It’s again that time of the year when we have fun spooking each other with stories of ghosts and haunting. While festivals of light1 and darkness vie with each other for a spot on the same date, observances to pay our respects to our forefathers follow at their heels, some before and some after.
In this selection, we bring to you narratives that could be dark, strange or funny or all of these … a selection of poetry, fiction and non-fiction from around the world. Enjoy the reads!
The Ghosts of Hogshead: Paul Mirabile wanders into the realm of the supernatural dating back to the Potato Famine of Ireland in the 1800s. Clickhere to read.
Nagmati: Prafulla Roy’s long story based on strange folk beliefs has been translated from Bengali as Snake Maiden by Aruna Chakravarti. Click here to read.
From Public Domain
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Deepavali or festival of lights is on October 31st this year along with Kali Puja and Halloween. October 30th is Bhooth Chaturdashi, or Indian Festival of Ghosts while All Saints’ Day and all Souls’ Day are observed at the start of November. Early October hosted Pitri Paksha, observances for apeasing forefathers in India. ↩︎
Celebrating poetry around the world, our focus this year is on refugees, immigrants or poetry by migrants… In a way, we are all migrants on this Earth and yet immigration for both climate and war has created dissatisfaction in the hearts of many. Can mankind unify under the single blue dome which covers all our home?
“The Journey” by Alwy Fadhel, an asylum seeker to Australia. The piece is included in the Exile collection of the Refugee Art Project. Art from Public Domain.
We start by welcoming migrants from Jupiter but how do we react to human migrants within Earth… ?
All the Way from Jupiter
By Rhys Hughes
All the way from Jupiter came the refugees, their heads made of hydrogen, and helium, their knees. No one cried: depravity! for we were pleased to help them relocate to Earth: we offered them homes inside plastic domes uncrowded but full of swirling clouds blown by the music of fierce trombones to mimic the crushing gravity.
All the way from one of our homegrown war zones came refugees on their knees and we said: no, no, no, and no again! Go back home right now, be killed, assaulted, it’s all your own fault for being born here on Earth. The newcomers from Jupiter are tubular like cucumbers, but men, women and children like yourselves aren’t welcome.
And what do refugees from war-torn zones on Earth have to add?These are poems by those who had to escape to safety or move homes for the sake of conflict.
I am Ukraine brought to us by Lesya Bakun, while she was on the run from her home to a place of refuge outside her homeland. Click here to read.
Immigrant’s dream brought to us by Ahmad Al-Khatat, who migrated from Iraq to the West to find sustenance. Click here to read.
In some cases, the wounds lingered and the progeny of those who escaped earlier conflicts give voice to past injuries as well as some immigrants who wandered to find a better life share their experiences.
In 1947, Masha Hassan writes of her grandmother’s plight during the Partition of the Indian Subcontinent. Click here to read.
Birth of an Ally reflects Tamoha Siddiqui’s wonder with new flavours she experiences away from her original homeland. Click here to read.
Two Languages by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozabal explores linguistic diversity in immigrants. Click here to read.
These could be listed as turns of history that made people relocate.
Red Shirt Hung from a Pine Treeby Ryan Quinn Flanagan takes two issues into account — violence against humanity and colonial displacement of indigenous people — is that migration? Click here to read.
Products of War by Mini Babu talks of the displacement of humanity for war. Click here to read.
Some empathise with those who had to move and write of the trauma faced by refugees.
Migrant Poems by Malachi Edwin Vethamani reflect on migrants and how accepted they feel. Click here to read.
Birds in Flight by A Jessie Michael empathises with the plight of refugees. Click here to read.
The Ceramicist by Jee Leong Koh records the story of a migrant. Click here to read.
And some wonder about the spiritual quest for a homeland… Is it a universal need to be associated with a homeland or can we find a home anywhere on Earth? If we stretch the definition of homeland to all the planet, do we remain refugees or migrants?
Anywhere Particular by Wendy Jean MacLean reflects on the universality of homes — perhaps to an extent on nomadism. Click here to read.
Where is Home? by Shivani Shrivastav meditates on the concept of home. Click here to read.
Sparrows, a poem translated from Korean by the poet — Ihlwha Choi — questions the borders drawn by human laws. Click here to read.
Journey of Hope by Tagore has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. It explores the spiritual quest for a home. Click here to read the poem in English and listen to Tagore’s voice recite his poem in Bengali.
Some look forward to a future — perhaps in another galaxy — post apocalypse.
In Another Galaxy by Masud Khan translated from Bengali by Fakrul Alam wonders at the future of mankind. Click here to read.
And yet others believe in the future of humankind.
We are all Human by Akabar Barakzai, translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch, is a paean to humanity. Click here to read.
We are all Human
By Akbar Barakzai...
Russia, China and India, Arabs and the New World*, Africa and Europe, The land of the Baloch and Kurds -- Indeed, the whole world is ours. We are all human. We are all human...
Poetry by Masud Khan, translation from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam
MOTHER
In the dust smeared evening
Far away, almost at the margins of the horizon,
The one who is resting all by herself
In a bed laid out under the open sky
Is my mother.
Her bed smells of grass and the antiseptic Dettol.
A tube in her nose supplies her with oxygen,
A saline bottle is attached to her arm,
And she is tied to a catheter too—
It is as if she is getting entangled inextricably
In a jungle of plastic and polythene reeds.
A smoky surreal unreal canopy encircles her bed.
Seemingly after ages, dusk descends on the world,
A few birds and insects form a chorus,
Wailing throatily obscure and dissonant tunes
In amateurish over-excited zeal,
Seeking refuge timorously in that plastic hedge,
At the margin of the horizon,
In the shadow of primeval motherhood.
A FRAGRANT TALE
The world is full of misleading, minus signs and foul smells.
At times, the world feels as heavy and unbearable
As the weight of a son’s dead body on his dad’s shoulder,
Or as stressful as playing the role of a dead soldier,
Or as formidable as a physically challenged person’s ascent up a mountain
Or as painful as caring for a precocious, traumatised child...
Nevertheless, occasionally such stress-laden memories will blur,
And suddenly, wafting on the wind’s sudden mood swing,
A fragrant moment comes one’s way!
Masud Khan (b. 1959) is a Bengali poet and writer. He has, authored nine volumes of poetry and three volumes of prose and fiction. His poems and fictions (in translation) have appeared in journals including Asiatic, Contemporary Literary Horizon, Six Seasons Review, Kaurab, 3c World Fiction, Ragazine.cc, Nebo: A literary Journal, Last Bench, Urhalpul, Tower Journal, Muse Poetry, Word Machine, and anthologies including Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond (W.W. Norton & Co., NY/London); Contemporary Literary Horizon Anthology,Bucharest; Intercontinental Anthology of Poetry on Universal Peace (Global Fraternity of Poets); and Padma Meghna Jamuna: Modern Poetry from Bangladesh(Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature, New Delhi). Two volumes of his poems have been published as translations, Poems of Masud Khan (English), Antivirus Publications, UK, and Carnival Time and Other Poems (English and Spanish), Bibliotheca Universalis, Romania. Born and brought up in Bangladesh, Masud Khan lives in Canada and teaches at a college in Toronto.
Interviewing Bulbul: Remembering Mrinal Sen… Ratnottama Sengupta introduces Bulbul Sharma to converse with her on Mrinal Sen, the legendary filmmaker, reflecting on Bulbul Sharma’s experience as an actress in his film, Interview. Click here to read.
In conversation with Gajra Kottary, eminent screenplay writer, and a brief introduction to her recent book of short stories, Autumn Blossoms. Click hereto read.
Translations
Nazrul’s poem, Samya or Equality, has been translated from Bengali by Niaz Zaman. Click here to read.
Masud Khan’s Fire Engine has been translated from Bengali by Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Let’s look forward to things getting better this New Year with wars tapering off to peace— a peace where weapons and violence are only to be found in history. Can that ever happen…?
Perhaps, all of us need to imagine it together. Feeling the need for peace, if we could dwell on the idea and come up with solutions, we could move towards making it a reality. To start with, every single human being has to believe firmly in the need for such a society instead of blaming wars on natural instincts. Human nature too needs to evolve. Right now, this kind of a world view may seem utopian. But from being hunter-gatherers, we did move towards complex civilisations that in times of peace, built structures and created art, things that would have seemed magical to a cave dweller in the Palaeolithic times. Will we destroy all that we built by warring – desecrating, decimating our own constructs and life to go on witch-hunts that lead to the destruction of our own species? Will human nature not evolve out of the darkness and chaos that leads to such large-scale annihilation?
Sometimes, darkness seems to rise in a crescendo only to be drowned by light emanating from an unknown source. This New Year — which started with an earthquake followed the next day by a deadly plane collision — was a test of human resilience from which we emerged as survivors, showing humanity can overcome hurdles if we do not decimate each other in wars. Bringing this to focus and wringing with the pain of loss, Suzanne Kamata, in her column tells us: “Earthquakes and other natural disasters are unavoidable, but I admire the effort that the Japanese people put into mitigating their effects. My hope is that more and more people here will begin to understand that it is okay to cry, to mourn, to grieve, and to talk about our suffering. My wish for the Japanese people in the new year is happiness and the achievement of dreams.”
And may this ring true for all humanity.
Often it is our creative urges that help bring to focus darker aspects of our nature. Laughter could help heal this darkness within us. Making light of our foibles, critiquing our own tendencies with a sense of humour could help us identify, creating a cathartic outcome which will ultimately lead to healing. An expert at doing that was a man who was as much a master of nonsense verses in Bengal as Edward Lear was in the West. Ratnottama Sengupta has brought into focus one such book by the legendary Sukumar Ray, Abol Tabol (or mumbo jumbo), a book that remains read, loved and relevant even hundred years later. We have more non-fiction from Keith Lyons who reflects on humanity as he loses himself in China. Antara Mukherjee talks of evolving and accepting a past woven with rituals that might seem effete nowadays and yet, these festivities did evoke a sense of joie de vivre and built bridges that stretch beyond the hectic pace of the current world. Devraj Singh Kalsi weaves in humour and variety with his funny take on stocks and shares. Rhys Hughes does much the same with his fun-filled recount on the differences between Sri Lanka and India, with crispy dosas leaning in favour of the latter.
Our stories take us around the world with Paul Mirabile from France, Ravi Shankar from Malaysia, Srinivasan R from India and Rebecca Klassen from England, weaving in the flavours of their own cultures yet touching hearts with the commonality of emotions.
In conversations, Ratnottama Sengupta introduces us to the multifaceted Bulbul Sharma and discusses with her the celebrated filmmaker Mrinal Sen, in one of whose films Sharma ( known for her art and writing) had acted. We also have a discussion with eminent screenplay writer Gajra Kottary on her latest book, Autumn Blossoms and an introduction to it.
Somdatta Mandal has reviewed Sudha Murty’s Common Yet Uncommon: 14 Memorable Stories from Daily Life, which she says, “speaks a universal language of what it means to be human”. Bhaskar Parichha takes us to Scott Ezell’s Journey to the End of the Empire: In China Along the Edge of Tibet. Parichha opines: “The book evokes the majesty of Tibetan landscapes, the unique dignity of the Tibetan people, and the sensory extremity of navigating nearly pre-industrial communities at the edge of the map, while also encompassing the erosion of cultures and ecosystems. Journey to the End of the Empire is both a love song and a protest against environmental destruction, centralised national narratives and marginalised minorities.” Meenakshi Malhotra provides a respite from the serious and emotional by giving us a lively review of Rhys Hughes’ The Coffee Rubaiyat, putting it in context of literature on coffee, weaving in poetry by Alexander Pope and TS Eliot. Rakhi Dalal has reviewed a translation from Punjabi by Ajeet Cour and Minoo Minocha of Cour’s Life Was Here Somewhere. Our book excerpts from Anuradha Kumar’s The Kidnapping of Mark Twain: A Bombay Mysteryintroduces a lighter note as opposed to the intense prose of Srijato’s AHouse of Rain and Snow, translated from Bengali by Maharghya Chakraborty.
Translations this time take us to the realm of poetry again with Fazal Baloch introducing us to a classical poet from Balochistan, the late Mulla Fazul. Ihlwha Choi has self-translated his poetry from Korean. Niaz Zaman brings us Nazrul’s Samya or Equality – a visionary poem for the chaotic times we live in — and Fakrul Alam transcribes Masud Khan’s Bengali verses for Anglophone readers. Our translations are wound up with Tagore’s Prarthonaor Prayer, a poem in which the poet talks of keeping his integrity and concludes saying ‘May the wellbeing of others fill my heart/ With contentment”.
May we all like Tagore find contentment in others’ wellbeing and move towards a world impacted by love and peace! The grand polymath always has had the last say…
I would like to thank our contributors, the Borderless team for this vibrant beginning of the year issue, Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous art, and all our readers for continuing to patronise us.
With hope of moving towards a utopian future, I invite you to savour our fare, some of which is not covered by this note. Do pause by our contents page to check out all our fare.
Masud Khan’s poem, Dhamkal (Fire Engine), translated from Bengali by Fakrul Alam
Having fled the madhouse, the lunatic darted up the tree. Nothing would make him come down, he said, Except for the pleas of that midget-sized nurse!
The nurse came running, quick as a fire engine, Waving wildly at him. Her gestures were coded messages, Inducing the lunatic to climb down from the tree top Just as a koi fish descends on the dining plate. Entranced by the smell of steaming curry, He descended easily and freely As consecutive numbers do when one counts down.
The lunatic’s thoughts flickered across the nurse’s consciousness.
This day that mad man will return once more to his asylum. Placing his head on the confessional, He will soundlessly suffer thirteen electric shocks Designed to induce thirteen confessions from him At the directive of the calm and composed health priest!
Masud Khan (b. 1959) is a Bengali poet and writer. He has, authored nine volumes of poetry and three volumes of prose and fiction. His poems and fictions (in translation) have appeared in journals including Asiatic, Contemporary Literary Horizon, Six Seasons Review, Kaurab, 3c World Fiction, Ragazine.cc, Nebo: A literary Journal, Last Bench, Urhalpul, Tower Journal, Muse Poetry, Word Machine, and anthologies including Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond (W.W. Norton & Co., NY/London); Contemporary Literary Horizon Anthology,Bucharest; Intercontinental Anthology of Poetry on Universal Peace (Global Fraternity of Poets); and Padma Meghna Jamuna: Modern Poetry from Bangladesh(Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature, New Delhi). Two volumes of his poems have been published as translations, Poems of Masud Khan(English), Antivirus Publications, UK, and Carnival Time and Other Poems (English and Spanish), Bibliotheca Universalis, Romania. Born and brought up in Bangladesh, Masud Khan lives in Canada and teaches at a college in Toronto.
Ujjal Dosanjh, former Minister from Canada and former Premier of British Columbia, discusses his autobiography, Journey After Midnight – A Punjabi Life: From India to Canada, and the need for a world with less borders. Click hereto read.
Professor Fakrul Alam discusses his new book of Tagore translations, Gitabitan: Selected Song-Lyrics of Rabindranath Tagore. Click here to read.
Translations
Tagore’sMusalmanir Galpa(A Muslim Woman’s Story) has been translated from Bengali by Aruna Chakravarti. Clickhere to read.
Masud Khan’s poem,In Another Galaxy, has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click hereto read.
Wakeful Stays the Door, a poem by Munir Momin, has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.
Songs of Freedom: An Ordinary Taleis a narrative by Nandani based on her own experiences, translated from Hindustani by Janees. These narrations highlight the ongoing struggle against debilitating rigid boundaries drawn by societal norms, with the support from organisations like Shaktishalini and Pandies. Click hereto read.
“Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them…”
— TS Eliot, ‘Four Quartets: Burnt Norton’(1936)
Humans have always been dreamers, ideators and adventurers.
Otherwise, could we have come this far? From trees to caves to complex countries and now perhaps, an attempt to reach out towards outer space for an alternative biome as exploring water, in light of the recent disaster of the Titan, is likely to be tougher than we imagined. In our attempt to survive, to live well by creating imagined constructs, some fabrications backfired. Possibly because, as George Orwell observed with such precision in Animal Farm, some perceived themselves as “more equal”. Of course, his was an animal allegory and we are humans. How different are we from our brethren species on this beautiful planet, which can survive even without us? But can humanity survive without Earth? In science fiction, we have even explored that possibility and found home among stars with the Earth becoming uninhabitable for man. However, humanity as it stands of now, continues to need Earth. To live amicably on the planet in harmony with nature and all the species, including our own, we need to reimagine certain constructs which worked for us in the past but seem to have become divisive and destructive at this point.
Ujjal Dosanjh, former Minister in the Canadian cabinet and former Premier of British Columbia, in his autobiography, Journey After Midnight – A Punjabi Life: From India to Canada, talks of regionalism as an alternative to narrow divisive constructs that terrorise and hurt others. He writes in his book: “If humanity isn’t going to drown in the chaos of its own creation, the leading nations of the world will have to create a new world order, which may involve fewer international boundaries.” We have a candid conversation with him about his beliefs and also a powerful excerpt from his autobiography.
An interview with Professor Fakrul Alam takes us into Tagore’s imagined world. He discussed his new book of Tagore translations, Gitabitan: Selected Song-Lyrics of Rabindranath Tagore. He has brought out a collection of 300 songs translated to English. In a bid to emphasise an inclusive world, we also have a translation of Tagore’s ‘Musalmanir Galpa’ (A Muslim Woman’s Story) by Aruna Chakravarti. A transcreation of his poem, called ‘Proshno or Questions’ poses difficult challenges for humanity to move towards a more inclusive world. Our translation by Ihlwha Choi of his own Korean poem to English also touches on his visit to the polymath’s construct in the real world, Santiniketan. All of these centring around Tagore go to commemorate the month in which he breathed his last, August. Professor Alam has also translated a poem from Bengali by Masud Khan that has futuristic overtones and builds on our imagined constructs. From Fazal Baloch we have a Balochi translation of a beautiful, almost a surrealistic poem by Munir Momin.
We travel to Andaman with Mohul Bhowmick and further into Sierra with Meredith Stephens. Ravi Shankar travels back in nostalgia to his hostel and Kathleen Burkinshaw dives into the past — discussing and responding to the media presentation of an event that left her family scarred for life, the atomic holocaust of 1945 in Japan. This was a global event more than seven decades ago that created refugees among the survivors whose homes had been permanently destroyed. Perhaps, their stories are horrific, and heart wrenching like the ones told by those who suffered from the Partition of India and Pakistan, a divide that is celebrated by Independence Days for the two nations based on a legacy of rifts created by the colonials and perpetrated to this day by powerbrokers. Aysha Baqir has written of the wounds suffered by the people with the governance gone awry. Some of the people she writes of would have been refugees and migrants too.
A poignant narrative about refugees who flock to the Greek island of Lesbos by Timothy Jay Smith with photographs by Michael Honegger, both of whom served at the shelters homing the displaced persons, cries out to halt wars and conflicts that displace them. We have multiple narratives of migrants in this issue, with powerful autobiographical stories told by Asad Latif and Suzanne Kamata. Paul Mirabile touches on how humans have adopted islands by borrowing them from seas… rather an unusual approach to migrations. We have an essay on Jane Austen by Deepa Onkar and a centenary tribute to Chittaranjan Das by Bhaskar Parichha.
The theme of migrants is echoed in stories by Farouk Gulsara and Shivani Shrivastav. Young Nandani has given an autobiographical story, translated from Hindustani to English by Janees, in which a migration out of various homes has shredded her family to bits — a narrative tucked in Pandies Corner. Strange twists of the supernatural are woven into fiction by Khayma Balakrishnan and Reeti Jamil.
I would like to give my grateful thanks to our wonderful team at Borderless, especially to Sohana Manzoor for her fabulous artwork. Huge thanks to all our gifted contributors and our loyal readers. Borderless exists today because of all of you are making an attempt to bringing narratives that build bridges, bringing to mind Lennon’s visionary lyrics:
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
The Sun’s old. Deadly rays leak out of its decrepit body,
Lashing planets, satellites and asteroids.
Fleeing for dear life, humans and animals run helter-skelter.
Unable to endure the sun’s excruciating heat,
Men and women prepare to move with the Earth forever—
Moving with the planet they love more than any other,
They will seek sanctuary in some distant young galaxy,
Just as bewildered people, uprooted by some raging riot somewhere,
Flee far away to some distant land, lives in their hands,
Forsaking their country, destined to be refugees forever.
One morning, at sunrise,
Planets, satellites and asteroids will stare in astonishment.
At a nine-planet orbital village, a stellar union council of nine wards,
Looking immense, elliptical, though everything else will be the same!
Other planets will be in their orbits as always!
Only cunning, conniving and naughty earth will elude their gaze!
The Sun, that incarnate ball of fire, will be so fiery and indignant then
That it will dart out its mile-after-mile long murky tongue
Spewing furious fumes of loud hitherto unheard curses,
Gurgling lava spilling out from some swollen uvula forever...
It will pursue Earth as long as it can, chastising it all the time
It will flicker its fiery, thundering, curses-spewing tongue incessantly!
As it flees, casting furtive backward glances,
Will Earth ponder for even a moment and exclaim:
“Alas, what’s going to happen to those ill-fated planets—
To Mercury, Venus and Mars?”
Masud Khan (b. 1959) is a Bengali poet and writer. He has, authored nine volumes of poetry and three volumes of prose and fiction. His poems and fictions (in translation) have appeared in journals including Asiatic, Contemporary Literary Horizon, Six Seasons Review, Kaurab, 3c World Fiction, Ragazine.cc, Nebo: A literary Journal, Last Bench, Urhalpul, Tower Journal, Muse Poetry, Word Machine, and anthologies including Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond (W.W. Norton & Co., NY/London); Contemporary Literary Horizon Anthology,Bucharest; Intercontinental Anthology of Poetry on Universal Peace (Global Fraternity of Poets); and Padma Meghna Jamuna: Modern Poetry from Bangladesh (Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature, New Delhi). Two volumes of his poems have been published as translations, Poems of Masud Khan(English), Antivirus Publications, UK, and Carnival Time and Other Poems (English and Spanish), Bibliotheca Universalis, Romania. Born and brought up in Bangladesh, Masud Khan lives in Canada and teaches at a college in Toronto.
Professor Fakrul Alam discusses his new book of Tagore translations, Gitabitan: Selected Song-Lyrics of Rabindranath Tagore, published by Journeyman Books, Dhaka
Professor Fakrul Alam
Professor Fakrul Alam translates Tagore songs with a passion, refers to them as ‘song-lyrics’. In a recent essay, he claimed his favourite book is the Gitabitan, which houses 2232 songs by Tagore. The first edition of the book was published in 1931 and 1932 in three volumes. Over a period of time, Vishwa Bharati combined the three into one single volume.
During the pandemic, Professor Alam — a translator who has been lauded for his translation of Jibananda Das and also something as diverse from poetry as the autobiography of the founding father of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman — took to translating Tagore songs to make a 300 strong collection, which has been published recently. When asked what was the basis for his selection of the songs, he responded: “What was the basis of my selections? Most important was my love for them. I listen to Rabindra Sangeet, that is to say, the songs of Rabindranath Tagore, every day without fail, unless I am travelling outside Bangladesh. Over the years, some songs by a few singers became so much a part of me that I began translating them. As was the case with my Jibanananda Das translations, you could say that translation was an act of homage as well as a way of coming really close to what you love. It strikes me also that many of the songs I ended up translating are by my favourite Tagore song singers — artistes like Debabrata Biswas and Kanika Bandhopadhyay for instance. Once again, translation as an act of possession!”
Professor Alam has been the recipient of both the Bangla Academy Literary Award for translation and the SAARC Literary Award. He has published around a hundred translations of Tagore songs and poems, edited and translated The Essential Tagore with Radha Chakravarty and lectured in a number of countries about Tagore. In his recently published translation, Gitabitan: Selected Song-Lyrics of Rabindranath Tagore, he brings to us a wide variety of songs which he has grouped into different sections. In this interview, he discusses his translated works, especially his new book.
You have translated Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and Jibanananda Das, Nazrul and Tagore. What turned you towards translating poetry from prose?
Actually, I translated poetry first and then switched to translating prose. The first literary pieces I translated were poems by Jibanananda Das—surely the greatest Bengali poet of the twentieth century, if we leave aside Rabindranath Tagore who, of course, began writing poems towards the end of the nineteenth century and stood out among Bengali poets till his death in 1941. I then turned to translating some Tagore poems and songs for The Essential Tagore (2011) that I co-edited with Radha Chakravarty.
Also, from the time my book of translations of Das’s poems came out I either ventured into translating some poems by contemporary Bangladeshi poets from time to time either because I felt like doing so, or as responses to requests of a few poets to translate their verse. An example is Masud Khan, some of whose poems you have published in my translations in Borderless.
What moved you into translating?
I have to begin answering this question by once again naming the person I mentioned at the beginning of my answer to your previous question—Jibanananda Das. It was when I came across his works in Abdul Mannan Syed’s selection of his poems in the mid-1990s, and was so swept away by them, that I felt like translating Das’s verse. This was translation as an act consequent to being possessed—or if you like—gripped. Poems like “Banalata Sen” or “Abar Ashibo Pheere[1]” or “Bodh[2]” or “Aat Bachor Age Ek Deen[3]” seemed to want me to translate them. In fact, my translation of the word “Bodh” for the English poem is “Overwhelming Sensation” and that is how I would say I was taken by these works. And once I started with these poems I felt like translating a whole lot more.
You have a book of Das’s poetry and many poems of Tagore in various anthologies and sites. What made you decide to do a book of Tagore translations?
Rabindranath, of course, is the summit as far as Bengali poetry and song-lyrics are concerned. Because I grew up in a house where his songs were either being performed on the radio or on television, or sung by one of my sisters, in retrospect it appears to me that I was destined to translate them sooner or later. Once I had published Jibanananda Das: Selected Poems in 1999, I began to translate a poem or song by Rabindranath every once in a while. When I heard some of Rabindranath’s songs being sung by a singer like Debabrata Biswas or Kanika Badopadhyay, I felt I had to translate them. And that is how I ended up with the nearly 300 songs that constitute Gitabitan: Selected Song-Lyrics.
Is translating Tagore different from translating other poets?
Of course, and inevitably! Almost every great poet writes differently from his predecessor or contemporary poets and composes uniquely. As the great American critic, Harold Bloom, has put it in talking about Western canonical poets, they suffer from “the anxiety of influence” and must destroy all vestiges of their predecessor poets in them. They may begin conventionally but will soon find their distinctive voice or voices. They will as well move away from their earlier works all the time and not get stuck with one style. Thus, Tagore kept experimenting and, so to speak, shifting gears and taking new routes in versifying all the time. This is also true of Jibanananda. That makes the early Tagore or Das different from the later versions of these poets. In Tagore’s case, let me stress that he was particularly polymathic and kept opting for distinct poetic directions all the time. But as far as I can tell what makes him truly different is the musician in him. In particular, the songs have melodic components that take them away from established poetic forms. In fact, I would be happier with the term “song-lyrics” for his songs. Only in his later verses, did he move away from a melodic base towards relatively free verse or prose-poems. And so a translator of Tagore must strive to capture the music in his poetry, especially the songs, which makes the task of translating him quite a distinct as well as challenging task.
Tell us about this new book of Tagore translations. Are the translations a collection of your earlier publications or do you have new songs?
My new book is the result of years and years of translating the song-lyrics, something I do mostly during weekends. A few of them I published in Bangladeshi English language newspapers and a few came out in periodicals like Six Season Review, which I co-edited.
A few in have come out in Borderless. But all these years, I translated not with a definite plan but unsystematically. It was during the enforced period of home confinement during the pandemic years, however, that my translations of the songs gained momentum. I began at around this time to post my translations on FB regularly, hoping that the comments I receive would include constructive ones that would enable me to revise my work, if and when necessary. Nabila Murshed, an ex-student now living in the United States, then came up with the idea of forming a FB group called “Gitabitan in Translation” for not only my translations of the songs but also those of others who might be interested in contributing their own translations, or sharing their responses to the translated songs posted. She also decided to complement the translations with recorded versions of the songs that she collected from YouTube. All these things eventually led me to the idea of publishing a full book of translations.
I then hired an ex-student as a kind of assistant to sort out the songs I had been translating, according to the divisions and sequencing Tagore imposed on them in his collection. There are thus 13 divisions in my book, one of which, “Prokriti” or “Nature”, is itself divided into six sections following the six seasons of the Bengali calendar. But to sum up my answer to your question, the majority of the song-lyrics are going to see in print for the first time. I would say no more than 100 of them have been printed before.
Sometimes, your republications change from the earlier publications. The words change. Have you done that in this anthology too?
Occasionally. As I said previously, I translate a song when I hear it on YouTube. I might listen to the same song a couple of years later and feel like translating it again, forgetting at times that I had translated it before. This led occasionally to 2 or 3 versions of the same songs. Inevitably, while these versions would be close to each other, they would never end up being exactly similar. For the final round of selections for my book, however, I have chosen only one version of what I did, that is to say, the one I think was definitive. And, of course, I revised what I had done for the final print version.
Would you consider translating Tagore’ prose?
Of course. And I have translated a few already. For The Essential Tagore I translated “Hindus and Muslims” and “The Tenant Farmer”. And for Shades of Difference: Selected Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, I translated “The Co-operative Principle” and “The Divinity of the Forest.” As these titles indicate, Rabindranath is a writer whose works you can mine for topics that have continuing thematic relevance. That is why all translators will go back to him every now and then for essays and prose extracts relevant for our time.
Would you like to bring out a book of Nazrul translations too?
Who knows? I have translated about 12 of his poems and a short story by this great Bengali writer, who is also Bangladesh’s national poet. But at present I feel more inclined towards going back to Jibanananda Das and will continue to translate more of Rabindranath’s song-lyrics. This is because around the time I published my translations of his poems at the turn of the century, a trunk full of new poems by Das were discovered. Most of them have been published by now. If and when I can, I would like to bring out a new edition of my Das poems, incorporating some of these newly discovered ones. This is because I have already come across some that are truly memorable and deserve to be translated. Certainly, he is a poet the best of whose unpublished as well as published works need to be introduced everywhere.
Tagore is unique in as much he was socially committed to improving the lot of the villagers in Bengal. He practically created Santiniketan and Sriniketan. At a point, he wrote: “My path, as you know, lies in the domain of quiet integral action and thought, my units must be few and small, and I can but face human problems in relation to some basic village or cultural area. So, in the midst of worldwide anguish, and with the problems of over three hundred millions staring us in the face, I stick to my work in Santiniketan and Sriniketan hoping that my efforts will touch the heart of our village neighbors and help them in reasserting themselves in a new social order. If we can give a start to a few villages, they would perhaps be an inspiration to some others—and my life work will have been done.” This was in a letter in 1939 to Leonard Elmhirst, an agricultural scientist who helped him set up Sriniketan. Has any other poet done work of this kind in Bengal? What do you see as his greatest contribution —poetry or his ideals of human excellence and the work he did to realise his ideals?
Very few writers can come close to Tagore as far as the variety of his works are concerned. Such a polymath dedicated to the world of the spirit and the mind as well as human welfare is surely rarely to be found anywhere in any period of world history. Once he took charge of his father’s estates in what was then East Bengal and is now Bangladesh, Tagore plunged into work for the betterment of the people there and the surrounding areas. But he kept writing poems, fictional and nonfictional prose, plays and wrote all sorts of things for the amelioration of his people as well as his own need to articulate beauty and depict the Sublime in all its manifestations. And he would combine theory with practice, carrying out experiments and introducing new ideas for his tenants and others to implement in their farms and lives. His greatest contribution, however, was not only his poetry and prose but also his contribution to Bengali language and literature. I remember Dryden on Chaucer at this point: “He [Chaucer] found it [English writing] brick and left it marble.”
Thank you for giving us your time.
(The online interview has been conducted by emails by Mitali Chakravarty)
Tagore articles & Translations by Professor Fakrul Alam
Fakrul Alam brings to us Tagore songs in translation and in discussion on the season that follows the scorching heat of summer months. Click here to read.
Monomor Megher Songi (or The Cloud, My friend) has been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click hereto read.
Giraffe’s Dad by Tagore: Giraffer Baba (Giraffe’s Dad), a short humorous poem by Tagore, has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Oikotan(Harmonising) has been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam and published specially to commemorate Tagore’s Birth Anniversary. Click here to read.
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[1] Fakrul Alam translates this as ‘Beautiful Bengal’, but lietrally, it means I will return again
[2] Fakrul Alam translates this as ‘An Overwhelming Sensation’, but literally, it means sensation.
Borderless 