Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Old translation of Gujarati poem

I had published a number of translations of Gujarati poets in Indian Literature, a journal that is published by the Sahitya Akademi [The National Academy of Letters, India] in 1997, in an issue numbered 181.

One such poet is Labhshankar Thakar who is known as a modernist poet in Gujarati. The translation can be seen in the printed copy of the journal but here it has already been reproduced on Muse India, which is an online literary journal, so, I am sure there are no copyright issues. Here is the poem:

Sunlight

In the morning dew sunlight
melts.
Melts, melts a mountain of shadows.
And in tears
the green thorn thistle
drowning floating
floating drowning
colliding whirling comes
near the wild thorn thistle.
On the thorn thistle,
a sandgrouse sits sandgrouse sits sandgrouse sits
its wing trembles trembles trembles.
In the grandfather's eyes, light dims.
In the dim dim dawn dawn
light light
oho I hear again oho I hear from a distance
in the thak .... thak .... thak .... thak .... sounds
I become a flower and blossom
blossom
become a tree and swing
swing
become an ocean and drown
drown
become a mountain and jump
jump
become the sky and shatter
shatter becoming sunlight
becoming sunlight scatter
I touch the deep of the morning's dew-ocean.
My crunched crunched edge goes on melting.
Melts melts a mountain of shadows!
Hope you enjoyed it!


3 comments:

ali said...

was more of a beamer for me.but i guess,like in other myriad activities.you are an exponent of this art also.no wonder that am so fond of you.and try to emulate you in my own way.its good that you clubbed regional poets in the category of modernists.since its very much dominated by the western coterie of organic intellectuals.cheers to this enlightening and intellectualy stimulating beginning.thumbs up!

Roomy Naqvy said...

Aha! [that word should be my only joyful reaction to your comment. If I keep on writing more as a reply, it would take away from the delight I feel reading your comment.]

Anonymous said...

you have once again come up with your own unique style sir !three cheers for you !!!
well you must be surprised why i posted my comment in this topic? that is because i have seen you speaking fluent gujarati when we were there in december, thus it made me interested in gujarati as well........

i hope you continue these kind of initiatives because through these you have always inspired us in our academic and non-academic life.

This blog is about a personal history but also about a professional life. It is about an English professor but also about a professional translator. It is in fact about a life well-lived and how to live a life pretty well.

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