Recreated creativity

Published November 27, 2016

In ways more than one, literary translations remain one of the most difficult art forms. The debate that skirts the matter is multifarious and questions its very acceptance as an art form. Then, indeed, there is a big question mark regarding the capacity of any translation to convey in actual terms the diction of one culture to another. Prose, it is argued, can still manage this cross-culture journey, but poetry is just about an impossibility. In fact, some, including the likes of Intizar Husain, have insisted over the years that poetic creativity is the only casualty in the process of translation.

The debate is reignited by Jughrafiyay Ke Ma’toob (Victims of Geography) which is a compilation of translations by Anwer Sen Roy of 90 poems by Mahmoud Darwish, the late Arab poet who, for many, represented the voice of Palestinian resistance in the lingering Middle Eastern conflict with Israel.

“In my view, translation is impossible,” writes Roy in the preface. “I consider [the poems] to have been adapted rather than translated … adaptations in the sense that they convey what I felt while going through them … I am not sure how the readers will react to [these] act-post-act expressions, but for me, these are my poems … I will be pleased if they remind anyone of Darwish for it would mean that my effort has reached somewhere close to the original.”


Cross-cultural transition of poetry is a tricky undertaking, but Mahmood Darwish’s writing has survived the journey thanks to Anwer Sen Roy


The much-acknowledged faux-modesty of a poet apart, Roy cannot be too far off the mark in saying what he has said. Metaphors such as, say, olives and dates, do not touch our hearts like they would, and, indeed, do, for an Arab. It’s a cultural idiom that heightens or dims the intensity of the expression and, perhaps more importantly, its derivative pleasure for an audience. Prose is another matter, but poetry is tricky stuff to handle. Two rather high-profile examples might explain the inherent enigma more effectively.

Ghalib’s Persian poetry has been translated, among others, by known Orientalist Ralph Russell into English, and by Iftikhar Ahmad Adani into Urdu. Both are translations directly from the original text, but the difference is monumental. Russell’s translations carry lengthy footnotes and an ‘Explanatory Index’, and even with the help of the two, it is at best a stuttering effort. Adani’s translation, on the other hand, is flowing poetry in perfect rhyme and rhythm in line with the classical Urdu poetry form. This, for sure, has nothing to do with Russell’s own understanding of Ghalib or, for that matter, the Persian language. It is just the cultural chasm at work. Adani was better off because he had to simply do the linguistic adjustments, since Urdu literature, especially poetry, has its similes, metaphors and allusions deeply entrenched in the Persian tradition.

The same is the case, more or less, with the translations of Omar Khayyam by Edward FitzGerald and Seemab Akbarabadi. Be they Ghalib’s couplets or Khayyam’s quatrains, cultural affinity makes it easier and practical to translate Persian into Urdu than into English.

And yet, no one can deny the fact that it is because of Russell and FitzGerald, and indeed many others like them, that the non-Urdu world has any understanding of Ghalib and Khayyam. The AABA rhyme in the English stanza owes its origin in part to FitzGerald’s translations which he did in the mid-19th century. Cross-cultural impediments apart, the utility of translations as such is hard to deny.

It is to Roy’s credit that he has by and large overcome all such stumbling blocks with skilful artistry. The process of bringing Arabic into Urdu has its pitfalls, and the pitfalls become potholes when routed through English, but, using the medium of prose-poem, Roy has produced something that adds to his reputation as a creative soul.

Coming to his aid probably — to some extent at least — is the overriding theme of resistance that Darwish dealt with, and which carries a layer of universality in terms of appeal and acceptance that negates the cultural paradox.

Or when he says,

This, indeed, is as universal as coffee and makes it palatable to readers regardless of their geographical existence. Also, the language, idiom, tone and tenor of political resistance are much the same without any acknowledgement of time and space.

Like millions of Palestinians, Darwish lived the life of a refugee as his village was occupied and later razed by the Israeli army. He was only seven years of age when he had to flee the place in the wake of the 1948 conflict. He spent several years in Lebanon and since the family had missed the official Israeli census, they were considered “internal refugees” or “present-absent aliens” in official terminology.

The refugee status of a young child is reflected in his poetry time and again, giving it a haunted layer that is good for the craft despite being misery for the soul. Roy has captured that with appreciable aplomb in Urdu.

And when the child addresses his mother, Roy makes him sound not just like a native Urdu speaker, but also like an avid follower of classical Urdu poetry. It is by all means recreated creativity.

Exile is a recurring theme in the current compilation, which is understandable, but one thing that separated Darwish from the majority of the Palestinian diaspora was his publicly voiced willingness to coexist with the oppressor without, of course, the oppression.

He talked fondly of his childhood memories of the village and the life around it, in terms that are defined by nostalgia that uses the absence of presence as a means to glorify what is not there anymore. However, he was comfortable with Hebrew language and literature, and, having studied in Moscow, had a leftist leaning that gave his poetic resistance an additional tone of culture over religion.

In an interview with a publication of the Israeli communist party, he stressed the need for both sides to try to coexist without one trying to push the other out. The interview was first published in Urdu by Muhammad Kazim in his book, Arbi Adab Mein Muta’alay (Readings In Arabic Literature; Sang-e-Meel, 2012) and has been quoted in his foreword to the current volume by known literary critic Nasir Abbas Nayyar.

Read against his public stance on the issue, the dialogue form Darwish used in his poems with imaginary Israeli soldiers sounds pretty poignant. But if his poems are anything to go by, the poet was forever busy calming down the demons within.

Having been on the public stage for almost four decades, it is only natural that the zeal of his youth deserted him towards the end. In one of his last epic poems, ‘Mural’, he talked about the “end of the end” and there was a sense of futility about his thoughts.

When he returned to the land in 2007, a year before his death, he was a man disillusioned by the factional strife that had gripped the Palestinians. He famously called it a “suicide attempt in the streets” and wondered ...

These are words and expressions that would resonate readily with Pakistanis, especially those with some idea about Urdu literature related to post-Partition progress — or rather, the lack of it — in the country. Roy has kept the audience in mind while bringing Darwish to our doorstep, and goes a long way towards justifying his preference for the word ‘adaptation’ over ‘translation’ for his effort.

The reviewer is a Dawn member of staff.

Jughrafiyay Ke Ma’toob
(POETRY)
By Anwer Sen Roy
Scheherazade, Karachi
421pp.

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, November 27th, 2016

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