Revisiting Tagore (Sujatha)

  The first time I ever read Tagore was when I received a slim volume of his translated "Gitanjali" at the age of 12. I would read one or two little poems daily, mull it over briefly and get back to the busy life of a schoolgirl. The well-known "Where the mind is without fear" was already known to me, a staple in the Indian school syllabus as a prime example of the beloved Gurudeb's works.

That was a time when I was obsessed with the music, life,times of Meerabai, which I found more enchanting and romantic than abstract musings on a nameless Lord,  rivers, storm clouds, moonlight, songs, flutes etc., that dominated what I read in the Gitanjali. The music was a prime factor; I could hear recordings of the Meera Bhajans and made every effort to figure out the meaning of even obscure words. It might have meant more to me, had renditions of Rabindra Sangeet, like this one been accessible.

At that time, it was no more to me than a source of amorphous pride as an Indian that Tagore won the Nobel prize based on his poems. I read the poems out of a sense of obligation, it was just one or two that appealed to me. The translations,by Tagore himself, had a self-conscious tinge that didn't quite pack the same punch as reading/listening to Meera wail to her Krishna:

"jal bin kamal candra bin rajnI, aise tum dekhya bin sajnI
Akul vyAkul phirU rain din, viraha kalejA khAy
divas na bhUkh neend nahi rainA, mukha se kathan na Ave bainA
kahA karU kuchha kahata na Ave, milakar tapan bujhAy"

(In rough translation:

"A lotus without water, a night without the moon, thus languishes this lover longing for your glimpse,I wander about restless, the separation eats at my heart,No sleep, no hunger pangs, no words from my speechless mouth,I know not what to do or say, please come to quench this suffering of mine.")

The Gitanjali didn't evoke similar emotions, the free-style prose seemed stilted to my ear. For example:

""My song has put off her adornments. She has no pride of dress and decoration. Ornaments would mar our union; they would come between thee and me; their jingling would drown thy whispers."

"My poet's vanity dies in shame before thy sight. O master poet, I have sat down at thy feet. Only let me make my life simple and straight, like a flute of reed for thee to fill with music."

Today, having access to the original Bengali version, I've revised my view. It seems to be a rather tame translation, based on what I can make of its similarity to other languages that I know. (Maybe Ruchira can weigh in with her translation for this)

Amar e gan chheŗechhe tar shôkol ôlongkar

Tomar kachhe rakhe ni ar shajer ôhongkar

Ôlongkar je majhe pôŗe milônete aŗal kôre,

Tomar kôtha đhake je tar mukhôro jhôngkar.

Tomar kachhe khaţe na mor kobir gôrbo kôra,

Môhakobi, tomar paee dite chai je dhôra.

Jibon loe jôton kori jodi shôrol bãshi goŗi,

Apon shure dibe bhori sôkol chhidro tar.

I found this excellent article that explained much regarding Tagore's own mistranslations

of his originals. It was undertaken in an effort to live up to an image that he had cultivated,maybe inadvertently at first, but calculatedly later on,  as the soulful philosopher-poet to his Western audience.

"In my translations I timidly avoid all difficulties, which has the effect of making them smooth and thin. I know I am misrepresenting myself as a poet to the western readers. But when I began this career of falsifying my own coins I did it in play. Now I am becoming frightened of its enormity and I am willing to make a confession of my misdeeds and withdraw into my original vocation as a mere Bengali poet."  

                Tagore, Letter to Edward Thompson, 1921

From Somjit Dutt's article:

"The 26th lyric of the book, as published, is: "He came and sat by my side but I woke not. What a cursed sleep it was, O miserable me! ... "

As I write these lines, the strains of the melody ring in my ears and I deem it necessary to cite the original Bengali lyric before setting forth the complete English version. Rothenstein, of course, is unlikely to have ever listened to a rendition of the Bengali song.

"se ye paashe ese basechhila tobu jaagini / kI ghum tore peyechhila hatabhaaginI // esechhila nIrab raate bInaakhaani chhila haate -- swapan maajhe baajiye gela gabhIr raaginI // jege dekhi dakhin-haoyaa paagal kariya gandha taahaar bhese be.Daya a.Ndhaar bhariya/ kena aamaar rajanI yaaY, kaachhe peyey kaachhe naa paya-- kena go taar maalaar parash buke laageni//"

The English version runs thus :

"He came and sat by my side but I woke not. What a cursed sleep it was, O miserable me! He came when the night was still; he had his harp in his hands, and my dreams became resonant with its melodies. Alas, why are my nights all lost ? Ah, why do I ever miss his sight whose breath touches my sleep ?"

The original Bengali is clearly seen to be imbued with a subtle sensuality: whereas the English version appeals far less to the senses, since much of the mood of passionate and partially corporeal yearning for communion has been deleted for the sake of bringing in a spiritual mood. Amazingly, or perhaps not at all amazingly, the unmistakably sensuous lines

"jege dekhi dakhin haoyaa, paagal kariyaa gandha taahaar bhese be. Daya a. Ndhaar bharia"

(I wake and a south wind is madly
    making free.
Its fragrance drifts and fills the darkness
    all around me.)[4]

have been expunged !

The last line "kena go taar maalaar parash buke laageni//"[5] was one which Tagore could not bring himself faithfully to translate, given his need to please Rothenstein initially and the West finally.

So this is not new, the phenomenon of tailoring one's work to appeal to the market. I thought that hallowed writers such as Rabindranath Tagore could produce works on their own terms, as he most surely did in his own language, but he succumbed to the need to play act a different role for gaining a larger audience.

This is no different from the endless tours, book signings, and now Twittering and Facebooking  that authors and wannabe-novelists are subjected to build up a market for their works. They are often forced to tailor their writing to fulfil what the publisher may deem to be saleable, straitjacketing themselves into what they may not want to write.

In these days, maybe the freedom to write what one wishes comes after fame, not before it. But it is surprising to learn that the 'manufactured fame' that precedes the release of an author's work can become a different kind of burden.

Addendum:

I came across this recording of Tagore rendering one of his own songs (quite well, given the quality of recording in those days)

Comments

[narayan]

Here's something from a book I love because it served me as a Rosetta stone when I was struggling to find meaning in the lyrics of Brazilian song :
"Writing about foreign language texts, especially rhymed poetry, poses many familiar problems. The challenges of translation are compounded when writing about songs whose words follow the contours and accents of melodies. The aim of the lyricists who write versions, recasting a foreign song into English, is to fit new words to the musical notes of the original composition, and they often modify the themes and images of the original significantly. Some of the English renderings in the present study follow the melodies of the original, but most should be considered translations rather than versions. Emphasis has been placed on meaning and stylistic features." (C.A.Perrone, Masters of Contemporary Brazilian Song)
I long had an aversion to poetry (and vocal music) and realized why only when I found Brazilian music. English, my only fluency, is a language that inhibits the profusion of rhyme, rhythm and word-play that I came to see (thanks to Perrone) in Brazilian lyrics. It is Geet-anjali after all, poetry with a musical purpose, and I sympathize with Tagore's difficulties in rendering his verse into anything as lyrical in English. How can anyone begin to duplicate in English a sequence of endings like jaagini / bhaagini / raagini / laageni? Can't be done. The wealth of words with vowel endings in many languages lends itself to musicality in ways that English just cannot deliver. Near impossible to do a translation that is also a version.
As for the conjecture about fame and commerce, I'll put up a humorous post shortly.

[Sujatha]

Actually, the lack of rhyme in the translation doesn't bother me. I'm not a huge fan of rhyming poetry, though I can see the cleverness and sometimes apt juxtaposition that come about in those. There are times when it feels contrived, inserting words just for the sake of the rhyme, rather than the mood.
My quibble with the Gitanjali is the lack of color that Tagore admitted in his letter, there is no problem of trying to maintain the rhyming or alliterations in those.
Why do you say English is your only fluency? Surely you must know at least a couple of others apart from your mother tongue, as is so often the case in India.

[narayan]

"Why do you say English is your only fluency? Surely you must know at least a couple of others apart from your mother tongue, as is so often the case in India." Thereby hangs a tragic tail.

[Sujatha]

`It is a long tail, certainly,' said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse's tail; `but why do you call it sad?'

Maybe in another post?

[kochuthresiamma p j]

very interesting post - particularly since gitanjali always left me feeling something is seriously wrong.

the problem with the poem is more than tagore catering to the western audience. it is the inadequacy of the english language to capture the nuances of bengali sensibilities.it took me a long time to understand this.

the effeminate images in gitanjali are typical of vaishnavite devotional poems. this sounds strange (at least to me) in english. a lot is not only lost but distorted in translation.

unfortunately, i know no bengali :-(

[Sujatha]

I doubt that it is the inadequacy of the English language for the translation. Do you think that someone translating the original Bengali, into Malayalam for instance, would fare better at conveying the sense of the original work?
There are obviously some things which cannot be conveyed with the same ease and felicity of the original, at least, not without a dozen footnotes. But when translation is the name of the game, it still can be structured to convey the sense of the verse, rather than a twisted meaning.
The Bhakti tradition and the outpouring of devotional love songs played a huge formative influence on Tagore's poetry, but I'm not sure as to whether his poetry was purely intended in the Bhakti mode, or were translated to appear less sensual and more spiritual.

[kochuthresiamma p j]

the inadequacy of the language - perhaps not the fault of the language but the inadequate comfort level of the user. language is a cultural signifier - hence a lacuna is likely to trouble all translators- - not just into english but into any language other than the one in which the work is written. hence translation too is a creative original piece.

[Sujatha]

From what I've tried looking up, my impression is that a lot of the translations of Tagore's works are from the English version into other languages. That would make for a rather strange mix of lenses- from the original Bengali into English and then into the target language.
What would it say for a translator who has to work with a translation in the first place? I'm not sure whether the current state of translation in India would allow for someone to translate directly from the Bengali into, say Tamil, and vice-versa.

This book link has a very interesting second half that talks about Tagore's motivations when he translated his poetry.

[Sujatha]

Actually, I meant to link directly to the chapter,the point of interest is around page 21.

[kochuthresiamma p j]

sarat chandra, bankim,tara shankar b r household names in kerala as their works were serialised in mathrubhumi. to the best of my knowledge they r direct translation from bengali, and supposed to be pretty good..

translating from translation - the end product is doubly removed and therefore cannot be faithful to the original. but then any translation is an original work to some exent.

indian works translated into english are pathetic. i have given up on them. in fact i tried dabbling with translation into english - and realised something was seriously different in the end product.gave up the project half way thru

[Sujatha]

A year later, and Kochuthresiamma is no longer with us. She passed away on November 8, losing a 5-year long battle to cancer.
But I have continued to revisit Tagore, and managed to try the translation from Bengali to Tamil that I always claimed would maybe make for a different glimpse into his Gitanjali.

Here is my 'Anjali' (offering), so to speak, to the memory of Tagore, and Kochuthresiamma:
http://fluff-n-stuff.blogspot.com/2011/11/tagorian-tale.html

[Ruchira]

Sujatha, you and I have spoken in person about the untimely death of our frequent visitor and blogging friend Kochuthresiamma. Thanks for bringing the sad news to the attention of our other readers. KPJ was a long time reader of our blog. Her comments were intelligent, informative, curious, very often funny and always supportive. I will miss her presence here and my Facebook page.