—
K Satchidanandan,
Malayalam poet and translator
Translation, for a talented and clued-on
translator like O T J Menon, is a transmigration of ideas and
culture from one fertile language to another. This is no sweeping
statement, considering the fact that he had spent most of his
leisure hours learning new Indian languages only to relish the
oeuvre of the regional poetry in its original form.
Not only did Menon get
acquainted with Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati — not to mention his
mother tongue Malayalam — but he had translated a wide range of
poets from different levels to English and into the regional
languages he is well-versed in.
“Well, I would love
talking to you on my work. But, if you are a person interested in
poetry and appreciate it, I can feel more comfortable with you,” was
Menon’s first reaction over the telephone before this publicity-shy
polyglot, who is neither too conservative nor ultra-modern in
matters of dress, really got down to talk. (Menon passed away some
years back.)
Menon, who had spent more than four decades in
Bombay, acquired the desire to discover the richness and variety of
Marathi poetry firsthand immediately after he migrated to the
metropolis to work with the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
as an administrator. This urge (he had earlier published an
anthology of his own poems in English) was strengthened by the
advice tendered by the famous Malayalam poet, the late Vylopillil
Sreedhara Menon that, “We should imbibe the Marathi culture and
render into Malayalam the best that is available in Marathi
literature.”
“To attain this there was only one option:
to learn to read and write Marathi,” said Menon. “Rendering good
Marathi poems into English was only a humble step to share my joy on
reading them with my friends who were not in a position to read the
originals in Marathi.”
As a first step, he started reading the poems for
his own enjoyment. Then he felt that important among them should be
translated. After the draft translations were ready, he me the
original authors and discussed with them details to get their
approval. “Some of the poets used to read or recite their favourite
work for my benefit. The advantage of talking to the poet before the
work is translated is that one gets to know the background of the
poet. Moreover, if you indulge in a dialogue with them, the full
connotation of the work is grasped.”
Translation is not a mere verbatim process. At
least Menon believes so. And that’s the reason he feels acquainted
with poets equally important as meeting them and discussing about
their works. “Generally I take living authors: this helps me to
grasp the original work’s content, tone and spirit in tact with
almost a photogenic sensitivity. Then I convey it into another
language using suitable words. Appropriateness, I must say, should
be the watchword.”
And the hardship he had to undergo while
translating verse? Menon was the right person to tell you that:
“Writing on one’s own is less laborious than translations. While I
was working on Malayalam writer Sridhara Menon’s poem, That Bunch
of Flowers, I couldn’t provide a verbatim translation for the
word preetham, which can be light red, pink or deep pink in
the Malayalam language. Moreover, the context in which the word was
used was to denote ‘in the pink of health’, which, ultimately, I had
to use though it didn’t convey the exact connotation. I believe that
while translating, the spirit of the poem has to be conveyed. This
can only be possible when the same meaning and the idea are
transcribed in the possible phraseology in the language into which
the work is translated.”
Menon also remembered translating K G Shankara
Pillai’s Suddenly the Star Brigade for the magazine Poesis
after useful discussions with the poet, which helped Menon “to
bring out the full implications latent in his lines.”
One decade ago, encouraged by poet like Mangesh
Padgaonkar, Vinda Karandikar and critics of the stature like Dr
Vijaya Rajadhyaksha, Menon published an anthology of Marathi poems
titled Glimpses of Marathi Poetry. This collection had 19
poems by 14 poets, all translated by him and published in reputed
journals and newspapers. “The response was very good, spontaneous
beyond my expectations. Shanta Shelke, one of the poets included in
the collection told me: ‘You have translated my poem Colours Run
Riot keeping the spirit of the poem in tact, and I feel that
translated version is more effective than my original verse’.
Comments like were the greatest reward I could get.”
Among the four languages, he felt poets in
Marathi are more powerful. “Poets like Vasant A Dahake, Satish
Kalsekar and Tulsi Parab are all good poets. Ashok Naigaonkar, Arun
Mhatre, Niranjan Uzgare and Ashok Bagwe, who form part of a group
which travels to remote areas holding poetry sessions, are a
promising young lot. Marathi literature can continue to expect
vibrant works from second-generation women poets like Pradnya
Lokhande, Rajani Parulekar and Aruna Dhere. And talking about Dalit
poetry, the relevance of poets like Namdeo Dhasal and Yashwant
Manohar perhaps lies in the fact that they mirror the life and
problems of the urban poor.”
That doesn’t mean poets in Malayalam, Gujarati
and Hindi are so behind. “In Malayalam, there are talented poets
ranging from Kadamanitta Ramakrishnan, Attoor Ravi Varma,
Balachandran Chullikad and K G Shankara Pillai to Sugathakkumari.
And the present generation poets like A Ayyappan, Vijayalakshmi, P
Indira and V M Girija are quite active. Hindi poetry can boast of
poets like Chandrakant Deothale and Rithuraj, and in Gujarati two
names worth mentioning are Udayan Thakkar and Suresh Dalal.”
Despite the noteworthy efforts he had done, Menon
always kept a low profile, always shunning away from fame in a world
where rat race for publicity has always been the catchword. “I
believe that one should live within his means. When the circumstance
improves, I alter my lifestyle correspondingly,” said Menon, who
accepted change, but slowly. He was a man of regular habits, did not
neglect any aspect of life though poetry got high priority in his
scheme of things and demanded his maximum attention.
Born in a middle-class family at Irinjalakuda (in
central Kerala) in 1931, Menon’s parents took a keen interest in
teaching him both the English and Malayalam languages.
In 1948, after completing his high school, he
left for Bombay in quest of a job. While working for the Tatas he
attended part-time classes in the Jai-Hind College, from where he
graduated in philosophy. Here he found poetry blossoming: Menon
wrote romantic, philosophical and nature poems.
Menon took diplomas in different management and
industrial relations and financial control. H also passed ‘Kovid’ of
Wardha in Hindi and a certificate course in Marathi conducted by
Mumbai Marathi Sahitya Sangh.
Two of Menon’s poems were accepted by the
Canberra Fellowship of Australian Writers in their preliminary
selection during a talent contest covering Asia. And in 1957 his
first book, Stray Petals (a collection of his poems in
English), was published when he was a graduate. Sir C P Ramaswamy
Aiyar, Dewan of the erstwhile Travancore state, praising the book,
wrote to him: “You possess not only the gift of apt phrasing but you
have a real sensitiveness to beauty which, if further cultivated,
will result in memorable work.”
When I last met him he was 65. Intellectually
quite agile then, Menon was leading a happy though busy life. His
wife, Manorama, retired as headmistress of a local high school, his
only son is a computer professional, married with a kid now. The
last few years of his life were in Kochi. Before he bade farewell to
Bombay, he told me over telephone: “[Once I settle in Kochi] I think
I would be able to devote much time for my passion: writing and
translation. I’m in constant touch with poets and their works in
different languages and I believe I can do more justice to them
keeping myself away from the busy life.”
He was planning more compilations of his
translations: the first one, from English; another, from Marathi
into English; and the third, a collection of women poets from
different regional languages. “I will compile them provided some
enterprising publisher or some literary organisation take the
initiative. My pre-conditions are mainly two: i) the books should be
published error-free; ii) they should be aesthetically produced. I
am clear on these points which I will never compromise.”
But a sudden death might have put an end to his
dreams, and it is yet to be known how much of his dreams really bore
fruit. I need to find out.
I vividly remember the last question I asked him:
“Why do you translate, apart from the personal satisfaction that you
have gained?” He told me: “Writers of different language groups work
in a watertight compartment. Hence, good translation helps in
bringing about an understanding within the language groups in the
country. We are in a state where we know French and German, not
Malayalam or Bengali. So, ironically, we are not in a situation to
understand the value of the regional strength. Mine is a humble
effort to break the regional barrier.”
