Recreated creativity
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.