Tag: Oct-sestet

Dissolution – Creation (ಪ್ರಳಯ – ಸೃಷ್ಟಿ)

This is an interesting poem, made more interesting when one realizes that it is also among Bendre’s earliest. Bendre has written that ತುತೂರಿ (tutoori: ~ trumpet) was his first work, but the book I have says this poem was written sometime between 1914 and 1918 (when Bendre was between 18 and 22 years old). In any case, it seems fair to call this one of Bendre’s “early poems” (when, one can surmise, the Ambikatanayadatta within him had only just begun to come into its own.)

Currently, the poem acts as the prologue to the collection ಮೂರ್ತಿ (moorti: ~ idol), a set of poems that together narrate the rise, the life, and decline of a stone idol. (Incidentally, his poem ‘Sorcerer (ಗಾರುಡಿಗ)‘ serves as the epilogue.)

However, the (somewhat fuzzy) details regarding the poem’s “date-of-creation” leads me to conclude the poem was written separately and is likely one of Bendre’s early experiments with the Petrarchan sonnet form – which experiments would culminate in the harvest of oct-sestets of “ಉಯ್ಯಾಲೆ” (uyyaale: the swing), Bendre’s 1938 collection of poems. In other words, my guess is that the poem was not written as a prologue so much as it was retroactively attached as a prologue on account of its fitting the theme “ಮೂರ್ತಿ” expatiates upon. The same argument can be made about the poem ‘Sorcerer (ಗಾರುಡಿಗ)‘.

In any case, these are minor details and do not – in the larger picture – add to or take away from the poem.

Note: The idea of ಪ್ರಳಯ (praḷaya: ~ dissolution) and ಸೃಷ್ಟಿ (srishṭi: ~ creation) is an important idea in the Hindu (cosmological) imagination. For the interested, the afterword offers (a little) more detail.

Recitation of the Kannada original:


Dissolution – Creation (ಪ್ರಳಯ – ಸೃಷ್ಟಿ)

Like a cloud of smoke that scattering disappears,
the remembered form dissolves; a pall begins
to rise and spread; like form is lost within
a dream, a formless darkness fills all space;
the mind is dense and thick, and time itself
is lost, unknowable; unmoving, the
mind has turned upon itself; what world is
this that lies ahead? An uncreating
sight, a picture! Unpicture. Do I exist?
What else exists? A spreading moor of silence!

Like a deadened body gaining breath, the
darkness around responds; born of the
holy river stone, the melody of Krishna’s
flute is making every fibre of the body
dance; it wears a peacock’s mask. And every-
where are eyes on eyes! Like the widower
given back his bride, the mind is a happy home.

Recitation of the English translation:


(Translated by Madhav Ajjampur)

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

Afterword:

Ancient Hindu mytho-cosmology posits a cyclical model of the universe. This is expressed by the term ಕಾಲಚಕ್ರ (kaalachakra: the wheel-of-time) – a notion that imputes an end to every beginning and a beginning to every end. In particular, this cosmology speaks of the cyclical recurrence of four yugas (or ages or epochs): the Krita (or Satya) yuga, the Trēta yuga, the Dvaapara yuga, and the Kali yuga. The belief is that dharma (~right conduct) decreases in each succeeding age. At its zenith in the Krita yuga, dharma continues to dwindle until it reaches its nadir in the Kali yuga. This event necessitates the pralaya (~the reabsorption; the dissolution) of the universe and its subsequent srishṭi (~creation, emergence).
The cycle of pralaya-srishṭi is ceaseless. That is to say, pralaya and srishṭi are attached in the same way as the front and back of a coin. Or, put differently, dissolution and creation are inextricably linked – each succeeds and precedes the other through a spacetime of eternity.

© 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:

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.)

Paper Boat (ಹಾಳಿ ಹಡಗ)

Long before Jagjit Singh was singing a soulful ghazal about the lost childhood of paper boats and even longer before paper boat was a quirky, new-age brand with attractive packaging, Da Ra Bendre was writing a sonnet about the paper boat. Not a run-of-the-mill sonnet, mind you, that merely romanticized the innocence of his childhood days – but rather an image-rich oct-sestet (ಅಷ್ಟಷತ್ಪದಿ) that even now stands out for what Bendre himself described as “the strangeness of the twist imparted [when moving from the octet to the sestet]”.

Given the strangeness of this twist – its ಚಮತ್ಕಾರ (chamatkaara (n): ~ wonder) – and the various interpretations it allows for, I think this a good time to say something about what it means to translate poetry like Bendre’s — poetry that is not just remarkably euphonic but frequently rich in meaning, in suggestion, in allusion, in metaphor, in native imagery.

Like I say in the About section, my translation (or transcreation) has always looked to avoid the trap of “literalness” and offer, instead, the spirit of the original poem. But what if that spirit itself is one of mystery or elusiveness or ambiguity or complexity or all these things at the same time? Does “literalness” gain importance then?
Well, in such a case, I’d say the duty of the translation or transcreation becomes to retain, to the extent possible, the poem’s qualities, with the caveat that it never (deliberately) stretches past the original’s own reach. (An example of stretching past the original’s reach to create a kind of “fusion” is Fitzgerald’s rendering of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat. He is said to have taken so many liberties with the original that his immensely-popular work is often referred to as the Omar-Fitzgerald Rubaiyat. Fitzgerald apparently called his work a “transmogrification”.)
The retention can be effected in different ways: by seeking to understand the poem’s nuances of meaning and suggestion and using that learning to create a translation that is itself nuanced, though perhaps in a different way; or, in the case of a poem that challenges the translator’s understanding, by offering a translation that challenges its reader in equivalent fashion.

This particular poem is one whose “strangeness of twist” I cannot claim to have “fully understood”. Consequently, I have tried to present a translation that retains – as literally as possible – the imagery of the original. After all, like I have said before, my reason for translating a Bendre poem is often my own desire to better understand the poem.

Kannada Poem Recitation:

Paper Boat (ಹಾಳಿ ಹಡಗ)

I will set sail these paper boats,
like one would do in boyish play,
until the cloud-hid sun shines forth again;
(the scrap of home will be its load.)
Within this mud-watered-unity
that marries the culvert and the lake,
let the current chart its destiny:
what is a flimsy boat against a crazy rain-and-breeze?
Let the books account the profit and the loss,
what I praised in wonder-dance is here.

The heart, like cloth, crumples and fades,
the breath is dimmed by hunger and by thirst;
building varied fairied lands, making channels
flood happily, cutting and sniff-scattering
the jasmine-of-the-skies, and breathing life
into the pictures of the mind, comes forth
a heaven that has birthed itself.

English Translation’s Recitation:

(Translated by Madhav Ajjampur)

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

© 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:

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.)

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,

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:

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.)