplace presented so novelly as to rarify.
Bendre’s remarkably prolific poetry is full of such lines. Often written as Ambikatanayadatta – the Kannada-speaking daimon within – his greatest poetry is a melodic melding of, in Shankar Mokashi’s words, “the intellect and the heart.”
In this particular poem – Bendre’s Kannada adaptation of the Petrarchan sonnet – the last line of the octave is what struck me immediately (“ಬೆಳಕೆ ಬೆಳಕಿದ್ದು ಕತ್ತಲೆಯು ತುಂಬಿತು ಹೇಗೆ?”) – I even think I tried right away to translate it. The rest of the translation came later – and not without some effort. (The sestet was particularly difficult – given its cultural references and its original character as an almost “single-breath” denouement.)
Like I often do, I have, in some places, eschewed a literal translation for a more fluid transcreation.

As is usual – here is a recording of my reciting the original Kannada poem.

*****

To read and listen to more (including the entire translation), please buy my book, The Pollen Waits On Tiptoe. If you are living in India, you can buy the book by going to this page.

THREE IMPORTANT MATTERS:

2. Buying 10 or more books will entitle you an overall discount of 30%. To avail yourself of this discount, contact MUP directly at mup@manipal.edu.

Two Dramatic Songs (ಎರಡು ನಾಟ್ಯಗೀತಗಳು)

A number of Bendre’s poems were actually ನಾಟ್ಯಗೀತs or “dramatic songs” – many of them composed for dramas that were never completed! The two song-poems featured here were both written for a drama called ಸತಿ (Sati); which too remained uncompleted.

Here is the context Bendre offers regarding these song-poems.

A king of Pataliputra, having already wed three hundred princesses, invites to his palace the wife, Sati, of the celebrated ascetic Dhyanagupta of Vaishali. Cloistered in the queen’s quarters of the palace, these are the songs the three hundred princesses sing (in chorus) when they learn the news.

(If the first song is an expression of the disquietude the princesses feel upon hearing of Sati’s arrival, the second is a full-throated lamentation of the pathos of their situation since she came.)

It should be obvious to the reader that the two songs complement one another.

Note: Bendre was first and foremost a lyric poet. In other words, there are very few poems of his that cannot be sung. Indeed, some hundred or so poems of his have been set to song by a number of different composers.
In this case – where the poems themselves are songs – it would have been an injustice to not sing them. But to sing them, one needs a tune (of some sort) – and I wasn’t able to think of one (let alone two).
Enter Appa, my father. A long-time connoisseur of classical Indian music (with a predilection for the Hindustani style), his sense for raaga is uncanny; particularly for someone with no formal training in music. His wonderfully melodious singing – usually of old raaga-driven Kannada songs – has several times brought me the happiness one associates with music.
The recordings of the two original Kannada song-poems are by him – sung to melodies based on two classical raagas he himself chose. I think his choices felicitous. It’s also my opinion that he’s sung both song-poems beautifully. But – you should listen to them to form your own opinion.

P.S: After I’d had Appa sing the Kannada versions, it seemed tame to simply recite the translations. However, that was precisely what I was ready to do up until about an hour ago – when a “tune” (to use the word very loosely) of sorts – for Poem 1 – came to me. Having an inkling of a “tune” (this word, again, being used very loosely) for Poem 2, I decided to record them.
While I don’t see either song entering the Top 100 (or Top 10,000 for that matter), I hope they’re not unpleasant to listen to.

Will You Remember, Will You Forget! (ಮರೆಯುವೆಯೋ, ಅರಿಯುವೆಯೋ!)

Original Kannada poem:
[Set and sung by Appa; based on the ಪಂತುವರಾಳಿ (pantuvaraaḷi) rāga of the Carnatic classical tradition — ಪೂರಿಯ ಧನಶ್ರೀ (pooriya dhanashree) is the Hindustani classical equivalent]

Will you remember
or will you forget us – us all?
Sweetheart, darling, light-of-our-life,
will you come meet us – us all?

We said we were parrots
in the cage of your heart;
sweet, besotting, light-ring — king!
In this palace of pearls
in this wildly world
will you abandon us – us all?

Our memory still thrills
to that very first touch;
intoxicating beauty’s bard — lord!
Ages have passed,
will you come laughing again
to call upon us – us all?

We have gathered in shadows
as the night falls;
come in merciful show — hero!
By blowing love-breath
in these beautiful dolls
will you not save us – us all?

Song version of the English translation:

+++++

O King, Beloved! (ಎಲ್ಲಿರುವೆ ರಾಜಗಂಭೀರಾ!)

Original Kannada poem:
[Set and sung by Appa; based on the ಹಿಂದೋಳ (hindōḷa) rāga of the Carnatic classical tradition — ಮಾಲ್ಕೌನ್ಸ್ (maalkauns) is the Hindustani classical equivalent]

Where are you O king, beloved!

This life-breath’s wailing like the wind
within a ruined house of god;
and even the walls of stone are calling;
where are you O king – beloved.

This life-breath’s vine’s seekìng the light;
for lack of air it’s withered;
this jasmine-heart’s a curled-up bud;
where are you O king – beloved.

This life-breath’s but a water-shade,
the heaven’s stars are saddened;
quavering they’re saying, “darkness has spread”:
where are you O king – beloved.

This life-breath’s wish to see the things it
can’t is no longer small or bounded;
ah love, it’s thirsty, (though the passion’s cooled);
where are you O king – beloved.

And now this life-breath is so lifeless,
its own existence seems borrowed;
your faithful beauties await your coming;
where are you O king – beloved.

Song version of the English translation:

(Translated by Madhav Ajjampur)

Poems’ Details: From the collection “ನಾದಲೀಲೆ”, first published in 1938.

*****

NOTE:

Dear Reader,

THREE IMPORTANT MATTERS:

2. Buying 10 or more books will entitle you an overall discount of 30%. To avail yourself of this discount, contact MUP directly at mup@manipal.edu.

Jogi (ಜೋಗಿ)

Like with so many of Bendre’s poems, I listened to Jogi (ಜೋಗಿ) sung — in an abridged form — before I read it. Attracted almost immediately by its music, it was only later that I learnt of the poem’s special place in both Bendre’s poetry and Kannada literature. (It was hailed in 1999 as the “ಶತಮಾನದ ಕವಿತೆ” or the poem of the 20th century.)
In this translation, I have tried to recreate the rhyme and rhythm of the original. Consequently, the translation reads best when recited out loud.

In Bendre’s own words, “The poem ‘ಜೋಗಿ (Jogi)’ has sprung from the enchantment of Dharwad’s environs as well as from the terrible, doubt-ridden turmoil that comes from experiencing a dark night of the soul.”

Below are two audio pieces.

*****

To read and listen to more (including the entire translation), please buy my book, The Pollen Waits On Tiptoe. If you are living in India, you can buy the book by going to this page.

THREE IMPORTANT MATTERS:

2. Buying 10 or more books will entitle you an overall discount of 30%. To avail yourself of this discount, contact MUP directly at mup@manipal.edu.