Bharati’s immortal lines get an English rendition

In March 1919, when Mahatma Gandhi was planning the launch of a protest against the Rowlatt Act at the house of an eminent journalist in Madras,

Subramania Bharati

, barged into the house to meet him. He invited Gandhi to preside over a meeting that he was supposed to address that evening. V Ramaswamy Iyengar who recorded the event says Gandhi politely expressed his inability to attend the event due to other appointments. After Bharati left, C Rajagopalachari, a co-occupant of the house told Gandhi, "He is our Tamil nationalist poet". Gandhi is said to have remarked that good care must be taken of him.

That did not happen. There was no one to take care of Bharati, except for his friend Duraiswamy Iyer and S Srinivasan, the editor of Swadesamithran. Braving penury, Bharati wrote prolific poetry and prose in the short span of 39 years that he lived. On July 31, 1921, he spoke on the topic, ‘man is deathless’ at Erode. Although he passed away on September 12 the same year, his immortal works proved that man can indeed be deathless. His works were later published in successive stages with much difficulty.

Though

translations

of his works have been rendered in shorter versions, in what could be called a long-pending tribute to the poet the Sahitya Akademi, recently brought out the entire collection of his poems translated into

English

within the covers of a single book. Titled ‘Subramania Bharati’, the

book

would not only be useful to Bharati lovers, but will also come in handy for those interested in Tamil literature. While the poems have been translated by eight prominent scholars, the collection has been edited by scholar, poet and two-time winner of Sahitya Akademi award Dr Sirpi Balasubramaniam. The volume contains poems written by Bharati on a range of themes — from devotional, patriotic, philosophical to mythological, epic and autobiographical poems.

Bharati’s poems are eternal in nature. As Sirpi says, "Bharati felt a life of action is a requisite in an enslaved nation fighting for freedom against the British empire". On a metaphorical level it depicts the inner struggle within all of us who are torn between material desires and the want to overcome it.

Translating poetry is not an easy job. Prof K R Srinivasa Iyengar once said, "Poetry by its very nature is untranslatable. Ideas can be translated from language to language, but poetry is the idea touched with the magic of phrase and incantatory music. A competent translator can, however, play the good broker between the poet and the reader, and surpassing the mere prose of statement can give intimations of the poet’s sovereign utterance. Good translation can create trust and stimulate interest."

One such translator is Dr K S Subramanian, a former civil servant who has translated 42% of the poems for the collection. When asked what inspired him to take up this mammoth job, he says, "I was fascinated by Bharathi’s poems since my school and college days. In the initial years, his ‘patriotic songs’ attracted me the most. With passing years the spiritual element in his poetic corpus enthralled and enriched me."

Explaining that the element of spirituality found in Bharati’s poems is a sublime manifestation of the poet’s innate humanity, Subramanian says his poetic world is suffused with the sentiments of universality, spirit of freedom, love, lust for life, conquest of fear and human welfare. "These aspects have also determined my choice of poems for translation."

Speaking about the language of translation, Subramanian says there are major factors like meaning and rhythm and in dealing with these aspects one should have the sensitivity of a ‘rasika’ and not the scholarship of a pedant. He says while translating a work the connotative meaning should take precedence over the denotative meaning. That aspect is the most prominent in this translation that has left the original essence in its place. The fact that the words have not replaced feeling and the ‘magic of the phrase’ has been maintained is the success of the book.

(The author is a culture enthusiast)