A respected literary figure once joked that I probably didn't translate traditional chhanda (formed) poetry because that is harder to translate than free verse: "You have more freedom when you translate free verse." He may be right. Yet, without even having to bother with such things as rhyme and metre and scansion, translating free verse is hard enough to do. In this week's column, the ayaameli or abstract, "dimensionalist" poetry of Bairagi Kainla has kept me especially perplexed, trying to make out dim, dissatisfying forms in the half-light of mixed languages.
There are, in the act of translation, three main tasks to attend to: translating the meaning/s (or logic) of the original text, translating its style (or rhetoric), and opting between the different silences that result from each word choice, each comma, exclamation mark and full stop.
In abstract verses such as Kainla's "The Mountain," below, the meaning of the original text can be obscure at times, filled with innuendoes, subtle connotations, double entendres and the possibility of multiple interpretations. While this abstraction makes for a layered, participatory reading experience in the original language, it guarantees a flattening of meaning in the process of translation: secondary interpretations easily get lost. Similarly, translating the style of such a poem is tricky-for the rhythms and resonance of Nepali language tend not to match those of English. Indeed, "The Mountain" is the most challenging work of Nepali literature I have translated to date. Silence features large in this translation (as in any translated text); and more than anything else, I am reminded of why the critic Jacques Derrida has said that the enterprise of translation is always slated for failure. There is much in literature that simply never translates.
THE MOUNTAIN
1. Even in the house going to the top floor
I climb peaks of the high staircase ledge
These days I'm always climbing mountains in my dreams
which never bow down no matter how many hills and peaks
I subdue with the threshold of each step
on my street
Oh! The backbones of the Himalayas break
and collapse, retching pools of
nighttime on my street
The thundering of echoes
slams against the walls of the sky-
onto the main street, upon a running train
In droplets of blood contained by shards of glass
instances of lives
crushed in separate compartments-
on the lines of broken trains
From the flames of the raging fires
I gather these, I carry these
in my pockets and on my shoulders
The streets which are exhausted
having taken many children to school
having taken many sons to the border trenches
having returned many fathers from their offices
these streets by now shattered in accidents
yes, all these streets
I carry on my shoulders
On my shoulders of the mythical Kumbhakarna
I carry the corpse of life
2. From above my shoulders-
the corpse of life putrefying
on the density of my love, the blaze of my faith
drops in many pieces upon shards of light
conveying one boon each these pieces
drop with a splash into brightness
in each of my steps: on my street!
An eye drops: a night ends
Another eye drops: another night ends
A heel drops: a foot-length piece of the street is filled
A hand falls: a bridge is drawn from earth to sky
Two hands in embrace drop-
in an earth of boundless expanses
and once again, another time splits open in history
Upon the forehead of an opening
for everyone's information
amid pine needles
in letters at the joints of branches
time comes rushing over and jots down a few lines-
welcome to mountain climbers,
to tender heels,
to each life!
Now let each person once again start
a separate journey from this opening!
3. Filling the sun
into the vast spinning bulb of the third eye
holding up the flat sea in both hands
standing apart from the calves of the opening
from the attacks of sharks and whales
from the raids of ocean pirates
treasures and rescuing ships
and lifting the Govardhan hill on a fingertip
from this opening even I
these days am always climbing mountains in my dreams
these days I'm always climbing mountains in my dreams
A dogged emotion-expressing a stubborn will to overcome arduous, albeit unnamed, hurdles-rings clearly through the original Nepali text. There is a powerful mix of panic, resolve and weariness in the narrative voice. The poem's ultimate abstruseness, its openness to varying interpretations and its refusal to offer easy narratives makes it more suited to those with postmodern sensibilities than to those who seek closure in literature.
Kainla's poetry collection Bairagi Kainlaka Kabita can be extremely difficult to find on the market-a baffling fact, given the importance of his contribution to Nepali literature. (He was one of the originators of the 1960's Tesro Ayaam movement calling for greater complexity in Nepali literary expression). In recent decades, Kainla has stopped writing actively, choosing instead to promote, through the Royal Nepal Academy, the art and literature of Nepal's minority national languages. He is himself a translator of the Mundhum (origination myth) and other texts in the Limbu language. His original name is Til Bikram Nembang. His widely recognised pen name, translated, is far more lyrical, though: melancholy fourth son.
