GK Adiga's 'demon-past' haunts AK Ramanujan...
..from the darks of the nether-depths... into the grove of holy basil beyond...
In which, behold, a Chicago University linguistics professor of a multi-faceted Kannada-Tamil-English dead poet's humble translation work in English, gets extensively modified (rather 'editoriated' / EXORcised) by a Kannada-medium village-bred faceless unhumble pedestrian indignant alive...
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" The ex / The Buried / The Spirit of the Tense Past "
(AKR-MGK's translation of GKA's 'Bhootha', but heavily edited / reworked by yours truly)
Here at haunting, the fetus-crypts of the tense-past:
the stale air of the abyss inside the pent old well
is crawling up, heads down, on all fours
leaping on the back of the lullabying sunbeam
is gushing even onto the canopy of the holy basil grove.
The corded umbilical discarded at the bank
the cut-mouse-tail writhes.
To me who gropes with eyes stuck in darkness
flashes, all of the sudden, a golden streak:
a squirming feather-burnt star--
somehow fallen into the new-moon-moats.
The past ghosts all over the Current Affairs.
One fold above the water, seven snow-capped peaks beneath;
out of blue accidentally fire-speak spitting
snow cowered innocent volcano.
Fold up the paper if you will --
in the soundless skeleton rooms
dumb beckoning missing beats
the carnival of reversed feet.
In the waters stagnant in the inner depths
heaping spermatozoa beating their hands;
beneath the curtain-fall of the dais-noir,
the speak-picking tail of glitter-point, - do these
not desire out-yard's colorful canopy of creepers and flowers?
No water and no shelter for the fathers and forefathers.
Shuttling tight through the high winds and rough tides
toughly, the lands though found, seldom could they obtain.
I know the tantra of exorcism, libation,
yet have forgotten the mantra herein;
just vacuously thus I am playing at waving the wand.
Gosh! trusting the high priests, west we went;
at least now must one dig into the est. hermeneutics:
the stemming of karma, the cantos of action.
As one digs, first a chrysalis of clay;
pushing the shovel deep and striking hard
one might glimpse the streaking ore of gold.
The alchemies of extraction, burning and decanting
one should learn a little, at least now;
the true craft of heating and beating the gold--
to cast it in the image of one’s own preferred god.
The water that rots in the well, steams well above;
all along the sky--its causal pathway;
the invisible seed of the void room of the overcast sky
the all-nine-months longing fetus-shape--
rumbling of liminal ghost, troubling of thunderclap--
rain is the news--
presentation for the past-form.
The plowed and seeded fields donning the laboring earth;
the garden of swinging fruits, paddy and wheat,
the golden pinnacles of the temple towers.
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For the originals, see:
https://ruthumana.com/2018/03/22/2-translations-a-k-ramanujan/
See also:
1) 'Emergent' -- a contemporary counterpoint to this buried 'Bhootha'.
0) 'Aavirbhootha' -- the urgent counterpoint emergent in Kannada (with 2 epilogues).
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The Backword, background, premise, promise...:
ರಾಮಾನುಜನ್ನರಿಗೆ ಸಿಕ್ಕೂ ದಕ್ಕದ ಅಡಿಗರ ಭೂತ:
We read with intrigue, the English translation of Gopalakrishna Adiga's celebrated Kannada poem "Bhootha", entitled '"Ghost and Past"', which is done by A.K. Ramanujan (AKR, with MG Krishnamurthy, apparently). We find it somewhat misconceived, especially on account of the 'tense' that is involved.
Originally, in 'Bhootha', Adiga, in present, thinks aloud regarding the 'spirit' in which the past is (not) to be taken, so as to realize the 'golden future' of his ideals. In its initial portions, Adiga, utilizing dense metaphors -- most of which are in the present-continuous tense -- describes the ways in which the 'past' is haunting him. In the intermediate portions, he shifts to discuss the prospect of exorcising this ill-spirit of past. And then in the next portion, he talks about a rather positive spirit in which the past could be taken, ultimately arriving at the 'golden future'. All in all, the poet is situated in the present, and as such, most of his statements are in the present-continuous tense.
We must note here, to the best of what we have come across, Adiga seems to be one of those poets who make very thoughtful choices of words and phrases --- those who carefully craft their statements. (recall, e.g.,anecdotes regarding him finalizing his famous line "ಸುಟ್ಟಲ್ಲದೇ ಮುಟ್ಟೆನೆಂಬುಡಾಫೆ." ). For such cases, it is not sufficient to think just factually by considering how a certain passage is worded, but also to think counter-factually by considering how else otherwise could it also have been worded (that the poet did not chose to do instead). Thus, the poet's omissions should also inform our readings inasmuch as their selections.
For example, consider Adiga's opening lines: "ಕಾಡುತ್ತಿವೆ ಭೂತಕಾಲದ ಭ್ರೂಣಗೂಢಗಳು ''. It would rather sound more abstract, more general, and arguably more stylish if he would instead open either like "ಕಾಡುವವು ಭೂತಕಾಲದ ಭ್ರೂಣಗೂಢಗಳು", or even "ಕಾಡುತ್ತವೆ ಭೂತಕಾಲದ ಭ್ರೂಣಗೂಢಗಳು". But Adiga, resisting such temptations, chose not to go that way. Instead he prefers to resonate a continuous action via 'ಕಾಡುತ್ತಿವೆ...'. And he persists with the same tense throughout the stanza, ending it with "ಹಾಯುತ್ತಿದೆ ತುಳಸಿವೃಂದಾವನದ ಹೊದರಿಗೂ". Highlight here must also be on his intentional usage of the almost explicit first-person forms (e.g., "... ತಡಕುವ ನನಗೆ" / "To me who gropes...").
However, AKR-MGK, in their opening stanza of the translation, have switched to the present-indefinite tense: "Secret embryos of the demon-past haunt..." ans so on. And they persist with it, to end with "...and go beyond into the garden of the basil bush".
(And lest we dig into the evident misconception of them in the same opening stanza. It was the 'stale air' that was gushing out into the holy grove for Adiga -- metaphorically. But, for AKR-MGK, it is literally the secret embryos themselves --" 'in' the stale air...'they' crawl up.. and gush out"..! 🙂↔️)
To us, summarily, this translation of AKR-MGK is inappropriate at least on two counts.
Firstly, in his original 'Bhootha', that the poet Adiga is anchored precisely in the present, it is crucial for the very poem. After all, the poem itself is in parts a meditation on the tenses and times. It is all about the continuous actions in the present, while keeping in mind the pasts and the futures. The structure here is meant to be shaped by a careful choice of tenses, so as to prove again that the form/structure itself is also the content/message of the construct.
Secondly, and arguably, for Adiga, the haunting of the spirit of past is NOT a timeless fact that is aught to go on indefinitely. These spirits are haunting at the present for sure, but he intends to exorcise them in his very next stanzas. He laments to find a better way of engaging with the past, so that these spirits of past should no longer persist with the haunting business.
Further more, and more arguably, unnecessarily, some of the the originally glorious statements somehow have become rather underwhelming in AKR-MGK's translation.
For example:
"...and the rain is the present of past forms",
which, while intelligently brings in the dual meaning of the English term 'present' (i.e., gift, present-tense), still misses another important interpretation of the original kannada term 'ವರ್ತಮಾನ' (i.e., 'news'). That the "rain is news" (to the seeds buried) happens to be a celebrated motif of Adiga's poetry. "ಕಾದುಗಾರಾದ ನೆಲದೊಳಗಿರುವ ಬೀಜ" ಕ್ಕೆ ಗುಡುಗುಸಿಡಿಲು ಎಂಬವು ಮಳೆಯ ವರ್ತಮಾನವನ್ನು ನೀಡುತ್ತವೆ...
Thus, as we go through the choices that AKR-MGK make in their translation, we are tempted to suitably modify it, at the least as an exercise. So, here we are, with this heavily modified translation. As thus, it is not an entirely from-the-scratch written original translation. And, let us emphasize it, it is done here just as an exercise, with no commercial interest whatsoever to infringe any copyright otherwise.
We have also taken the opinion of certain LLMs like GPT, LLAMA etc on our translation. And lest we be triumphant, the feedbacks from LLMs over time have immensely boosted our ego! They are all mostly vindicating our translation--our choices of words and tense forms--over those of AKR etal!!! And lest again we clarify, it seldom involves any original translation in it self by any LLM --every word and sentence in English in here is either from AKR or from yours truly highness, (except perhaps the choice of 'sunbeam' over 'sunlight shaft', thanks to Sumathindra Nadig's translation of 'Bhootha' that we encountered recently ).
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