Transfixing the Journey of Language in Tagore-Soma Mondal
Assistant professor, Department of English, Gobardanga Hindu college.
Abstract:
Translation may be defined as the transfer of meaning from a source language text to a target language. It involves a great many problems, and it creates a difference. Language is the carrier of culture. Thus, when a literary work is translated it also involves a cultural shift. Translation can no longer be seen as an innocent an easy activity of the transfer of meaning from the source language to the target language. Rather, it is ‘a textually dynamic enterprise: a textual mode affected by ideological imperatives as much as any other’ (Ellis1). Translation also involves the micropolitics of colonisation, which further problematises the work of translation. Sometimes, translation results in the complete metamorphosis of the original work. The translated work is neither superior nor inferior to the original, it is only different. And, in the postmodern context, after Derrida, we celebrate the difference.
Translation may be defined as the transfer of meaning from a source language text to a target language. It involves a great many problems. In the Foreword to his novel Kanthapura (1970), Raja Rao writes:
The telling has not been easy. One has to convey in a language that is not one’s own the spirit that is one’s own. One has to convey the various shades and omissions of a certain thought-
movement that looks maltreated in an alien language. I use the word ‘alien’, yet English is not really an alien language to us. It is the language of our intellectual make-up … but not of our emotional make-up. (Rao 5).
A translator is faced with these same difficulties. Indeed, translation involves a great many problems, and it creates a difference. Language is the carrier of culture. As the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o says:
Language carries culture, and culture carries, particularly through … literature, the entire body of values by which we come to perceive ourselves and our place in the world. (Thiong’o 16).
Thus, when a literary work is translated from one language to another it also involves a cultural translation. Translation ‘is part of an ongoing process of intercultural transfer’ (Bassnett 2). It ‘is a highly manipulative activity that involves all kinds of stages in that process of transfer across linguistic and cultural boundaries’ (Bassnett 2). Translation can no longer be seen as an innocent and easy activity of the transfer of meaning from the source language to the target language. Rather it is ‘a textually dynamic enterprise: a textual mode affected by ideological imperatives as much as any other’ (Ellis1). In many cases, the words have greater historical significance and in turn the translator is faced with the difficult task of either keeping the term in the source language and including an explanation, or translating the term into the target language. This is not an easy task as once the term is translated, a great deal of meaning of the original work is also lost and a new meaning evolves. Translation also involves the micropolitics of colonialism, which further problematises the work of translation. As pointed out by Tejaswini Niranjana, ‘In a post-colonial context the problematic of translation becomes a significant site for raising question of representation, power, and historicity’ (Niranjana1). Taking into consideration these difficulties and problematics involved in the process of translation, when we ‘gaze’ at the translated works of Rabindranath, whether they be in English, French, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Swedish, or any other language of the world, we find that these translated works are new works, better be termed as trans-created works.
The very first lines of The Home and the World (Ghare-Bahire) are tranlated as:
Mother, today there come back to mind the vermilion mark at the parting of your hair, the sari which you used to wear, with its red border, and those wonderful eyes of yours, full of depth and peace. (Tagore, Home3).
The single Bengali word ‘sidur’ had to be translated as ‘the vermilion mark at the parting of … hair’ so that it became clear to the English readers of the West. Further, the editor had to explain at the foot note, the cultural significance of ‘the vermilion mark’ as the mark of Hindu wifehood and the symbol of all the devotion that it implies’. The phrase ‘sari … with its red border’ also needed to be explained as ‘the dress of the Hindu woman’. Still, there seems something to be lacking: the vivid imagination of the beauty and the ritualistic significance of a Hindu woman dressed in a sari with a red border and having vermilion mark at the parting of her hair. Indeed, translation is never an easy task, but it becomes particularly difficult when there are very strong human emotions and traditions involved. This problem also comes to light when Premchand’s works are translated from the Hindi originals into English. For example, in Premchand’s short story “Idgah”, a touching story of a four years boy Hamid and his grandmother Ameena, the graphic description of the fair and the festive colour of Id and its ritualistic significance somehow changes in the translated work by Kushwant Singh:
Ramzan ke poore tis roja ke baad Id ai hai, kitna monohar kitna suhawna pravat hai. Briksho par ajeeb rounak hai, asman par kuch ajeeb lalima hai. Aaj ka surya dekho, kitna pyara kitna sheetal hai, yani sansar ko id ki badhai de raha hai…. (Premchand29, in Hindi).
A full thirty days after Ramadan comes Eid. How wonderful and beautiful is the morning of Eid! The trees look greener, the field more festive, the sky has a lovely pink glow. Look at the sun! It comes up brighter and more dazzling than before to wish the world a very happy Eid…. (Internet, Translated version).
Further, we should look at the words like visti, chimta, sohan halwa and rewria which are translated as ‘water-carrier’, ‘a pair of tongs’, ‘halwa’ and ‘seed sesame sweet’ respectively.
Speaking about the problematics of translation from one language to another, we may mention Rabindranath’s essay “Nation?” included in Atmasakti group of essays. He confesses that there is no synonym for the word ‘Nation’ in Bengali language. ‘Nation’ is a European concept which took its birth in the Enlightenment period. India being a land of kingdoms and princely states, it is a land of ‘no nations’ (Tagore, Nationalism 57). ‘Nation’ is the other name for the ‘organisation of politics and commerce’ (Tagore, Nationalism 63). But, India is a country united by the bond of social relations. The concept of ‘Nation’ was, thus, an import from the West, and therefore, Rabindranath wished to use the English word ‘Nation’ in his essay, without translating it into a Bengali word. This view is also reflected in Sukanta Chaudhuri’s Preface to the translated selected Short Stories of Rabindranath:
For a start, it soon becomes imperative to break the translator’s shibboleth that the same word in the original must always be rendered by the same word in translation. This is sometimes notoriously impossible. Abhiman, for example, must be rendered according to context by ‘pride’, ‘hurt pride’, ‘resentment’, conceivably ‘sulks’. But such instances only highlight a general problem. (Chaudhuri v).
Indeed, translation has never been an easy task, especially when it is concerned with the meeting of the East and the West. Commenting on the translation of the English Gitanjali into German, Martin Kampchen says: Making Shakespeare, Dante or Tolstoy one’s own with the assistance of excellent translations is comparatively easy…. But translating Tagore into German does not merely entail two European
languages, but two languages which are divided by separate cultures, social contexts, geographical areas and religions. He who wants to translate a poem by Tagore from Bengali to German needs to bridge the gulf which separates India and Germany…. (Internet).
When Rabinranath translated Gitanjali into English as Song Offerings he brought about various changes and modifications. The English version is a collection of 103 translated verses instead of 157 verses in the Bengali collection. It is not a verbatim translation of the Bengali version, but taken from various collections like Gitanjali, Gitimalya, Naibedya and Kheya. Since the poet himself translated the verses he had immense freedom. Even, the poet combined verses 89 and 90 of Naibedya to transcreate a single verse into English. Further, in keeping with the essence and flavour of the English tongue the poet recreated the verses.
In fact, ‘Translations are always embedded in cultural and political systems, and in history’ (Bassnett 6). The problematics of ideology involved in translation can no longer be disregarded. As pointed out by Bassnett, Edward Fitzgerald, author of one of the most successful traslationsof the 19th century, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, accused the Persians of artistic incompetence and suggested that their poetry became art only when translated into English. Rabindranath’s works also got worldwide recognition when they were translated into the European languages, particularly English. There is no doubt that the translation of Gitanjali into English ‘set a paradigm for modern literary exchange between India and the West’ (Internet). But, we should also remember that Tagore got the Nobel prize (awarded anually for a major contribution to literature from any country and in any language) in 1913 for the English translation Song Offerings, though there were many persons in the jury who could read Bengali. This politics, which is very much a latent part of translation can well be explained by the theories on translation from the perspective of postcolonialism. As examined by Niranjana, ‘translation is a mode of representation in another culture’ (Internet). Rabindranath gave a new shape to his Bengali original poems of Gitanjali to suit the flavour of the English language. In other words, ‘he adopted an “oriental” mode of self-censorship, suppressing details and ideas which he believed would not suit well with an English-speaking reader – a strategy which worked well’ (Internet). Further, as pointed out by Kampchen, Tagore’s selection of poems in Song Offerings were predominantly ‘mystical’ or ‘spiritual’ which reinforce his image as a ‘mystic’. This image of Tagore as a saint from the East is also reinforced by the use of words like ‘thou’, ‘thee’ and ‘thy’ in his addresses to God. Indeed, the West was habituated to look at India as a mystical land of fairy tale, a land of ‘elephants’, ‘forests’, ‘princes’, ‘Ganges’ and ‘goddesses… with four arms and a golden crown on their heads’ (Rao, India204). But the thing that is missing, in this interpretation of Tagore’s poetry as mystical, is the revolutuionary content of the poems. This comes to light when we turn the table, and the poems are read from the postcolonial point of view. For example, in the poem, “Where the Mind is Without Fear”, the poet speaks of the transformation of the society, the country and the world.
Rabinranath Tagore’s works in translation are often critisized as failures in the sense that they lack the flavour and essence of the originals. But, this very idea that the translated works are inferior to the originals has been challenged by the recent works in translation studies. As pointed out by Ellis and Oakley-Brown,
During the last twenty years, with the publication of texts like those by Jaacques Derrida and his translators, George Steiner’s After Babel (1975), Susan Bassnett’s Translation Studies (1980, revised 1991) and Constructing Cultures (1998), Edwin Gentzler’s Contemporary Translation Theories (1993) and Lawrence Venuti’s The Translator’s Invisibility (1995) and The Scandals of Translation (1998) … the marginal position that has defined translators and their texts … has come under increasing and sustained challenge (Ellis 1).
To Walter Benjamin, ‘… translation does not seem to be about “losing” something; on the contrary it appears as a way of “gaining” something through the creation of a text which will … have the potential to “harmonize” originally conflicting intentions by transforming the translated language …’ (Internet). Further, William Radice writes, I have come to appreciate better the real eloquence and beauty to be found in those English words of Tagore, when read sympathetically, not with constant reference to the original (a pointless exercise) but as self-standing literary creations in their own right (Internet).
Radice further says that when he reads now the translated works of Rabindranath he no longer feels that the translated works fail to justify the originals. Instead, he sees in the translated works ‘vulnerability, sensitivity, oddity, vitality and above all courage’ (Internet). ‘Those’, for Radice, ‘are Tagore’s great gifts to English’ (Internet). Again, when Rabindranath translated the tune of “Auld Lang Syne”, ‘written in 1788 by the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns and set to the tune of traditional folk song’ (Internet), into two Bengali songs, “Purano shai diner katha” and “Anandaloke mangalaloke birajo”, it resulted in a wonderful transformation.
Coming to the conclusion, translation is a creative work, and it is created with a difference. It is bound to be different even if the writer of the original work translates the work himself/herself. Sometimes, the journey of translation from one language to another results in the complete metamorphosis of the original work. Further, translation is not a copy of the original work, it involves a paradigm shift in the way of transformation from one language to another, from one culture to another. The translated work is neither superior nor inferior to the original, it is only different. And, in the postmodern context, after Derrida, we celebrate the difference. Thus, Gurudev’s works are today appreciated in almost all the languages of the world and through translations his messages have reached to every corner of the globe.
REFERENCES
Bassnett, Susan, and Harish Trivedi eds. Post-Colonial Translation: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge, 1999, 2000ed.
Chaudhuri, Sukanta ed. Selected Short Stories; Rabindranath Tagore. New Delhi: Oxford UP, 2000, 2009ed.
Ellis, Roger, and Liz Oakley-Brown eds. Translation and Nation: Towards a Cultural Politics of Englishness. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd, 2001.
Niranjana, Tejaswini. Siting Translation: History, Post-Structuralism, and the Colonial Context. University of California Press,1995.
Premchand Mansarovar. Part I. New Delhi: Gyandeep Pub., 2008.
Rao, Raja. “India – A Fable”. In Contemporary Indian Short Stories in English. Compiled by Shiv K. Kumar. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1991, 2004ed. pp201-09.
—. Foreword.Kanthapura. New Delhi: Orient Paperbacks, 1970, 2003ed.
Tagore, Rabindranath.Gitanjali: Song Offerings. Kolkata: Ramkrishna Pustakalaya, 2003, 2004ed.
—. “Nation?” in Atmasakti, Rabindra Rachanabali. Vol.2. Kolkata: Visva-Bharati, 1393, 1410ed. (Bengali). pp619-22.
—. Nationalism. 1917. New Delhi: Rupa, 2002.
—.The Home and the World. 1924. Trans. Surendranath Tagore. Ed. Anjana Dutt. Delhi: Doaba, Pub., 2002, 2005ed.
Thiong’o, Ngugi wa. Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. NewHampshire: Heinemann, 1986, 2003ed.
Websites:
http://www.quicksilvertranslate.com/2205/the-post-colonial-politics-of-translation
http://www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pMartin1.html
http://www.pustakalaya.org/eserv.php?pid=Pustakalaya:706…Idgah
http://www.williamradice.com/RecentEvents/Tagore_the_world_over.html
http://www.jstor.org/stable/40126293
http://www.tagore150ireland.com/tagore’s.music/
http://www.arewelostintranslation.com/…/review-of-walter-benjamin…
Soma Mondal, Assistant professor, Department of English, Gobardanga Hindu college.