Thirdly,
the published translations of Tagore's stories in pre-independent
India show a preference in selection for politically 'safe' and
'non-controversial' stories. Translations of 'Megh o Raudra' and
'Namanjur Galpa', which reflected on colonial domination, did
not appear in any of the volumes published before Indian Independence.
Yet none other than Edward John Thompson, a liberal British advocate
of Indian culture, attempted a translation of 'Megh o Raudra'
well before 1947. E.P. Thompson notes that in May 1920 Edward
Thompson "wrote to Tagore sending a fragment of 'Cloud and
Sunlight' ('Megh O Raudra')". He even mentions that Tagore
appears to have informed Macmillan that the story could be included
in the next collection. But the "manuscript still remains
among his papers and it was not (I think) ever published"
(Thompson 1993: 23-24). Mary Lago in her biography of Edward
John Thompson, titled, "India's Prisoner", also observes,
"Edward translated a long story, apparently 'Megh o raudra'
(Cloud and sun)" (Lago 2001: 100).
Finally,
some of the stories selected for translation are forceful expositions
of women's issues although many of them are not to be seen in
any of the early volumes of translations. Possibly, trends in
feminist developments influenced incorporations of such stories
in English translations: renderings of "Denapaona', 'Nashtanir',
'Haimanti', Strir Patra', 'Aparichita', 'Paila Number', are to
be found in selections published after 1960.
Having
seen some of the features characterising the selection of Tagore's
short stories for translation into English, we may turn to the
translators that have been engaged in this field. These translators
have been both Indians and foreigners, translating during and
after the lifetime of the author, and also before and after Indian
Independence. Naturally, this body of translated literature encompasses
attempts by allied as well as alien minds, the insiders' as well
as the outsiders' versions of the original stories. It has indeed
been an impressive case of readings by the home and the world.
.Indian
translators of Tagore's short stories include eminent persons
such as Rajani Ranjan Sen, Panna Lal Basu, Prabhat Kumar Mukherji,
Surendranath Tagore, Indira Devi Chaudhurani, Jadunath Sarkar,
Amiya Chakravarty, Somnath Maitra, Sujit Mukherjee, Sukanta Chaudhuri,
Ranjita Basu, and others. However, recent translations record
the efforts of translators of Indian origin - Krishna Dutta and
Kalpana Bardhan - living abroad and turning back to literature
at home. Some of the non-Indian translators are Edward Thompson,
W.W. Pearson, C.F. Andrews, Mary Lago, W.W. Pearson, C.F. Andrews,
feeling at home in India and working on Indian literature. Not
only was this trio considerably acquainted with the source culture
but also with the author of the source texts.
Turning
to the audience of the translated stories, that is, the target
language readers, another interesting and variegated structure
comes to view. Obviously and primarily, the target group is a
non-Bengali readership; it includes non-Bengali Indians and non-Indians.
The non-Bengali Indians are somewhat familiar with the Bengali
culture due to their proximity to it and their common nationality.
The non-Indians are comparatively less familiar or completely
unfamiliar with the source culture. Among these non-Indians, the
people of Great Britain have been in closer interaction with Indian
culture because of long years of colonial rule. Nearer home, the
people of Bangladesh are appreciably acquainted with the source
culture, having once shared the same nationality and still sharing
the same source language.
Another
feature of the readership of English translations of Tagore's
writings is that it surprisingly includes a significant number
of Bengali readers too. These Bengali readers are generally of
two types. Some of them have had an upbringing outside Bengal
and hence are not well conversant in the Bengali language. Others
are bilingual, that is, they are comfortable in Bengali and in
English, and read the translations out of curiosity or for some
specific purposes. But their reading usually involves a critical
perspective as they are in a position to judge how far the target
language text has approximated its source counterpart. Hence,
although they do not conventionally belong to the domain of target
readers, they are indeed an important and valuable segment of
readership.
Collating
the Translated Texts
Evidently,
this varied and cosmopolitan nature of translators and target
readers of Tagore's translated short stories casts its impressions
on the translations. As it is, translation activities in the field
of literature are often ridden by complexities of linguistic and
cultural transferences. For example, the ailing postmaster in
Tagore's eponymous story longs for his mother and elder sister:
"T
__"O[? =Y[ `gFY[?
E]_ cؙ[?
&` ]X YQ*"
The word 'Shakha' is alien to English culture. To source language
readers, however, the contextual use of the word here immediately
evokes suggestions of the affectionate, tender, and caressing
hands of a married woman - a mother, wife or sister. Debendra
Nath Mitter translates the Bengali sentence as: "He remembers
the sweet touch of hands, with shell bracelets on, on his fevered
brow" (Mitter 1911: 38). The translation in Mashi
and Other Stories reads: "He longed to remember the
touch on the forehead of soft hands with tinkling bracelets"
(Tagore 1918: 164) Krishna Dutta and Mary Lago have translated
the source sentence thus: "He savoured a memory of a soft
touch from a bangled hand on a feverish forehead" (Datta
& Lago 1991: 28). William Radice's version is: "He
remembered the touch on his forehead of soft hands, conch-shell
bangles". (Radice 1994: 44)
Mitter
and Radice make some effort to preserve the speciality of 'Shakha'
in their respective use of "shell bracelets" and "conch-shell
bangles". But the specificity of the bangle is completely
lost in the other two renderings -"tinkling bracelets"
and "bangled hand".
Similarly,
when the postmaster tells Ratan that he would soon be leaving,
never to return, Ratan is overcome by sadness. Her emotions are
conveyed by a stroke of aesthetic ingenuity that is difficult
to parallel in translation: ""]"O]"O
E[?^ YVY
L_T _G_ A[e
AEؚX H[?[
LS "J_ \V E[?^
AE"O ]"O[?
a[[ =Y[
"OY"OY E[?^
[r[? L_ YQT
_G_*". While Ratan's tear-drops are
echoed in the falling raindrops, the flickering lamp reflects
her dampened spirit. Debendra Nath Mitter translates the aforesaid
sentence as: "The lamp burnt dimly and pitpat the rain fell
on an earthen plate through a chink in the dilapidated thatched
roof." (Mitter 1911: 38) In Mashi and Other Stories,
the translated sentence reads: "The lamp went dimly burning,
and from a leak in one corner of the thatch water dripped steadily
into an earthen vessel on the floor beneath it" (Dutta
& Lago 1991: 166). Krishna Dutta and Mary Lago offer the
following version: "The lamp flickered, and at one point
in the room rain dripped from the decrepit thatched roof into
a clay saucer placed on the floor" (Dutta & Lago 1991:
29). William Radice's translation is: "The lamp flickered
weakly; through a hole in the crumbling thatched roof, rain water
steadily dripped on to an earthenware dish" (Radice 1994:
45). The onomatopoeic expressions in Bengali, "mitmit"
and "toptop", find inadequate representations
in all these versions, with Mitter's being a sole attempt to capture
this sound impression in "pitpat". However,
the Bengali word, "toptop", echoes both the falling
tears and the falling rain while "pitpat" captures the
beat of raindrops only.
In
'Shasti', Chandara's decision to embrace the gallows is propelled
by a strong feeling of 'abhiman': "A
E XV[?S %\]X*"
This commonly used
and extremely evocative Bengali word has perplexed translators
over the years. Rajani Ranjan Sen in his translation of the story,
titled, 'The Sentence', published in Glimpses of Bengal Life,
(Sen 1913), steers away from this uncomfortable situation
by omitting the sentence. 'Punishment' by Mary Lago and Tarun
Gupta, published in The Housewarming and Other Selected Writings,
offers the following version: "What a terrible pride this
was!" (Chakravarty et.al 1965: 42) Kalpana Bardhan's
translation is: "How terribly she was reacting to her hurt
feeling" (Bardhan 1990: 69) Krishna Dutta and
Mary Lago write it as: "What unrelenting resentment!"
(Dutta & Lago 1991: 76) William Radice, in his 1991
edition, renders the sentence as, "Such fierce, passionate
pride!" and in his 1994 revised-edition as, "Such fierce,
disastrous pride!" In both the editions, he appends a footnote:
"abhiman: there is no single English word for this
emotion. It includes hurt pride, bruised feeling, and rejection
by someone we love, Chandara is abhiman incarnate" (Radice
1991: 133). Supriya Chaudhuri's rendering of the said source
sentence is: "How terrible was this pride of hers" (Chaudhuri
2000: 118). Radice's footnote is a candid acknowledgement
of the absence of an equivalent in target language usage. By what
degree an English translation of 'Shasti' stands a chance of missing
its mark, becomes evident when one realizes that a sense of 'abhiman'
is the quintessence that spins the story.
The
choice of an equivalent can be further complicated by the translator's
identity and point of view. For instance, William Radice translates
"`[?H[["
in "Jibita o Mrita',
as "husband's house" (Radice 1994: 37). In the
Indian context, "shashurghar" implies literally and
culturally, the father-in-law's house. But Radice naturally reads
with an Englishman's eyes and gives the source language expression
a western interpretation. Expectedly an Indian translating primarily
for a non-Bengali Indian target group would not stray away from
the source expression and select "husband's house" because
this equivalent does not fit into the conventional cultural frame
of an Indian family. Another intriguing factor influencing the
choice of an equivalent is then the kind of target readership
in the translator's mind. When Krishna Dutta and Mary Lago turn
the Indian "[?"O"
into a western "cup" (Dutta & Lago 1991: 65),
in their rendering of 'Madhyabartini,' they actually opt for a
target culture-oriented equivalent. Again, in keeping with English
etiquette, "F_G^
"
in 'Madhyabartini' becomes "shirtless" (Chakravarty
et.al 1965: 45) instead of 'bare-chested' in 'The Girl Between',
published in The Housewarming and Other Selected Writings.
In these instances, subtly but surely, the dominant culture tends
to prevail over its counterpart. And, the western-oriented equivalents,
"husband's house", "cup", "shirtless",
become manifestations of the tussle that generally ensues when
two cultures that are not at par in power equations, encounter
each other in the territory of translation.
Correlating
the Author and the Self-translator
The
topic for deliberation also registers the unusual case of the
author as the translator of his own stories. Apart from assisting,
revising, or partly translating some of his stories, Tagore translated
in full three of his stories from Galpaguchchha These are
'Jayparajay', 'Manbhanjan', and 'Samskar'. These twin roles entwine
the self-translator in entanglements that can be variously explained.
Rabindranath
Tagore had ventured a Bengali translation of percy Bysshe Shelley's
'Love's Philosophy' under the title, 'premtattwa'. The original
as well as the translated texts of the first stanza are quoted
here:
"The
fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single,
All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle-
Why not I with thine?"
(Palgrave
1954: 185)
"XM[?
]`"K T"OX[?
aU
T"OX ]`"K
aG[? -' Y[,
Y[?X[ aU ]`"K
Y[?X
"J[?-a]W[?
YS^\[? !
LGT Ec+ XcE
AE_,
aE_ [?W?[ X^]mS,
AE[? acT ]`"K
%Y[?
%] [? EX X
T][ aX
"
(Sikdar
1998: 40)
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