Sunday, June 2, 2002		Books

Translating Faiz with sensitivity
Amar Nath Wadehra

100 Poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz translated by Sarvat Rahman.
Abhinav Publication, New Delhi. Pages: 344. Price: Rs 400.

THE impressive corpus of protest poetry is an enduring facet of Urdu literature. Some of the most popular Urdu verse directs poets’ ire and satire at the mullahs. Most poets who began as youthful romantics, eventually became society’s conscience keepers. Majrooh Sultanpuri, Majaz Lakhnavi, Kaifi Azmi and Sahir Ludhianvi’s works send a frisson through idealistic hearts even today. Faiz is arguably the tallest of them all.

He stood up for his convictions and suffered at the hands of Pakistani establishment. Essentially a humanist poet, he gave vent to his angst and anger through intense and sometimes caustic verse.

Translating a poet of Faiz’s calibre is not easy, especially when, to quote Robert Frost, "Poetry is what gets lost in translation". For example his Dhaka se wapsi par needs to be understood in its political-historical context. A translator ought to be familiar with the socio-cultural milieu wherefrom the poem comes. While being faithful to the text, one might be doing injustice to the poet’s message.

Should one concentrate on a poem’s essence? The Spanish writer Miguel Jugo is sceptical, "An idea does not pass from one language to another without change".

Often cultural difference creates problems in translation. A western reader, for example, will not appreciate the Saki metaphor as much as, say, someone in Lucknow would.

Sarvat has shown sensitivity to Faiz’s idea as well as expression. Take his short poem Ek Manzar: Bam-o-dar khamoshi ke bojh se chur / Asmanon se ju-e-dard-rawan / Chand ka dukh bhara fasana-e-nur / Shah rahon ki khak mein pin han / Khwabgahon mein nim tariki / Muzmahil lai rubab-e-hasti ki / Halke halke suron mein nauha kunan". Translation: "Roofs and doorways beneath the weight of silence bent, / A river of pain from the skies streaming down, / The heart-rending tale of the moonlight, / In the dust of roadways spent. / In sleeping rooms, semi-obscurity, / Of life’s violin, the faint melody / In muted tones making lament".

Let us compare her translation of Faiz’s another poem Mujh se pahili si muhabbat meri mehboob na mang with Shiv Kumar’s attempt:

Mujh se pahili si muhabbat meri mehboob na mang / Maine samjha tha ki tu hai to darakhshan hai hayat / Tera gham hai to gham-e-daihr ka jhagra kya hai / Teri surat se hai alam mein baharon ko sabat / Teri ankhon ke siwa duniya mein rakkha kya hai. / Tu jo mil jae to taqdir nigun ho jae / Yun na tha, main ne faqat chaha tha yun ho jae / Awr bhi dukh hain zamane mein muhabbat ke siwa / Rahaten aur bhi hain wasl ki rahat ke siwa. / Anginat sadiyon ke tarik bihimana tilism / Resham-o-atlas-o-kamkhwab mein bunwae hue / Ja-ba-ja bikte hue kucha-o-bazaar mein jism / Khak mein lithre hue, khun mein nahae hue’. The poem here is incomplete. The omitted stanzas are: Jism nikle hue amraz ke tannooron se / pip baihiti hui galte hue nasooron mein / laut jati hai udhar ko bhi nazar kya kijey / ab bhi dilkash hai tera husn magar kya kijey / awr bhi dukh hain zamane mein muhabbat ke siwa / rahatein awr bhi hain vasl ki rahat ke siwa / mujh se paihili si muhabbat meri mehboob na mang’.

Sarvat’s Translation: "Don’t ask me now, Beloved, for that love of other days / When I thought since you were, life would always scintillate / That love’s pain being mine, the world’s pain I could despise. / That your beauty lastingness to the spring would donate, / That nothing in the world was of worth but your eyes; / Were you to be mine, fate would bow low before me. / It was not so; it was only my wish that it were so; / Other pains exist than those that love brings, / Other joys than those of lovers’ mingling. / Dark fearful talismans, come down the centuries, / Woven in silk and damask and cloth of gold; / Bodies that everywhere in streets are sold / Covered with dust, all their wounds bleeding".

Shiv’s Translation: "Ask me not for that old fervour, my love. / I had then imagined / that your love would spark off my being, / counterpoise the giant agony of the world / that your beauty would bring every spring to eternal blossom. / And what else was there to cherish but your eyes? / once you were mine / would not fate itself bow to me? / I had only willed it all / but it was not to be, / for there are sorrows other than heartache, / joys other than love’s rapture. / If there are spells of those dark, savage, countless centuries / bodies robed in silk, satin and velvet / then aren’t there also bodies / traded down streets and alleyways / bodies smeared in dust, bathed in blood / bodies emerging from ovens of sickness / bodies with pus oozing from chronic sores? / If these images also seize my eye / even though your beauty still enthralls, / it’s because there are sorrows other than heartache, / joys other than love’s rapture / so ask me not for that old fervour, my love".

One needn’t agree with the South African poet Roy Campbell’s remark, "Translations (like wives) are seldom faithful if they are in the least attractive".