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Waves - a Landmark
Dr. A. N. Dhar
Based on Shri Majboor's Kashmiri lyrics, the new edition
contains 30 poems in English translation (6 more than the number of poems in the
first edition). The translations have been very competently done by Arvind Gigoo, whose command of English is excellent besides his innate ability to
compose his oven poems in English. The first edition won Majboor an award from
the Poet's Foundation, Kolkata, that was presented to him at Kolkata on 20 Dec.,
1999. With its publication, the original poet won great acclaim as an
accomplished and seminal writer.
I made my critical observations on the contents of the book
in my review that appeared in the July, 1999 special issue of the trilingual
religio-cultural journal titled Patrika brought out bi-annually
by the Bhagavan Gopinath Ji Trust (of which I happen to be the Chief Editor).
The review also appeared later in the Indian Book Chronicle
published from Jaipur. To the best of my knowledge, it is being reprinted in
several more national journals. Reviews of the book done by other writers have
also appeared in the Koshur Samachar The Brown Critique, Poetry Today,
Daily Excelsior, Kashmir Times and Scoria. All this bears testimony to
the great popularity enjoyed by Shri Arjan Dev Majboor as a significant Kashmiri
poet of our times and to Gigoo's emergence as a competent translator who, in my
view, has broken new ground as a literary craftsman in the field of translation
studies.
I am not going to repeat here what I have said at some length
in my review of the first edition of the Waves. However. I shall
certainly talk briefly about my response to the new edition of the book that was
recently released at Jammu. The author, the translator and the publisher deserve
to be congratulated on bringing out the volume in the present shape. It carries
now a foreword from the pen of an eminent teacher and scholar of English Prof
T.N. Raina, who is based at Pune, and also projects the translator's
contribution and views in a befitting way more conspicuously than was done in
the first edition. The translator's note is a welcome feature - something
that is desirable to be found in a book of poems in their translated form. The
present foreword too serves a useful purpose, being a valuable write-up on
the literary work in question and on the original poet. Perhaps a little more
said about the translator's literary antecedents also would have been very much
in place. I am gratified to note that Prof T.N. Raina has endorsed the essential
content of my earlier review; he has not only incorporated direct quotations
from it but also used some other portions after suitably altering or rephrasing
them (as he felt it proper).
Both the earlier and the new edition of the Waves
have attracted adequate critical attention. This is obvious from the many
comments by a number of creative writers and critics that are either recorded in
the new edition itself or appear as the blurbs printed on the jacket. That
establishes that the new edition particularly has been very well received in
literary circles and is bound to sell well. In my views among the many English
translations of Kashmiri verse that I have come across in my long career, the Waves
stands out as an innovative volume, which should go down as a landmark in its
own right. The new edition contains translations of six more short lyrics of
Majboor. These bear the titles Word, A Gamble, Loneliness, Sensuality,
Longing and A Poet's Helplessness. In terms of their thematic concerns,
they are in perfect accord with the poet's lyrics used in the first edition;
they too reflect his inner urges as a poet & the values he cherishes most.
His major concern with language and meaning and his aspiration for the return
of peace in the valley (and for a better world order) are easily discernable in
the new set of poems too. The Word brings out the significance of
language as man's unique gift, which "preserves" him and his cultural
riches. The poem A Gamble is replete with images of ugliness,
disharmony, death and destruction. It highlights the contrast between a
'pebble' pitted against ‘the mountain' as its adversary. In
Loneliness, the poet advises us to curb the mind's "indolence",
sweeten our lives with "honey", turn our gaze to the starry firmament
and thus transform the feeling of "desolateness" into joy. The poem Sensuality
involves an interplay of images aimed at highlighting the destructive aspect of
human passions. The poem Longing expresses a romantic aspiration the poet's
fancy "seeking to hover in the sky". In the sixth poem titled A
Poet's Helplessness, we are given an imagistic account of what the loss
of imaginative powers means to a poet.
Finally, I come to the translator's note. Herein Gigoo has
succinctly expounded his theory and practice of literary translation, trying
to justify the transformation that the original poems have undergone in his
hands on terms of syntax and lexis. He claims that "the life, meaning and
soul of the original continue to throb and flow and vibrate" in the
translations. My feeling is that while Arvind Gigoo, as a translator of Kashmiri
lyrics into English, has at places not adhered to the principles of ‘equivalence'
and ‘acceptability’ considered essential to a sound literary translation, he has
on the whole, given proof of his genius and originality through his creative
command of English and his innovativeness as a translator.
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