Transliteration :

Bonolata Sen (1942)

 Hajaar bocchor dhorey aami pawth haatitechhi prithibeer pawthey Singhal samudro thekey nisheether awndhokarey maloy sagorey Awnek ghurechhi aami; Bimbissar Ashoker dhusar jogotey Sekhaney chhilam aami; aaro door awndhokarey Bidharbho nagarey; Aami klanto pran ek, chari dikey jiboner samudro sawfen Aamarey du dawndo shanti diyechhilo Natorer Banalata Sen.

Chool taar kawbejkaar awndhokaar Bideeshar nishaa, Mukh taar Srabostir karukarjo; oti door samudrer por Haal bhengey je nabik hariyechhe dishaa Sabuj ghaaser desh jakhon se chhokhey dekhey daruchini-dwiper bhitor, Temoni dekhechhi taarey awndhokarey; bolechhey se, 'eto din kothay chhilen?"

Pakhir neerrer moto chokh tuley Natorer Banalata Sen …

       Reading the poem even without any knowledge of the source language still conveys the sense of the overwhelming vowel play that governs the slow pace and rhythm of the lines. The form matches the exhaustion and the timelessness of memory that the poem presents. While the iconic mode of translation that aims at geometrical resemblance in terms of structure, line, length and so on, might prove helpful to come close to the spirit of the poem, only the knowledge of the SL will enable the transference of the "deep structures" from the source text to the target text so that the "construction" of the "surface structures" would be possible. It would then be possible to address the poet's references to history, his extraordinary use of tropes and the coalescence of imagery.

Translation of the second verse:

Version 1:

 …Her hair was the darkness of Vidisha’s night from a past of forgotten time, her face was the handicraft of Sravasti. When drifting on some far sea aboard a ship with a broken rudder a sailor suddenly sees a region of green grass on some cardamom island like that I saw her in the dark. And raising eyes that were like a bird's nest, Banalata Sen of Nator said, 'where were you All this while?'

(trans.: Buddhadev Bose)

Version 2:

… Her hair like dark Vidisha’ s night of long before her face Sravasti artistry when on the ocean far distant the sailor who had broken his rudder and lost direction saw nothing but the land of green grass within the cinnamon island so I saw her in the dark; she said, 'where were you all these days then?' raising her bird's nest-like eyes at me Nator's Banalata Sen

 (trans.: Ananda Lal)

      Would it help to choose between the two versions? I would say, no; either of them may be taken as adequate and neither of them is entirely satisfactory. That this should be so is extremely important because this acknowledges the residue always left in the text after every translation, which encourages a new translation. In this case, though the lyrical voice of the poet does not pose many difficulties in transference, the poem alerts the reader to the poem's dialectic of selfhood. History shapes selves and the poetic self in the poem partakes of many historical epochs. However, it is a mistake to imagine the poetic self as a simple, random, constantly changing historical phenomenon or an infinitely changing collection of voices through history. Though the poetic self seems amorphous and fluid, clearly it is not a passive vehicle animated by ceaselessly changing social discourse. Something within its organization of memory prompts the self to identify with certain forms and experiences and not others. Its ceaseless mobility finds (there is the iteration of the act of "seeing") momentary rest - the moment of timelessness in the troubled flux of time - in the empathic presence of the beloved: her eyes like "a bird's nest" and her presence a catalyst for the remembrance of things past in the time present. Let me attempt yet another version with these points in mind:

Version 3:

 …Her hair the ancient darkness of a Vidisha night her face a Sravasti artwork. As when in the far distant ocean the rudderless sailor who had lost his way sees before his eyes a green expanse within a cinnamon isle, I saw her in the darkness; she said, 'So long … where have you been?' Raising her eyes like a bird's nest, Nator's Bonolata Sen.

(trans.: mine)

     The iconic mode, however, would certainly not be appropriate for a poem written by, say a Dalit poet. Inspired by the spirit of Unnava's revolutionary novel, Mala Palli in early twentieth century and especially by the work of the Dalit poet Gurram Joshua, as for example his Gabbilam, the Dalits began "forging" a language to articulate their personal sagas of pain, discrimination, deprivation and indignity. Their language does not wholly derive from conventional usage, but is "crafted" with distinct words, images, rhythms to express the specificity of their experience of alterity / "untouchability" that might truly be illustrative of the "vernacular" language - or linguistic usage that emerges out of the grid of "verna". A poem like the following, by a powerful young poet Sikhamani, for instance, would need attention to the indexical connotation of the text. The indexical text is embedded in a locale, in a context, refers to it, even signifies it and would not make much sense without it. Sikhamani is the pen name of Dr. K. Sanjeeva Rao whose slim volume of poems is titled Black Rainbow as a reminder of the history of the Dalit movement and draws attention to the motivations of the Dalit people.

Transliteration: 

Kirru Chappula Bhasha (an extract)

       Inni varnanatmaka bhashallo na avarnanni barninchakal bhasha ledu. Inni soundaryamatka varnanllo na asaundaryanni wodisi pattukuney aksharam ledu. Innarllu nenuka dhyanini Anukaruna sabdalni matramey Aravu techchukurna apsawarula Madhya Na asalu swaranni pagottokunna nu … Ippuda aksharalu puttedi Shivunicheti dharmaruka sabdamunuchchi kadu Veerabahuni kirrucheppula cheppula nundi Ippudu varnamala savarnala chetula Rudrakshamala kadu Goodem gudisey mundu pachchi orugula dandem, Ippudu manvu wontimeedi dandem. Na nallajati cheppuka Tellani lesu allika …

Translation:

The Language of Creaking Footwear

     Among all these descriptive languages there isn't one that can describe my castelessness / colourlessness. Among these chapters of purple prose there isn't a word that can captivate my lack of beauty … I have made the word a coal and lit my dark kiln. I have made the word a transparent crystal to carry in my barber's bag. I have seasoned it like a cashew nut to sign on the nation - cloth as a washer man. I have now made the word a boat lamp to guard the fishnet before pressing it into the dark river. The word has become a spark to fan my potter's flame. I am plying the loom making the word its lever … Now words are not born out of the drum beat of Shiva but from the creaking language of Veerabahu's footwear. The string of alphabet Is not the chain of beads of the upper caste but of dry fish in front of a hut in a hamlet. The sacred thread of Manu is now the beautiful thread work of my community …

(trans.: Kiranmayi)

     In spite of a commendable attempt by the translator, the "barriers" at the heart of the SL text remain intact, having successfully resisted translation. The "deep structures" do not govern the surface structures and the subliminal emotions of the original poem are not manifest in translation. The blame is not entirely the translator's; the inadequacy of English as a target language to convey the nuances of the "vernacular" is a factor towards cultural loss. As far as the initiative of the translator is concerned, perhaps a more radical usage could have been attempted or some of the potent culture-specific words could have been allowed to permeate the receptor text. Indexical glossing would have proved a helpful tool too, to generate the kind of "counter - transference" that Derrida and Lacan have recommended. Such techniques would have stressed the "positionality" (a place from which values are interpreted and constructed rather a locus of an already determined set of values) of both the poet and the poem.

     The last example that I offer to illustrate the force of "counter-transference" that an analyst- translator can initiate is Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's translation of Mahasweta Devi's short stories. Spivak's work has been much discussed and debated and I have written in detail about it earlier (Mukherjee 2000:94-105); here I shall just illustrate with one example the rhetorical dimensions evident in Spivak's translations.

      Discussing the role of the publisher as an intermediary in the process of translation, Ritu Menon mentions Devi's short story published by Kali for Women in the anthology Truth Tales as "Wet Nurse" and Spivak's translation and extraordinary analysis of the same story as "Breastgiver" (Spivak 1987:128-30). Menon says that during that presentation, Spivak offered no less than eight possible interpretations of the original: as a historian and teacher of literature; from the author's subject position; the teacher's and the reader's position; a Marxist feminist reading; a liberal feminist reading; and a gendered subaltern reading.

     In her translation, Spivak re-instates the symbolical "naming" of Devi's text "Stanadayini" as "Breastgiver". (Whereas 'Wet Nurse' would have had the original Bengali word as 'Dhai Ma'). The translator's choice of "naming" the text as "Wet Nurse" governed that particular translation which played on the mythic connotations of the name of the protagonist Jasodhara and to a large extent neutralized the subversive impact of the text). Spivak's interpellation or catachresis in the reading of Devi's symbolical text maps a structure of relations onto another plane or another symbolic system that enriches the textual discourse. Catachresis describes the process by which a writer or a reader/analyst/translator can interrupt the flow of conventional meaning and insert a contradictory or alternative system of meaning. Catachresis ruptures the propriety - the conventional meaningfulness - of the discursive moment. Without an awareness of this rapture, there is no impetus for treating a text as symbolic. Catachresis and symbolism invoke one another, even though they might occupy different textual modalities. Spivak's alternative system of meaning is the Marxist feminist analysis of the text demonstrating the use of the gendered subaltern by the capitalist society. As Kristeva explained in her discussion of the use of poetic language, catachresis offers a challenge to the hegemony of meanings dominated by patriarchal culture and organized by certain behavioural norms. By challenging the conventional meaningfulness of Devi's short story, Spivak activates the discourse of counter-transference in her translation that addresses the rhetorical richness of Devi’s text.

      My attempt in this paper has been to discuss the possibility of cultural transference through the processes of translation so that the sub-textual rhythms and the tensions of the text do not remain hidden. By the instances given above, I have tried to show the degree of success extant translation practice has achieved and also the way different kinds of texts need different methods of approach. It always remains the translator's aspiration to make manifest in the translated text the "encyclopedic" (Eco 1984:157) relationship between language and human creativity. The successive efforts of different translators working on a single text only go to show the in-exhaustiveness of the textual residue that tempts yet another cycle of translations. 

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