205 INGENUITY AND TRANSLATION: MEANINGS OF GHALIB IN TABISH KHAIR S MAN OF GLASS Anurag Chauhan *

Transcription

1 205 INGENUITY AND TRANSLATION: MEANINGS OF GHALIB IN TABISH KHAIR S MAN OF GLASS Anurag Chauhan * Abstract : Tabish Khair s volume of poems, Man of Glass, has one section Stone: Ghalib Speaks in Tongues which has 8 ghazals of Asadullah Khan Ghalib of which Khair has done both transliteration and, as he himself mentions, transcreation. Fidelity to the original is not something which Tabish Khair much cares about and therefore the translations carry much of Khair s own interpretations in an attempt to carry the spirit of Ghalib. This can be seen by comparing his translations with a reputed translation of Ghalib done by Dr Sarfaraz K. Niazi. Khair goes on to link Ghalib s divinity and humanity with his rendering of Shakuntala in an earlier section of the volume and with poems in the final section of the volume too. About the liberties taken with the original, Tabish Khair s views and clarifications to the author shed further light on his efforts. The present paper explores and analyzes the dynamics of this translation/transcreation and of the issue of matter/ content and spirit of the content in a translation. Keywords : Ghalib, Tabish Khair, translation, transcreation The second section of Tabish Khair's volume of poems entitled Man of Glass, published in 2010, is entitled Stone: Ghalib Speaks in Tongues which has eight ghazals of Asadullah Khan Ghalib of which Khair has done both transliteration and, as he himself mentions, I transcreate some ghazals chosen freely (xii). In an to the author he puts this emphatically: I would just like to put on record that I did NOT intend to do a 'translation' of the Ghalib shers. As you can see, the first section and the third section also take up a writer [Kalidas and Hans Christian Anderson] and his work -- but, in very different ways,

2 206 transcreate them. The Ghalib section is similar: I play more consciously, and with my tongue very consciously in my cheek, with the issue of 'translation' ( 7 Dec. 2010) The title of this section is strange, because Ghalib is a lively, romantic poet and anything but stone and the image of the mute stone does not go well with the expression speaks in tongues nor does it acknowledge Ghalib's range amply. Khair has chosen eight ghazals of Ghalib of which he has done translation. But there are elisions even in this selection. From each ghazal selected, Khair has taken only a few sher or couplets and proportion wise, the most Khair has taken from a single ghazal is three out of a total of five shers, and the least he has taken is three out of a total of sixteen shers. This selection, it can be said, is of the best couplets except here and there, for example, from a ghazal selected, Khair has not selected one famous sher, which is: Nikalna khuld se adam ka sunte ae hain lekin Bahut beabru ho kar tere kuche se ham nikle Also, the elision affects the meaning and effect of the whole ghazal, for example, in the first ghazal chosen, Khair leaves the last four couplets and fails to convey the plaint and bewilderment of the lover fully. Among the various translations of Ghalib done, there is a full translation into English done by Sarfaraz K. Niazi. This translation has been arduously done after a lot of research. However, Khair scores over Niazi on the account of retaining rhyme in the translation, making it closer to the original rhymed version by Ghalib. For example, the verse: Dil-e-nadaan tujhe hua kya hai Akhir is dard ki dava kya hai is translated by Khair as: O heedless heart, why do you despond? What cure is there for this painful wound? (35) 207 However, in Ghalib's ghazals there is a refrain of at least one word at the end of each line. Words like hai, ko, aati, nikle, hua, gayeen, ka make up the rhyme at the end of each couplet but in Khair's translation there is a rhyming word at the end of each couplet but that word is not repeated at the end of each couplet of a ghazal. But probably that is because of the syntactical peculiarity of Urdu and Urdu poetry where it is normal for a verb or preposition to come at the end of a sentence but the same is difficult to be done in case of English sentence structure or any such attempt would be too strained and perhaps awkward too. Another account on which the two translations can be compared is the translation of individual couplets. Whereas Niazi pays attention to the translation of both the lines of a sher separately, Khair does not pay attention to the translation of individual lines but to the sense of the whole couplet and to rhyme. To illustrate, this couplet from Ghalib, Qfas men hun gar achcha bhi na jaanen mere shavan ko Mera hona bura kya hai navasanjan e gulshan ko Is translated by Khair thus: Why should my plaint immured in hall and hearth Distract the garden birds from songs of mirth? (39) There is one couplet which is, surprisingly, absent from Niazi's translation which in original is: Khuda ke vaaste purdah na Kaabe ka utha zalim Kahin aisa na ho yaan bhi vahi kaafir sanam nikle This seemingly sacrilegious sher (surprisingly, this sher is not mentioned in Niazi's translation) is translated by Khair but his transliteration puts vaaiz (preacher) instead zalim (cruel).in his translation Khair translates kafir sanam which Ghalib uses for a hardhearted lover as god of stone (42). In the same ghazal the preacher is shown in the den of wine, unchaperoned and this word is not mentioned by Ghalib and seems to have been put by Khair only to maintain the rhyme... This is not an isolated example where Tabish Khair has skewed the original expressions. In an-

3 208 other ghazal he has presented the transliteration with the word sur (melody) (37) whereas the word used by Ghalib is soz (burning/ agony); dil-e-nadaan should be translated as 'simple/simpleton heart' but Khair does it heedless (35); similarly na pooch (don't ask) does not look too well translated as Don't claim (45). The whole ghazal, Kavikave sakht jaani haai tanhai na puunch/ Subah karna sham ka laana hai juye-sheer ka translated as Don't claim to tell the lonely back of work,/to turn night into day, replenish dearth (45) seems slipshod translation where sense has been sacrificed for the sake of rhyme and Niazi's translation Inquire not of my forebearance to the incessant hammering in the loneliness/ Turning night into day is like unearthing a channel of milk (2) is precise and much better here. Khair translates Bandagi as worship (43) whereas Niazi translates it as servitude ; in the same couplet Khair's version of azad o khudbin hain ki hum is I retain such self-respect (43) presenting it as a personal irreverent ideology of self, which can be related to Ghalib and his conduct either in love or in religion. Niazi, on the other hand, uses the expression we are so independent and self-centered (100) and throughout the ghazal his use of we seems to prove a theological philosophy of Ghalib about mankind, even though Niazi concedes at a point in explication of the ghazal that the verse can be interpreted to refer to the relationship between lover and the beloved. In the same ghazal, Khair translates seeney ka daagh hai who naala ki lub tak na gaya as A spot on your conscience is the cry repressed (43) and the whole couplet becomes vague, whereas Niazi seems right in translating it as The sigh that did not make to the lips turned into a scar of the heart (102). Another glaring mistake by Khair is when he translates khamosh which means 'silent' or in a figurative sense, as in the context, 'extinguished', as alight so whereas the candle is extinguished for Niazi, it is alight for Khair (37). Khair is able to convey the quiet of the post-revelry night even with a candle alight though. But perhaps the greatest deviation from the meaning by Khair is in the translation of the couplet 209 Naksh fariyaadi hai kis ki shokhi e tahreer ka Kaaghazi hai pairhan har paikre-tasveer ka where Ghalib is dramatically presenting the word, may be, The Word and the complain of it may be against the wantonness of the writer or of the Creator and it may be the word or the world/ mankind dressed in a paper attire, as Niazi's explication says, justifiably, since it is the first verse of the opening ghazal of the collection and so, indirectly may be referring to the Creator. But Khair translates it: Such richness fills the aspects of this earth, Each man's a beggar seeking alms of worth, which is not merely cryptic but quite at a tangent from the meaning which is correctly, even if too literally brought out by Niazi's translation which reads Against whose playful writing are the words complainants?made of paper is the attire of the countenance of every image.(khair2010:45) Khair, however, says explaining his version: I do think that my use of the Naksh fariyadi hai sher is not as surprising as it appears. To understand it you have to refer to ancient Persian traditions: according to some sources, petitioners to the emperor had to dress themselves in a 'parchment/paper' garment. I am certain Ghalib had that tradition in mind. So I twisted my poem to bring that out. ( to author 9 Dec. 2010) In this aspect, both Niazi and Khair seem to have touched upon and played on this image of a paper attire being worn by the words. In the choice between sound and sense, Niazi, perhaps also because he is not a poet like Khair, chooses sense over sound. Another strange thing that occurs in Khair's transcreation is on page 42 of Man of Glass where there is a typographical mistake- -surprising for a Harper-Collins book-: the first one of Khair's version on that page is for Ghalib's second sher, the second for third of Ghalib, and the third for Ghalib's first sher. Khair has a very interesting view about this inventiveness. He says: The switch on page 42 is also NOT a typo: I insisted on it. It was one of my

4 210 devices to separate my poems from a simple translation: and only a bilingual reader would catch it!!! So, to be honest, that section is more tricky than it appears to... ( to author 9 Dec. 2010) In case of Ghalib's original Urdu version, the second line is a complement to the first: the first takes expectation or suspense to a high from where the second fills it with colour, intensity and rounding off into a fuller meaning, and the same can be seen in Khair's translation also. Tabish Khair accepts that he has taken some liberty with the arrangement of the couplets and their interpretation and asserts in the Preface to his collection, What matters to me.is not any narrow motion of fidelity to the original but an engagement with the spirit of the work, which, in Ghalib's case, is always iconoclastic and seriously mischievous. (xii) Even though this acceptance can not absolve Khair of his mistakes, it is in two things, apart from rhyme, that Khair scores over Niazi. The first is his transcreation and inventiveness. This is seen in his use of Ghalib's verses in the earlier section of his volume entitled Water: Fragments from the Cognition of Shakuntala but Kalidasa's Shakuntala has been turned into the daughter of a secular Muslim scholar, brought up in an environment of quoted Urdu poetry (especially Ghalib) and given a classical Hindu name by the parents; her loss and betrayal take place in our world (xii). Here, Ghalib's shers are used in a context created by Khair and the transliteration is the part of the main text, whereas the translation comes as footnote. In the poem Backwaters, Khair presents a bleak picture of a wasteland where justice and freedom are a far cry and people live in an oblivion and there Khair quotes Ghalib's couplet Khuda ke waaste (5) as an ironic reminder not to become aware of reality. One example of Khair's transcreation is when the wit of seriously mischievous Ghalib's sher about the serious affliction of a lover being taken as a matter of fun mentions Hamza a colourful storyteller. Khair's translation is: 211 If blood doesn't drip from every line of love-verse, It's only fit to go on sale with Dan Browns! (43) Also, while Niazi is more scholarly in terms of rendering the meaning of individual words exactly, Khair is better in carrying the spirit. His translation would be more liked by someone who wants to get introduced to Ghalib without much exertion, and more enjoyment. Khair shaves off the spikes in expression and turns it smooth but Niazi would be more interesting to a diligent scholar. Similarly, Ghalib mentions somewhat explosive words Mare butkhane main to kaabe main garo brahman ko the explanation of which is somewhat diplomatically done by Niazi relating it to permanent faithfulness in belief (472) but Khair gives no explanation and his translation is more diplomatic without mentioning the word 'brahman' even if the followers of idol worship are mentioned. It is: The point of faith is constancy: bury The priest of idols in Kaaba's earth. (39) Both the translations fail in this case to tell clearly if it is Ghalib attacking a certain religious practice as against his own or he is emphasizing on the devotion of the heart, no matter where one physically is. Similarly Khair's version with the deletion of one word is Why eyes whose depths no one can sound? and it is aesthetically better than Niazi's version What is the purpose of those antimony-blackened eyes? (617) Even though Khair overreaches with his translation sometimes, he has done an interesting translation of Ghalib. He says, defending it: That [twisting the poem to bring out a certain meaning] is what I have done at times in general: I have taken one aspect, and sometimes ignored the dominant (oft-translated) aspect of shers... ( to author 9 Dec. 2010) He has been largely successful at the semantic level, reproducing the core of Ghalib's text. At syntactical level too, Khair has done well, given the limitation of the target language. Referring to John D. Sinclair's exemplary 1939 translation and commentary of Dante's The Divine Comedy David Moiley says in Cambridge Introduction to Creative Writing,

5 212 Instead of faithfully translating the other language, the writer imitates the original to produce a version of it; plays variations upon it; or uses it to create starting points for a wholly independent piece of work. The final aim is to own it, and this is a writing exercise you should try for yourself. Your own writing gains by this use of translation. If artistic creation is a mirror to nature, then variation is a mirror on a mirror. (73) Khair's mirror is such too: showing some features to advantage and some not so well. His intention becomes very clear when he says The Ghalib originals in my book are NOT meant to act as 'originals-to-be-translated' but as 'poemson-which-i-base-my-poems-as-transcreations': the reader is meant to read both, together and separately, thinking about the convergences and the divergences, and how they relate to contemporary issues. In that sense, that section presumes a bilingual reader from North/Central India... ( to author 7 Dec. 2010) If there has been inventiveness on the writer's side, it is paralleled by the presupposition of interactive and challenging reading for the reader as well. REFERENCES Tabish Khair, Preface. Man of Glass. New Delhi: Harper Collins and The India Today Group. Sarfaraz K. Niazi (Tr.) Love Sonnets of Ghalib by Asadullah Khan Ghalib, New Delhi: Rupa and Co. Moiley ;David Cambridge Introduction to Creative Writing, CUP, New York. Tabish Khair. to author on 7 Dec Tabish Khair. to author on 9 Dec * Assistant Professor of English, Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyalaya, Bilaspur