LANGUAGE IN INDIA
http://www.languageinindia.com
Volume 5 : 6 June 2005

TEACHING LITERARY TRANSLATION PRACTICALLY
V. V. B. Rama Rao, Ph.D.

HOW TO DO TRANSLATION

Our Toronto trained professor of Pedagogic Methodology was thoroughly practical. Methodology, practically speaking, is showing 'how to'. Language is a matter to skills and, as such, he used to tell us time and again that one who wishes to learn bicycling does not find much use in listening to lecturers on cycling or the technological aspects of bicycle production. The thing for the instructor is to sit the learner on the bicycle and help him acquire the skill.

TRANSLATION WAS TAUGHT IN SCHOOLS IN THE PAST

Literary Translation is not usually taught in educational institutions. Translation, yes, was a subject during my school days. Translation from English to Telugu at the Intermediate (+2) level. But the exercises were from non-technical and non-literary writing. But at that level it was not taken very seriously either by the 'teacher' or by the taught.

ASSESSING THE SUCCESS OF TRANSLATION

Here is an attempt at showing how a poem in Telugu can be rendered into English to the satisfaction of the poet himself. The native speaker of the source language (if not the poet himself) who has a fairly high level of competence in the target language too assesses best the success of literary translation.

Generalizations in literary matters are both untenable and tricky, especially when rigorous scientific expression is looked for. It is always safe to qualify sensibly the statements that sound like generalizations. In this paper, I restrict my remarks or observations to my own rendering of a particular literary text, a Telugu poem Idi Pralayam, which could be rendered into English as This - A deluge. Pralayam in Hindu thought corresponds nearly to Deluge in Christian belief, wherefrom Noah preserves the species and things in his arc. Jala pralayam refers to water engulfing the whole creation.

Particularly lucky is this rendering from Telugu into English since

1. the literary text here is contemporary.
2. the poet knows English very well to judge whether justice has been done to the original.
3. the poet is known and accessible to the 'renderer' for exchanging notes and eliciting comments.
4. the poet takes a friendly, sahridaya, look at the rendering at several stages.

THE ROOTS OF THIS POEM

The subject of the poem is the devastating cyclone in Orissa in 1999, where whole villages have been swept off with no traces left behind and large chunks of land submerged and vast areas marooned for several days.

The poem is several statements made in a staccato style using different images, all striking going straight into the readers' hearts. The lines come as hard hammer strokes communicating seen and felt horror. (In music legato and staccato are two different ways of playing, one with smooth transitions and the other with abrupt and sharply detached Notes.)

This technique lends itself to comparatively easy rendering into another language. A flood and the ravage it causes are familiar to people all over the world, no matter what language they speak.

Now to the poem bit by bit.

THE POEM ANALYZED

Transliterated version of the Telugu Original (Poetic response to 1999 October - Orissa Cyclone Damage) and its English Rendering (Published in INDIAN LITERATURE No. 194, Mar-April 2000 and revised in FIERY FIERCE 2000 but revised here again). Interspersed bit by bit

jagat chakshuvu kshnam reppa vaalchaadu
cheekati khadgam ne:la narikindi
paradeepa bhoomi andha yugaala
nirmaanushya nirjeeva niraakaaramaindi.
(The bold endings are markers of the past tense.)

The Universal Eye batted an eyelid
Sword of darkness
Slashed the Earth
Land of Para Deep*
Became
Deserted, lifeless, shapeless
Of blind aeons.

(* The word para could be other and deep is deepa for dweepa, 'island,' suggestive of the other worldly island - implying that the place remained dead. This cannot be conveyed in the English rendering - a natural limitation of rendering.)

Inupa naadaalu todigina gittala krinda
cheemalu naliginatlu
penu paapishthi tuphaanu
praanikotini tudichesindi.

The wild, wicked cyclone
Swept away mankind
Crushed as ants
Under the steel-shod hooves.
(This is almost a literal rendering without any damage to the original.)

tuphaanu kaadu, uppena kaadu
pralayame: samudram sullu tirigi
nabhaani chutti
degarekkala jala jihwalu
petre:gina jatharaagnito
pranaalu mringi trenchinayi

Not a hurricane, not a cyclone or storm
A cataclysm, a deluge - this
The ocean eddying
Encircling the sky
Hawk's wings aqueous tongues,
Ravenous, insatiable hungry
Swallowed lives wholesale and burped

This is almost a literal rendering without any damage to the original: bringing in 'cataclysm' is a device harnessed to convey the force of negatives in the first above line.

chettu che:maa, purugoo, pashuvoo, manishee
Ne:la nuduru mokki
daivanni prardhinchadaaniki
bhaktudu migalledu

Tree, foliage, insect, beast, man
To make a salutation touching Earth with forehead
No devotee remained to send up a prayer

mokki refers to making a devout salutation - once again an easy literal rendering.

neetlo munugutoo
aakrandistunna chetullo mrityuvu nu choosi
prekshakulu nischesthulai
adugu munduku jarigaru

Drowning in the flood
And seeing Death in hands lamenting
Onlookers struck dumb
Slid a step forward
(Utter helplessness of man - agony immitigable)

bhookampam nuggu chesina tuphaanu munchesinaa rodanaswanaaniki pratidhwani le:du

No echo for the wailing noises
Ground by the earth quake
Submerged in the typhoon
(Universality of the horror of Nature's fury)

chettu kaadu pittagooti pullainaa dorakadu
Bhootaalaku mokkutoo
bhoomi noragi asuvulavisaaka
cheppe:vaadu ledu, vine: vaadu le:du.
Sabdame: ledu.

Not a tree
Not a twig for a bird's nest
Can be found
Grovelling before the Elements
Breathing the last, collapsing
There is none to report
None to listen
No sound at all.
(Even sound is snuffed.)

Manishi maranam
gunde aagina nischchetana
kannavaari pegu tegindi
raktadhaaralo: tadi ledu

Man's death -
Unawareness of the throb silenced
Intestine of those bred is snapped
There's no wetness in streams of blood
(While the former three lines are factual s, the last line is a nice poetic insight.)

shavam meeda adrushya bandhuvula ro:dana
alisina gundela antahswanam
vrayyalaina sirassu
ko:rkelu nemarestoo
aashalu peelusthoo
penchina kalalu tuduchuka poyinai

On the corpse wailing of invisible relatives
Whines and whimpers of broken hearts
Heads smashed into fragments
Ruminating desires
Breathing hopes
Dreams raised stood erased
(Neither the corpses nor mourners are visible - that's the anguish.)

oka emukaa dorakadu
chitekudu boodidaku praapti ledu
charita voobilo: samasi
nagna maanavuni annarti lo:
chettu vellu namilina kaalaaniki jaarukunnai

Not a bone
Not a pinch of ash left
Buried in history's quicksand
Naked men starved for food
Slide down Time's bygone munching roots.
(Time munched the roots - a precious insight.)

naagarika prapancham
dunnapo:tu charmam aasanam gaa
charchallo: munigindi

Making a buffalo hide its seat
The civilized world is submerged in 'talks'
{The pachydermatous civilized in 'houses' can only 'discuss' - buffalo hide is just literal - deliberately retained for flavour of Source Language.)

chitrakaaruni kunche munduku po:du
gocharam agocharam avutundi
nangi maatalato dukhkhistaaru
battakattinavaari prabhodhaalu
aham brahmaasmi valle vestai

Painter's brush does not move
Visible becomes invisible
Voluble grief in seemingly innocent terms.
Their platitudes wearing clothes
Chant ahambrahmasmi : "I am Brahma"
(Artist's brush petrified - but voluble grief chants snatches from the Vedas.)

Purugu, pulugu, pashuvoo, pakshee, praanee
vudisina mahat dukham lo:
chali pidugu baariki kanneeru migaladu

Insect, tree, beast, bird and being
Steeped in grief terrible
No tears left for the cold thunder bolt
(The cold thunderbolt is a typical Telugu expression - deliberately literal.)

batikunna baadhanu mahaabali gaa
edurukomani cheppina
mahatpravachanamevaridi

Whoever's is the preaching, exhortation
That tribulation of life itself
Should be viewed as a sacrifice supreme
(Spiritual discourse doesn't console)

silaa sadrushulai
talli leka tandri leka chellileka tammi leka
andarini tanavaallanukunaa kanti guntalo:
chalama neeru ooradu

Becoming stone like
Without father, without mother
Without sister, without brother
In the eye socket
Of those who thought all their own ones
No tears ooze
(Idea - the tragedy doesn't leave even wetness in the tears - expression made poetic. )

prati nimusham nirantara chalana roopam
premalu ati vega sanchaaraalu
naalugu dikkulaa anchulu andani
ayomayam lo:
poinavaadevaru, vunna vaadevaru?
shavamevaridu durgandhamedi?

Every moment a form of flux
Loves, fast wanderings
In the confusion limitless around, everywhere
Whoever is gone, whoever the survivor
Which the corpse, which the carcass
Which the stench?
(Emotions and feelings, the corpse cadaver and the stench and all rendered indistinguishable literal rendering)

kaalaanni kolavadaaniki praanaalunnava?
pagalekkada? veluturekkada?
reyinbavalla sandhya le:vee?
raatri doosukochchi
pagalunu kabalinchaaka
nissabdaanni vinadaaniki
rodha madisina dooraala moolalaku povaale

Are there lives (left) to measure Time
Where is daylight, where the light
Where are dawns and dusks
when night comes crashing in
And devours Day itself
To listen to silence
One should go to distances
where the noise stands quelled
(The word in parenthesis is to make the meaning explicit - a wild liberty of transcreation.)

nissabdala chitikaalina boodida mooga bhaashalo:
edu katla savaaree basa chesina bhoosayanam lo
adavi kaalchina toorpuna
pidugu raalchina ro:dasi lo:
netturu paarina nadee nadaallo
visha vaayuvu pukkilinchina bhoogarbham lo
paradwewepa charitra cheragani satyam
mrutyuvuku jaali ledu
saamoohika maranaaniki saamoohika khananam
parinirvaanamkaane:kaadu

Where clatter is hushed-
To the dumb tongue of funeral pyre's ash
To dust after the journey on bamboo mount.*
(*The bamboo mount to carry the dead into the earthen bed)
In the East burnt by wilderness
In the Space the thunderbolt dropped
In the rivers and rivulets where blood flows
In Earth's entrails where poisonous gases gurgle
Indelible is the Truth of Para Deep's history.
Death has no mercy
For communal Death, communal burial
Is not at all any salvation

vennemuka tunakalani
aaviraina aatmalnee
''lest we forget aana
makkuvato: puvvu sprusinchadu
dikku leni chaavuku repati verapuku
paapapunyaala durbhara sahagaamitwam lo:
chachhina shavanni vetukutunte
batikunaa shavam kanta paduthundi.

Splinters of spines
Souls evaporated
In the Love of 'Lest we forget'
Flower does not touch
For a destitute Death
For fear of tomorrow,
In the insufferable fellow travel
Of Evil and Good, Sin and Merit, paap and punya
Searching for a corpse
We face the corpse alive.
('Encounter' in the place of 'face' may be possible.)

TO CONCLUDE

The original poem is great. Though most of the expressions are rendered almost literally with a great degree of correspondence between the SL and TL, the rendered poem conveyed the feeling the original intended to convey. This is a matter of satisfaction both to the poet and the literary translator. In some places the rendering may smack of too much of 'freedom' but this has to be judged by the reader himself. The reader who knows both the languages is invited to rate the rendering in a four-point scale and to mail the response, if possible with a few lines by way of comment, to vvbramarao@yahoo.com.

(NA) Not Acceptable
(*) Communicative
(**) Appealing, artistic etc.
(***) Very Impressive, Appealing, Artistic, etc.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO HOME PAGE