కృష్ణశాస్త్రి కవితకు ఆంగ్లానువాదాలు

నాకు ఒక స్నేహితుడి ద్వారా త్రివేణి పత్రిక కు 1928 లో విడుదలైన తొలి సంచిక నుండీ ఇప్పటి వరకూ ఉన్న మొత్తం సంచికలన్నీ అర్కై్వ్స్ లో కనిపించాయి. తొలి సంచికను చూస్తూఉంటే – కనబడ్డది – “A poem by D.V.Krishna Sastry” అన్నది. అంటే దేవులపల్లివారు అని అర్థం కావడానికి నాకు ఓ సెకను పట్టింది. తెరిచి చుస్తే, ఒకే కవితకి రెండు అనువాదాలు! అది మరేదో కాదు… “ఆకులో ఆకునై”…తలచుకుంటే మేఘసందేశం సినిమా గుర్తొస్తోంది…

ఏదేమైనా… తెలుగులో చదివిన ఓ కవితకి ఆంగ్లానువాదం చూడడమే నన్ను ఆకర్షిస్తే, ఒకే కవితకి రెండు అనువాదాలు, అదీ ఒకే చోట, ఒకేసారి కనబడడం మరింత ఆశ్చర్యానికి గురిచేసింది. ఈ రెండు అనువాదాలు చేసిన వారు – వి.ఎన్.భూషణ్, ఆచంట జానకిరామ్.

ఆసక్తి ఉన్నవాళ్లు : అసలు కవితని ఇక్కడ, అనువాదాలని ఇక్కడ చదవండి.

ఏమాటకామాటే చెప్పుకోవాలి – త్రివేణి పత్రిక సైటు రాకింగ్. ఇప్పుడే మొదలుపెట్టా…ఇలా ఇది కనిపించింది. ముందు ముందు ఇంకెన్ని కనిపించబోతున్నాయో!

O-lan of the Good Earth

Its only a few days since I read “The Good Earth”. However, lots has happened since then and hence, there is every chance of me losing myself in thinking about a myriad things. Despite a heap of things playing inside my mind, someone kept coming in to my thoughts again and again. Not that, this “someone” was really a “someone”. To a large extent, this “someone” is so commonly seen that you can’t pick a face and say – this is it. Hence, our “someone” is faceless. Yes, our “someone” is the most ignored and hence, people will imagine that “someone” is soul less too. Obviously, since you can’t pick one person, “someone” is nameless too.However, for better understanding’s sake, I will cut short this blabber and tell about someone who epitomizes my “someone” : it is the wife of Wang Lung, the lead character in “The Good Earth” by Pearl S.Buck. Her name is O-lan.

The more I think about her, the more I am left wondering about her. Well, she is not a “heroine”. She is not a “miracle maker”. Then, why am I thinking about her so much? Despite the fact that “hero” of the novel is Wang Lung, Olan is the character that interested me the most.

May be, these are my reasons:

1. All through, her role is so underplayed. She is potrayed almost like a non-entity though nothing in that story, which is a “significant development” would have happened without her.

2. Her endurance. Her ability to fight most of the things alone. Had the story been told in O-lan’s perspective, it would have been a wonderful thing, although I doubt if that would have sold this much.

3. Everyone who read the novel can understand the fact that Wang Lung would have been a normal struggling peasant, if not for O-lan. Whether she did a right thing or not, is a matter of different discussion. The outcome of that discussion does not alter the fact that O-lan is responsible for Wang Lung’s prosperity. But, not once.. not once did she try to take advantage of the fact. Not once did Wang Lung acknowledge her openly and whole heartedly. Yet, she did not complain. Great patience!!

4. At no point of time was there are an indication that Wang Lung cared for his wife’s feelings. Yet, there is not a single instance when O-lan expressed any sorrow about that. Ofcourse, story is told with Wang Lung as a hero and O-Lan’s feelings may not be of significance. But then, it is more closer to real life, rite? How many husbands, even today, give wives their due? How many really care for the wife’s internal strife? (Ok…poor attempt at rhyming..)

5. For that matter, Olan never got any moral/mental support from the rest of the family either – atleast so far as the narration goes. Again, I was thinking about the traditional house wife. How many children actually attempt at doing that?
If your morning coffee is delayed, how many of us will go ask our mom – “shall i make it today?” or “shall we go out for break fast today?” or “are you fine?” or “you make coffee, i make breakfast?” and, how many of us shout at her for delaying our morning coffee?

-Despite the fact that the theme is about the Rural china of 1920s, in certain aspects, nothing changed. Even now, I see those under recognised wives in a lot of families here – in India. (Its a personal opinion).

Nothing might change too. May be, change does not change so much as I imagined it to be.

Purpose of building a language

The more I think about this book, the more I like it. I realized that my childhood fantasy about building a new language is no longer as fantastic as it was. But, knowing more about all those passionate inventors is very much interesting. Perhaps, it is some psychological satisfaction seeing others’ work when you know you can’t do that and don’t want to do that now.

I dont remember what my purpose was in having dreams about developing a new language. Perhaps, its just a childish desire. Perhaps, I was frustrated with the “nature” of a natural language at that age itself! May be, it has something to do with the language troubles with those cousins who spoke a different tongue.

Whatever it might be, reading through this book, I realised how many different reasons can exist for people to decide on developing a new language.

Take Esperanto – its the language of peace. It wants to be the platform for enabling people of different cultures and languages to communicate. However, there are languages like Klingon (Star trek) or Tolkeinish stuff – which are primarily created for fiction. But, then, Klingon and its cult following is a different story again – as the author mentioned, its like “art for art’s sake”. Can you imagine, there is even a “woman’s language” which enables a woman to express her feelings in a versatile and verbose way compared to existing languages. There are these “logical” languages, which are spoken with “logic” There is Ogden’s “simple english” which is like a entry point for non-english users in to English. There are these symbolic languages like “Blissymbolics“. There are “philosophical” languages like that of Wilkins’.

It was very interesting to know about groups of “ConLang” (Constructed Languages) developers and enthusiasts, their passion for what they are doing etc. I did not imagine that there is so much of analysis, study, online help etc for the developer enthusiasts. I am still in the process of exploring these things. So, perhaps, might write more on ConLangs soon.

The most interesting part is the story of revival of the modern Hebrew language. In a way, perhaps, this is a misfit in this group since its not an “invented” language like others. But then, how it was reborn as a “spoken” language is a very inspiring story – if languages had lives and had some societies among themselves, modern hebrew might have been idol worshipped among those societies and it would have walked with a halo behind its head.

Will talk more about modern hebrew later … but, it was amazing to see so many perspectives about development of a language. After every night that I slept reading this book, I woke up muttering to myself – words, language, relations, power, expression, symbols – randomly.The day began with getting confused with the purpose of language and the usefulness/uselessness of it. It began with questions left unanswered. Was I dreaming about things? I dunno.

I still am clueless. Is it the inability of my brain or the inability of my ability to express? Why am I not able to answer these questions that my day gives me, after the night reading? Should I keep experiencing this hangover time and again?

On Blissymbolics

“Oh, but Stephen Hawking was an adult when the lost the ability to speak”
- It was at this sentence that I got an idea of the significance of “Blissymbolics”, a pictorial language invented in ’40s by one Charles Bliss. I was reading a piece from “In the Land of invented languages” on this language (Enough has been said about this book in this blog by now).

Coming to the point, “Blissymbolics” is a language of symbols. According to Bliss, lots and lots of ideas and feelings can be expressed through a small set of basic symbols and their combinations. The usage of this language at the Ontario Crippled Children Center (OCCC) and the effect it had in the lives of those kids was an interesting and touching story to read.

The arrival of Bliss himself to OCCC and the events that followed were both amusing and astonishing at the same time. In the beginning of this book, when Arika Okrent was talking about the eccentricities in language inventors, I thought – may be thats an exaggeration. But, as I read further, especially, as I read the story of Bliss and his language – I understood Arika’s words on eccentricities better. In a way, its amusing to see people getting possessive about a language. I mean, they might have invented it – but, if it is to have a universal acceptance, how can they be the sole owner?

Anyways, coming back to the story of Blissymbolics, it was to some extent interesting to see how Bliss did not understand the differences in intentions of the OCCC and himself, regarding the development of a language of symbols. The idea of “tyranny of words” or on the complaints about “nouns, verbs” – was really very interesting, I never thought about that aspect before.

Ofcourse, I do sympathise with the lead lady of this story – Shirley. It might have been a real pain to bear Bliss and persist with the association, just for the benefit of OCCC children. But, at any rate, all the drama that happened once Bliss got involved with OCCC can easily be made as a very hilarious movie.

Reading about Bliss’ past – his life, moving in to German concentration camp and then to China where he first got insights about the universal appeal of a language of symbols – leaves me with some doubts about the roots of his eccentricity.

What purpose does the above thought serve now, anyways? !!

This book is a must read i say!

Language Evolution: Wilkins’ language

Its such a thing to understand the evolution of a language. I always wondered about the origins of words and how actually do characters combine to form a meaningful word block. Perhaps, these doubts had some impact in making the choice that I made about what I am doing now. (Wonder how Natural Language Understanding handles convoluted sentences like above! ) Coming to the point, I never got a chance to actually understand this “language evolution” part.

I was reading “In the land of invented languages” a few weeks back (about which I mentioned in my blog in July) and got an idea of word formations in the “Philosophical Language” of Wilkins. Yeah, it is an artificial language. But, it was interesting nevertheless, to see how a word can be formed, albeit in Wilkins’ way. In his language, words are formed by their meaning. For example: (quoting from the book),

You must simply learn that a dog is “dog” in English, “chien” in French or a “perro” in Spanish or a “hund” in German. The sounds in these words are just sounds to be arbitarily memorized. They tell you what to call a dog, but they do not tell you what a dog is. In Wilkins’ system, the word for “Dog” does tell you what a dog is.

Its like – the spelling for dog is formed by using the ‘Wilkins tree of the universe’ charts as a “beast-oblong headed-bigger kind” and is spelled “zitα” accordingly (zi-category id for beasts, t-for the sub category:oblong headed,α-for sub sub category:bigger kind)

However, despite the fact that Wilkins Language is extremely interesting and very painstakingly developed, my primary doubts about how our natural languages evolved are still the same. Is it really that a “dog” should be a “dog” and nothing else, or is there something more to that?

Again, the less maverick part of my brain keeps asking : Well, how does it matter now?

Confusion about choices or choice about confusions?

There are a couple of very interesting stories about different invented languages in this book and may be I’ll write more about the book soon – here or at pustakam.net. Let us see

వహ్వా…వహ్వా!

గిడుగు రామ్మూర్తి గారి జీవిత చరిత్ర చదివా కొన్నాళ్ళ క్రితం. దాని గురించి పరిచయం రాద్దామని మొదలుపెట్టి అప్పట్లో కాగితంపై రాస్కున్న దాన్ని చదువుతూ ఉంటే, రెండు వాక్యాలు కనబడ్డాయి. చదవగానే, “వావ్!” ఫీలింగ్ కలిగింది. వాటిని ఇక్కడ టైప్ చేస్తున్నాను.

“లిపీ, రచనా తోటి వారికోసం ఏర్పడ్డాయి కానీ, గతించిన వారికోసం కాదు. నోటి మాటకూ, చేతిరాతకూ తేడా ఉండే అవసరం కనబడదు”

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కిళంబి: “మీరు తెలుగు భాషా మాధుర్యాన్ని చెడగొట్టదలచినారా?”
గిడుగు: ఆ మాధుర్యం కాగితం మీద ఉండగా కంటికి కనబడేదో, మాటలాడునప్పుడు చెవులకు వినబడేదో ఆలోచించండి. మీకే తెలుస్తుంది.”

The Last lecture

I wrote this in September 2008 – Don’t remember why I never posted. Came across this while digging for some archives. Thought I’d post it now.

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The first time I heard this name called Randy Pausch was in the first few days of October 2007. Randy Pausch gave his “last lecture” at CMU in the later part of September 2007, which received great attention on that day as well as the days that followed. Soon, everybody, especially those in the academics were raving about it. There was a transcript of his speech on Randy’s website, which I read at that time, with just pure curiosity and unable to see the video. It left a more than normal impression on me. Days passed and there was 2008. In the middle, I heard so many people referring to it and I suggested it to many people too. Periodically, I skimmed through the PDF transcript and visited Randy’s site. Then, there was a news that its going to be published as a book. I wondered – how can a 30 page transcript evolve as a book?

Cynical as I am, I saw it as nothing but cashing on Randy’s popularity. July 25th 2008 came and went. Two days later, I came to know that Randy Pausch died on that day. I was shocked. Not that I did not know about his pancreatic cancer. Not that I did not know that his “last lecture” was indeed his last lecture. Not that I did not know that the danger is imminent for quite some time then. But, I was shocked nevertheless. I read the lecture again, this time realizing that thats my only link with him and the only way I know to show my sorrow. Not much later, I found the book in Odessey, the last copy left. Despite being a LIBRARY person, I purchased it. I began reading it. My insider was as cynical as ever, mocking at me for buying a 30 page transcript which I read many times for Rs 300/-. But, as I came to the end of the book, I couldn’t help appreciating myself for buying that book. I am sure my insider felt so too, though she did not express it openly.

For the un-initiated, let me tell who actually Randy Pausch is. He is a professor in Computer Science at the famous Carnegie Mellon University. There is this series of lectures called “Last Lecture” in which top academics were asked to give a talk, imagining it to be their final one. In Randy’s case, it was literally the last lecture, since he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had only few months of life left. In this context, he delivered his lecture – “Really achieving your childhood dreams” on Sep 18th 2007, which became immensely popular along with the speaker himself.

Randy Pausch is a professor in the truest sense. I understood that he is the coolest professor I can ever imagine. The book is about LIFE and living it to the fullest. Its a tale of optimism and lively spirit. Randy told about his experiences and what he learnt from them throughout. He talked about his dreams and how he achieved them. He talked about all the wonderful people he met and what they taught him. He talked about most of the aspects of life that he faced so far. I learnt more lessons in how to fall in love with life from him. I saw in him a wonderful manager. I saw a wonderful friend, philosopher and guide in him. I saw the anguish in him as a loving husband, who has no option but to leave his wife. I saw in him the suffering father, who is worried about his kids’ future and their imminent fatherlessness. Randy sees the book, the lecture and the video as an attempt to leave his memories to his children, which is again a wonderful way of leaving a message.

As a friend of mine said, its like leaving emotional insurance for his kids. For reasons more than one, his worries about his family’s future touched me more than anything else. Each of the words he said had with them some kind of peculiar magic that, one can never forget them. One such statement is – “Somehow, with the passage of time, and the deadlines that life imposes, surrendering became the right thing to do”. I found him extremely practical in giving this statement. Its one thing to be optimistic in life. But, its an entirely different thing to be impractical. Theres a line of seperation between them and Randy understood it very well.

“The Last lecture” – has been a wonderful book to read. I feel one should have a personal copy and get back to it quite often . I have been doing that with the lecture transcript for the past one year and with the book now. Its an unforgettable experience and equally cherishable. Thats some way to get inspired from, when you are in low spirits. It taught me a lot of things and I hope that will be the case with others too. Ofcourse, there have been many such inspiring tales. I am not picking Randy’s exclusively nor am I saying this is the best. But, its just an attempt to let those people know, who have not heard about him.
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(Now I understand why I did not post this at that time. Its perhaps the length! )

Revisiting Fountain Head…

Howard Roark has been entering and leaving my thoughts at his own will over the past fortnight. If I was not thinking about his character, someone else was reminding me of him. Finally, there came a weekend on which I picked up “The Fountain head” for a re-visit. I remember reading the novel for the first time in 2003. Back then, I liked it as a highly interesting novel. I liked Roark as a hero.  On a re-visit now, I still find it a must read, though from a different side. I am now enjoying it in a different way compared to the first experience.

I don’t know if age and mood has anything to do with the effect that a book can have on us. If they have, its certainly that effect that I am feeling at the moment. I am not exactly re-reading the whole novel, which is why I called it a re-visit. I am just randomly visiting pages and reading them. It now appears a more relevant read for me (perhaps, as I said, because of MOOD) and also demands a compulsive re-visit. It has remained an irresistable temptation for me for the past 2,3 days to open the book and randomly read. Perhaps, I saw more life in the middle and I understand the underlying things better now. Perhaps not.

The way I am seeing Roark has changed significantly between the two reads. I was like a Roark fan during the first read. But, as I thought more and more, I realized that I don’t like Roarkishness in humans as much as I did then.  I have been imagining a scenario in which say Roark has some family responsibilities or some kind of emergency because of which he has no option but to earn money. In this scenario, will it be good to shun those responsibilities and be what he is or compromise a bit and fulfil his duties? Such a question has been ringing in my mind since the past few days.  In that sense, now, I am a cautious fan of Roark. I am not totally in support of Roark now. Ofcourse, it doesn’t matter to the world! I know that!

At any rate, its a wonderful novel. The dialogues are just amazing. I don’t know how many times I read and re-read some of them. Narration is amazing too. I somehow like it better now than at the first read. Perhaps, as I said before, I was in teens when I read it first. The world I saw in these five years might have made me see the other side.. I dunno.

More details on the book can be found by the links provided here.

A magical world, Indeed :)

As I was roaming in the library in search of some entertaining book which will amuse me, I found this book – “Goopy Gyne, Bagha byne: The magical world of Upendra Kishore Roy Choudhury”. The author’s name might not ring a bell immedietly. Well, infact, he is Satyajit Ray’s grandfather. The title story, “goopy gyne, bagha byne” was made in to a movie by Satyajit Ray too. I did not see the movie but read about the shooting experiences of this movie in Satyajit Ray’s “making movies” essay series. Hence, seeing the book made me curious about the other stories in the book.

Well, coming to the point, its essentially a book for children. Its full of all those fantasy stories of a kind that one would love to hear as bed-time stories from mom, dad or grand parents. Yeah, I am well past that age.. I am well aware of it. Nevertheless, I enjoyed whatever was written in there. Perhaps, thats the beauty of this kind of fantasies. Anyone can enjoy them irrespective of the age. Or perhaps, not anyone can do that… if at all one needs that spark of childish innocence left in oneself to enjoy them. The book is a modern day Panchatantra, albeit not a moral-story sort. Primarily the characters are animals, as it is obvious in the “stories of foxes”, “stories of a cat” etc. There are “human” stories too, though.

A distinctive character of all the stories is the element of this sort of comedy … I don’t find a proper name for it now. Lets call it non sensical comedy for timebeing. I had this kind of fascination and awe to whatever is written by the Ray family. Satyajit Ray (the writer only) ofcourse, I explored to the extent possible for me. Sukumar Ray (Satyajit’s father) – I read very little of “abol tabol” through English translation. Over this periods of reading, I noticed that the style of comedy in the grand-father and father was similar. As the days of Satyajit began, a stinge of that kind of comedy stayed back, though his style is a bit different. I perhaps need more observation to validate this, but I believe I am right

Coming back to the book again, yeah, it was a good experience in many ways, reading the book. Firstly, its entertaining and amusing – the two essential things I was looking for at that moment. It helped me understand the background of Satyajit Ray’s writings better. It made me wonder again at the Ray gene .

Final verdict: Its not something like a must read book for all readers. But, its an enjoyable romance. Due to personal interest in any writing from the Ray family, it sorta became a must read for me

Book Details:
Goopy Gyne, Bagha Byne – the magical world of Upendra Kishore Roy Choudhury.
Translated from Bengali by Swagata Deb
Puffin Books
Rs 199/-

Tagore’s autobiography

Well, with all these random and auto-biographical posts, I had no time to actually read some quality book, which is worth blogging. All I read was some random time pass stuff. But, finally, in a 3-day vacation sitting with no other work but getting lost in myself, I read a book, which fits that kind of mood. Its the autobiography of Rabindranath Tagore – “my life in my words”. Wait…. when did Tagore write his autobiography? Well, he did not, as a matter of fact. This book is an attempt to construct an autobiography of Tagore, by arranging some of his communications and personal essays in a chronological order. Hence, it became – “my life, in my words”. The selection, compilation and subsequent editor job was done by Uma Das Gupta. Well, I never heard of such a kind of an autobiography. However, to a large extent, I loved the book, despite the experiment.

The book is divided in to two parts – My life and My thoughts. In the first part, Tagore speaks from the personal things like- his family, children, wife, childhood and his personal life to his involvement with the development of Shantiniketan and its sister concerns. He also talks about his relationship with Gandhi, his ideas on Swadeshi Movement, his travels to different countries in the world and his relationships with people. Theres such a lot involved in this part of the book that one wonders on the effort that went in the background, to make this book a reality. Tagore’s letters to his friends and family members are both very interesting. Yeah, they are pretty much closer to practical concerns compared to the Nehru-Indira letters, on which I have some reservations, despite all the respect that I have for them. The second part is where Tagore talks on himself, religion, nature, India and the British. Frankly speaking, I don’t find any particular reason to split the book in to two parts, since both anyway comprised of letters (majorly).

Well, at any rate, I understood a lot of things about Tagore and his life through this book. I always had this curiosity about Tagore, seeing the diverse things that he did. I wondered how he was able to do so many things and get recognition in everything he did. The story behind Nobel prize for his Gitanjali still baffles me for its mysterious simplicity. It would have been nice if the Tagorian ideas were presented more in detail at places. Perhaps, Tagore is such a super-human personality that whatever might be written, the reader still craves for more! It was a great effort to make this book. But, then,  I still have some qualms. For example, there was not a single mention of his novels anywhere throughout the book, which is so shocking. He mentioned writing some poems in some sort of mood etc. Anyone’s expectation seeing that would be that there will be some mention about the story behind writing his novels somewhere. I would have enjoyed the book even more if “home and the world”, “Choker bali” or “Gora” or his stories or “Stray birds” were at least mentioned by name somewhere. Perhaps, had he written an autobiography actually, he would have included it. There was no mention of “Rabindra Sangeet” either! His views on universalism and gram-swaraj could have been detailed further. Ram Guha talked about the similarities and dis-similarities in thoughts of Gandhi and Tagore better than this book, in his columns in “The Hindu”’s Sunday magazine. I think the book did not catch Tagore’s versatility properly.

I can go on and on complaining about the book. But, theres no one really to blame. If someone can be blamed, there are two. First person being Tagore himself, for being so versatile that any attempt to profile him would be incomplete, with any amount of effort. Second person being the creator for making so multi-faceted a personality that, its impossible to reconstruct him through words.  However, this book is indeed a feast to Tagore worshipers. At least for non-Bengalis like me for whom chances of knowing more can be only through translations. On the readability front, this book is very much readable. The arrangement of chapters and letters is perfect to the reader’s psyche. Tagore continues to amaze me even more, after this book. Please drop in some comments if u know of any books written ON Tagore. Let us hope that they profile him completely, at least collectively

Final verdict: Good book. To know Tagore apart from his literature, this is a must.

Purchase details:
My life in my words, Rabindranath Tagore.
Selected and edited with an Introduction by Uma Das Gupta
Publishers: Penguin/Viking
Cost: Rs 495/- (ahem!)