ರಾಮಾನುಜನ್ನರಿಗೆ ಸಿಕ್ಕೂ ದಕ್ಕದ ಅಡಿಗರ ಭೂತ
GK Adiga's 'demon-past' haunts AK Ramanujan
In which, bear with us, a Chicago Univ. linguist professor of a multi-faceted Kannada-Tamil dead Poet's humble translation work in English gets extensively edited (rather'editoriated' / EXORcised) by a Kannada-medium village-bred faceless unhumble pedestrian indignant alive.
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" The ex / The Buried / The Spirit of the Tense Past "
(AKR-MGK's translation of GKA's 'Bhootha', but heavily edited / reworked by yours truly)
The fetus-crypts of the tense-past are haunting:
the stale air of abyss inside the pent old well
is crawling up, heads down, on all fours
leaping on the back of the lullabying sunlight shaft
is gushing even onto the canopy of holy basil grove.
The corded umbilical discarded at the bank
the cut mouse tail, writhes.
To me who gropes with eyes stuck in darkness
flashes, all of the sudden, a golden streak:
a squirming feather-burnt star--
somehow fallen in the new-moon-moats.
The past ghosts all over the Current Affairs.
One fold above the water, seven snow-capped peaks beneath;
out of blue accidentally fire-speak spitting
snow cowered innocent volcano.
Fold up the paper if you will --
in the soundless skeleton rooms
dumb beckoning missing beat:
the carnival of reversed feet.
In the waters stagnant in the inner depths
heaping webs of spermoids beating their hands;
under the hoods of the turning curtains of the dark-stage
the speak-picking glitter-pointed tail, - do these
not desire out-yard's colorful canopy of creepers and flowers?
No water and no shelter for the fathers and forefathers.
Shuttling tight through the high winds and rough tides
toughly, the lands though found, seldom could they obtain.
I know the tantra of exorcism and libation,
yet have forgotten the mantra herein;
thus vacuously I am just waving the wand.
Gosh! trusting the high priests, westward we went;
high time now to dig into the epistemology--prevalent
at once: the stemming of karma, the cantos of action.
As one digs, first a chrysalis of clay;
pushing the shovel deep and striking hard
one might glimpse the streaking ore of gold.
The alchemies of extraction, burning and decanting
one should learn a little, at least now;
the true craft of heating and beating the gold--
to cast it in the image of one’s own preferred god.
The water that rots in the well, steams well above;
all along the sky runs its causal pathway;
the invisible seed of the void room of the overcast sky
the all-nine-months longing fetus-shape--
rumbling of the liminal ghost, troubling of the thunderclap--
rain is the news--
presentation for the past-form.
The plowed and seeded fields donning the laboring earth;
the garden of swinging fruits, paddy and wheat,
the golden pinnacles of the temple towers.
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For the originals, see:
https://ruthumana.com/2018/03/22/2-translations-a-k-ramanujan/
See also:
1) 'Emergent' -- a contemporary counterpoint to the very 'Bhootha'.
0) 'ಆವಿರ್ಭೂತ' -- the urgent counterpoint as is emergent in Kannada, with 2 epilogues.
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The Backword, background, premise, promise...:
We read with intrigue, the English translation of Gopalakrishna Adiga's celebrated Kannada poem "Bhootha", entitled '"Ghost and Past"', which is done by A.K. Ramanujan (AKR, with MG Krishnamurthy, apparently). We find it somewhat misconceived, especially on account of the 'tense' that is involved.
Originally, in 'Bhootha', Adiga thinks aloud about the 'spirit' in which the past is ( and is not) to be taken, at present, so as to proceed to what he conceives as a golden future. In its initial portions, Adiga, through dense metaphors -- most of which are framed in the present-continuous tense -- describes the ways in which the past haunts him in the present. In the next portions, he first shifts to discuss the methods for exorcising this ill-spirit of past, and then to bring about the rather positive sense in which the past is to be taken for best, to land on a vision of a golden future. All in all, the poet is situated in the present, and as such, most of his statements are in the present-continuous tense.
We must note here, to the best of what we have come across, Adiga seems to be one of those poets who make very thoughtful choices of words --- carefully crafting their statements. For such cases, it is not sufficient to think just factually by considering how a certain passage is worded, but also to think counter-factually by consider how else could it have been worded otherwise (that the poet chose not to do so). Thus, the poet's omissions should also inform our readings inasmuch as their selections.
For example, consider Adiga's opening lines: "ಕಾಡುತ್ತಿವೆ ಭೂತಕಾಲದ ಭ್ರೂಣಗೂಢಗಳು ''. It would rather sound more abstract, more general, more stylish if he would instead open either like "ಕಾಡುವವು ಭೂತಕಾಲದ ಭ್ರೂಣಗೂಢಗಳು", or even "ಕಾಡುತ್ತವೆ ಭೂತಕಾಲದ ಭ್ರೂಣಗೂಢಗಳು". But Adiga did not chose to do so. He instead prefers to resonate with the continuous action via 'ಕಾಡುತ್ತಿವೆ', and he persists with the same throughout the stanza, to end with "ಹಾಯುತ್ತಿದೆ ತುಳಸಿವೃಂದಾವನದ ಹೊದರಿಗೂ". Highlight is also on his intentional usage of the almost explicit first-person forms (e.g., "To me who gropes...").
However, AKR-MGK, in their opening stanza of the translation, have switched to the present-indefinite tense: "Secret embryos of the demon-past haunt..." etc, and persists with it, to end with "and go beyond into the garden of the basil bush".
(And lest we dig into the evident misconception of the translators in the same stanza. It was the 'stale air' that was gushing out into the holy grove for Adiga -- metaphorically, but, for AKR-MGK, it is literally the secret embryos themselves --" 'in' the stale air...'they' crawl up.. and gush out"... )
To us, this translation of AKR-MGK is inappropriate at least on two counts.
Firstly, and crucially, Adiga is decidedly anchored in the present, and is looking at the way the past is affecting him at the moment, and is contemplating what course of action it is that he must take now, so that the future is 'golden'. Thus ,herein for Adiga, it is all about the continuous action in the present, even while keeping in mind the past and the future.
Secondly, for Adiga, arguably, the haunting of the spirit of past isn't a timeless fact that is aught to be there so indefinitely. These spirits are haunting at the present for sure, but he intends to exorcise them in his next stanzas, to find a better way of engaging with the past, so that these spirits of past no longer persist with the haunting business.
Even more arguably, some of the the originally glorious statements somehow have become rather underwhelming in AKR-MGK's translation. For example:
"...and the rain is the present of past forms",
which misses a few of the multiplicity of interpretations possible for the original, e.g., : "rain is the news" (to the seeds buried). ಕಾದುಗಾರಾದ ನೆಲದೊಳಗಿರುವ ಬೀಜಕ್ಕೆ ಗುಡುಗುಸಿಡಿಲು ಎಂಬವು ಮಳೆಯ ವರ್ತಮಾನವನ್ನು ನೀಡುತ್ತವೆ ಎಂಬ ವಿಜ್ಞಾನದ ಅಖ್ಯಾನ ಈ ಅನುವಾದದಲ್ಲಿ ಎಲ್ಲಿಗೆ ಹೋಯಿತೋ!
Thus, as we go through the choices that AKR-MGK make in this translation, a deep urge to modify the same occurs to us, at the least as an exercise. At places we are bound to change the words as well. So, here we are, with this heavily modified translation. As thus, it is not an entirely from-the-scratch written original translation. And,needless to say, it is done here just as an exercise, with no commercial interest whatsoever to infringe any copyright otherwise.
We have also taken the opinion of the chatgpt LLM on our translation. And should we clarify, Its Highness Mrx ChatGPT (may peace be upon us🙃) has immensely boosted our ego by vindicating our translation--our choices of words and tense forms--over those of AKR etal!!! And lest again we clarify, it seldom involves any original translation in it self by chatgpt --every word and sentence in English in here is either from AKR or from yours truly highness.
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