There is a film in Malayalam called Panchagni (Five Fires), scripted by M.T Vasudevan Nair anddirected by Hariharan. Released in 1986, the film is a nuanced look at the socio-political lives of the afterlife of the revolutionary movement in Kerala. It traversed the everyday performances of violence, desire, anxiety, unemployment, social stigma and entitlement that played out as names, people, places, their identities.These stories became synonymous with the sacrifices that the modern day Keralites claim as their legacy.
The film had as its protagonist, Indira, a young woman who is serving a life term for executing a landowner who raped and murdered a tribal woman. While she is out on parole, a journalist takes an interest in her and seeks to secure her release. There is Sharada, Indira’s friend and Savithri, Indira’s sister- female characters, married, with homes and husbands- women who are subconscious nudges to the audience showing an alternate universe that Indira could have occupied had she not set out to avenge the gruesome incident. The journalist manages to secure a pardon for Indira and she is overjoyed. She can see her whole life playing out before her, a family that has gradually begun to accept her, a life of marital bliss with the journalist- there is even happy music in the background. She runs to the residence of Sharada to give her the news and finds that Sharada’s husband and friends have assaulted the young servant girl. Frozen with shock, she sits by the girl.
The husband looks at Indira and smirks. It is a smirk that reeks of entitlement, a certain repugnant human insouciance- one that comes from privilege- be it social, economic, political or sexual. She shoots the man and returns to jail.
That smirk, and all that it conveyed- that was my first brush with translation. The multiple meanings that I read into that expression, the meanings that it signified for the protagonist, for life, for the innumerable different possibilities that the day, the incident, the reaction could have taken in the film, have haunted me for decades. Over the years, I have become more acutely aware of the ways that we translate our world around us into bite-sized, relatable, tolerable experiences. How we transmogrify thoughts into sounds, into language, signs, expressions, gestures, food, a pat on the arm, a crinkle on the forehead and how all this is converted into Time- the present, the past, the fast-approaching unseen.
The last three years have witnessed some concerted efforts at promoting translations especially in India. What was once a means of merely cashing in on the popularity of mainstream English fiction by making the same available in Bhasha literature, has now evolved into a practice with serious political, cultural and linguistic purposes. There is a canon of Bhasha literature building up in English, with regional writing from the 1930s, 1970s and even the Sangam era making waves in English in the last three years. The rising political confidence and the factors of shifting demographics, the presence of a more interested readership are also factors that play a vital role in the boom being witnessed today. Apart from these, the common person, the middle-class person is in the middle of a quest. The quest for making sense of the changes they witness in the world around them. These translations help a better shaped picture to emerge about the mind-boggling dynamics of India which often seems to be held together by adhesive tape and willpower. Running a finger through the 2021 JCB Prize shortlist, I was pleasantly surprised to come across a lot of translations and many of them from Malayalam. VJ James’ Anti-Clock is my current forerunner, The Man Who Learnt to Fly but Could Not Land by T.P. Rajeevan is not exactly fiction and has a strong sense of the local that it derives its spine from. And Daribha Lyndem’s Name Place Animal Thing while not a translation, evokes a childhood I left behind. The crucial insight these and other shortlisted and random translated works present in this day and age is into the conscious use of history- political and inherited. This is the sort of fierceness that can bring an anti-clock into existence – one that challenges the Anglo-centric notions of time, of progress, of our readings of directions. What is up is down and down is North? Its all in the perception, isn’t it? There is a comfort that translations bring- that lives and people who exist elsewhere go through the same grind as we do. That Jas from Marieke Rijneveld’s Discomfort of Evening wonders about dusks and the wide world like D from Name Place Animal Thing, like I, and possibly you did at one point of time. That the quivers felt by Mohanaswamy as he lays eyes on a handsome man (in Kannada) are echoed in Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar in English and Sachin Kundalkar’s apprehensive protagonist in Marathi- among others. This is the community that translations can create by introducing one to a world that is so like and so unlike the ones we live in.
October 14 was World Translation Day- a very commendable idea that marks the need to be able to speak and think in the language and experience of someone else. It is also the way to keep languages alive- especially those languages that are being decimated under the march of ‘progress’. This edition of Samyukta Poetry honours a Malayalam poet- Rosemary- a poet who in her native tongue has woven elaborate tapestries of experiences that are transitioning- from the narratives of a reminiscing daughter to that of sheets of rain, from the misted mountains to the singularities of falling in love. It made me think that what is poetry if not a fluid act of translation- one that effortlessly speaks multiple languages at the same time?
Rosemary, born Maria Goretti, is one of the most decorated names of Malayalam poetry. Often considered a natural successor to Kamala Das- a reference that she modestly denies- Rosemary’s poems carry a tinge of melancholia. The winding notes of many of her poems evoke the image of nostalgia that is seeking a home. Home itself is a shapeshifting term for Rosemary. It is sometimes a mountain topped with snow, while sometimes, it could well be within the fragile heart of a bird. Her images are etched out and laid out in elaborate detail.
“The love of an old man
Is like the slanting showerIt
wets the blades of grass
But penetrates not
The thirsty root.
It doesn’t cause
The boughs to tremble
No vibration…
It rustles down –
A quiver
Of arrow-like tears
Unable to penetrate
The caverns of the earth.
(Slanting Showers-translated from the Malayalam by Hema Nair R.)
The translator remarks, “What makes Rosemary’s poems worthy of translation and what makes it interesting to a reader of English poetry is the thread of universality that is apparent in the depiction of the experience of the individual psyche.” (https://rosemarypoetess.wordpress.com/page/2/ )
Columnist, Journalist, Activist, avid gardener, there are many words that describe Rosemary. But for me, she speaks through her poems, the images of black jagged rocks rising from the seashore are the images her works commonly evoke in me. The presence of an all-seeing, non-interfering God is indeed very interesting in the works of Rosemary. Mercy is a derived commodity in her poetry. It may not be present as an overflowing pool but needs to be squeezed like blood from rocks. Her landscapes are unforgiving and the birds wary.
A mediocrity
With all the novelty already gone”
Is love a solid mass
That decreases when shared ?
Is it gold pledged at the pawn shop ?
My love is a spring that comes down from the mountain mist—
A never ending flow !
It is like a lamp that burns for ever
Nothing is lost
How can it go out
When passed to new wicks ?
I don’t believe in a love that is protected
And cared for all the time
Why should I protect and protect my love
Like a fungus-discoloured bronze vessel
Thus making a worthless thing of it ?”
(A Spring from the Misty Mountain- translated from the Malayalam by Sudha Warrier )
Translating Rosemary presents unique challenges, her line breaks, the nuances that are ensconced within her choice of words make the work move with glacial speed. And that is, ironically, the charm of it. One can rethink the lines over and over, but there hardly comes a time when the glide, thrust and parry of English matches the simple, elegant desolation that Rosemary wafts in from Malayalam. It must be the same with all translations. I suppose, in translation, as in life, there is no satisfaction. There is always something more to be done. Something to be added, changed, possibilities to be considered, a smirk deferred?
Sonya J. Nair
Editor
Rose Mary is one of the best-known poets in Malayalam. She has a number of accolades to her name including theSergei Yesenin Award, SBT Poetry Award, Muthukulam Parvathy Amma Award and Lalithambika Antharjanam Best Young Woman Writer Award. Vakkukal Chekkerunnidam, Chanju Peyyunna Mazha, Venalil Oru Puzha, Ivide Inganeyum Oral, Vrishchika Kattu Veesumbol, Nalinakshan Nairkk Snehapoorvam and Marikkunnuvo Malayalam are her major works.
About the Translator:
Dr. Nair’s nuanced and committed translations have seen her becoming the first person from Kerala to be awarded the Charles Wallace India Trust Translator Fellowship which was spent at the British Centre for Literary Translation, University of East Anglia, UK. She is currently translating Marguerite Duras’ L’Amour from the French to Malayalam. She can be found at https://sreedeviknair.net/
House with No Door
Facing the sea,
hewn from granite,
monumental in its desolation,
stands your ancient house.
Its wooden door
etched with memories of the sea.
Day in and day out, the waves pound.
The incessant roar of the sea
envelops the house.
You, a plundering pirate!
and I, your bondslave,
bound in servitude by the
ropes of your love.
Our dusky chamber
fragrant with khus,
bathed in amber light.
Serpentine bodies, coil and uncoil,
as passion plays the snake charmer’s reed;
Muted hisses.
Sometimes
in the wee hours of
a lust-filled night,
you jolt awake
on some strange impulse
to wordlessly disappear,
flinging ajar the wooden door.
At times, answering
the call of unknown waters,
you leap into the outstretched arms of the sea,
wrenching free of my embraces,
smashing the wooden door.
Ill-fated voyages….
Returning vanquished, enraged
you slash the door
with your keen dagger.
Your endless mood swings;
volcanic outbursts,
lightning arrivals and departures….
half-abandoned kisses….
My poor heart,
forever
a trembling bird,
quivering on snowy paths.
The bolts of the door
give way
at your merciless handling;
its ceaseless creaking
on moonless nights
make me sad, depressed.
Rattling like skeletons
on mountain tops,
it falls quietly,
one day.
Ah, the house without doors!
Before me
infinite vastness,
reaching to eternity!
Wind, rain, sand dunes,
tidal waves,
all within the reach
of my hand.
Towards me,
the waves come charging
with infernal growls,
and plunder your treasures.
An ardent wind
coming from the west
gathers me into the eye
of its hurricane love.
my arms turn wings,
and I, like a seagull
glide weightless over the sea.
When
the conqueror
of many worlds,
returns triumphant,
victorious flags
fluttering bright,
and far flung seas
under his feet,
before him
looms
the majestic tower –
forbidding,
eyes aflame,
like a leviathan
from ancient times.
In its inner yards
the scent of the sea;
the furniture
cold, frozen;
long, regal curtains
swaying in the wind.
When you,
frantic, bellowing,
roam the empty rooms
like a marauding lion,
I, on the wings of the wind,
soar, whistling!
Moonlight silver
and sunlight amber
lend sparkle to my wings.
My heart turns
wild with ecstasy!
In my soul,
neither this earth
long-suffering,
nor the pirate lover
remains.
Broken heart, deep sighs
sad, gloomy nights,
all memories of
a long-forgotten life!
Between You and Me
Do not
be afraid of my love;
it asks
nothing of you.
Do not
doubt my friendship;
it wishes not
to own you.
Once,
on a dark
bleaknight,
fairies came, and
filled my heart
with love.
I was
in deep slumber,
when they gave
this gift of love.
When I woke up
my heart
was overflowing.
The sad
and the lonely
came, and
snatched it
from me.
The rest I poured
into a chalice.
Beneath
the vast sky,
through
open lands,
along
desolate paths,
I kept wandering;
the chalicein my hand,
spilling over!
Do not
feel guilty
about my love;
I didn’t take it
from someone
to give to you;
Remember
my telling you
of love
going waste?
of the chalice
overflowing?
This
I want to make clear –
if ever
you come to me,
be not
like a king
visiting his maid.
I do not
want tax-free lands,
or stately provinces.
Do not
come like God
revealing Himself
to a devotee;
I do not
want boons
from your bounty;
Neither
is my heart
an empty void,
to be filled
with your radiance.
Approach
like an emperor
visiting another;
a friend
visiting a friend;
let’s meet
on equal terms!
Like a flute
looking for a raga,
a question
seeking out
its answer,
let it be
spontaneous….
My Poetry
“Where does poetry come from?”
asked the man with spectacles.
Do they drizzle
from cloudlets
floating in the sky?
In the mysterious green
of dark dense forests,
do they hide?
Is poetry
the bloom of the soil
lush with dreams?
Is it
the tingeof despair
spreading on
failed romance?
I know not, truly!
My poetry –
it springs
from extreme anguish!
Like mushrooms
bursting forth
when thunder roars,
from every blow,
a poem blooms!
It’s blood
oozing from
my heart’s wounds.
From sorrows
never shared,
it breaks forth!
It’s my life;
my poetry –
it’s me!
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