Some believe poetry is the art of language expressing what cannot be said with regular words. Some believe poetry is language in its purest form, a subversion. When poetry challenges language, translators working with poetry often challenge poetry itself.
For translator, poet and writer Anuradha Anand, translating poetry began in childhood with her father. “Translating poetry is more challenging than prose; it takes a long time even though it looks small,” she says. She has translated many poets across the spectrum from the Shakespearean sonnets to Sylvia Plath. Her recent publication is the translation of selected works of the ancient Greek poet Sappho.
Retired professor S Vincent from Madurai, who has been writing and translating for decades, began as passion and continues to do it to introduce the world to the rich poetry tradition in Tamil as well. He has translated many contemporary Tamil poets into English. “Once, I was asked by an English publication if there are no short stories in Tamil language. There are but when they are in English, it tends to reach more people. It is a way of making our traditions known to the global audience,” he says. Vincent has translated over forty books from English to Tamil and fifteen books from Tamil to English.
“It is also to introduce new cultures to a reader,” says Satheeswaran Gnanasekaran, an assistant professor in Virudhunagar, who has been translating poetry between Tamil and Bengali. He learnt the latter after skimming through the translated version. He has translated select poems of Tamil Dalit poet Sukirtharani into Bengali. From Bengali to Tamil, he has translated works by Shyamal Kumar Pramanik, Birendra Chattopadhyay, Rabindranath Tagore, and Kazi Nazrul Islam. “When I read something in Bengali and believe that Tamil readers too should read this, then I attempt to translate it to Tamil,” he adds. Anand says that her translations have helped students from across the state engage with their English versions with more ease. Teachers have also relied on her translations, she says.
Although short, translating poetry is a task of multiple trials. “Mostly, if I pick 100 poems, only 10 make it to the final edition,” says Satheeswaran. The biggest challenge lies in translating eccentric and culture-specific phrases. “There is this poem called, Perunthinaipoo Thinnum Isakki. How do you translate something like, ‘Isakki (a Hindu deity)’ into Bengali? It is like a matrix,” he adds. He works with co-translators to find a balance between making it easier for the Bengali reader and staying true to the Tamil version.
Echoing the same sentiment, professor Vincent says when he encounters such words and phrases, he uses the Tamil word itself, while adding a footnote at the end. “Think of a ‘thinnai’, how do you translate it to English? We cannot use a synonym for a thinnai, so I let the word be,” he explains. Although seemingly easy, such choices are hard to make.
The translators, although they attempt to retain the poetic form, their main concern is being true to the work thematically. “The essence of the poem should stay intact even when it is translated,” says Anand. Explaining further, she says that English and Tamil belong to two completely different families of languages, making the task more challenging.
Vincent says that his primary concern remains to be true to its ‘porul’. The form often does get distorted. He adds, “Tamil doesn’t really have punctuation, but to make it meaningful in English, you need to add punctuation marks. And I add them wherever necessary. I try to bring my best to match its standards in Tamil. Sometimes I am successful, and sometimes I am not.”
Translator Deepalakshmi J thinks otherwise. For her, poetry is easier to translate because of its short form. She adds that while translating, one need not be intimidated by the original writer, because ultimately it is the reader to whom the translation is. “One has to remember that while reading a piece of translation, the reader shouldn’t feel like it’s from another language but see it as its own.” She has won the Antonym Award for Best Translator at the Kolkata Poetry Confluence for translating popular Tamil poet Sukirtharani’s poems from Tamil to English. Adding another perspective to this, “The fragrance of the language descends on the work inevitably, no matter how much you try,” says Vincent.
The motive behind the pieces they pick to translate is often the need to bring a wider audience to what resonates with them. “I wanted many more people to read about Sukirtharani’s poems, as they deeply impacted me,” says Deepalakshmi. It is a very personal mission. To some, translation comes naturally. “When I read some work, I can see the Tamil lines popping at the back of my head,” says Anand with a smile.