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CHAPTER IV

SUBJECTIVE AFFINITIES IN THE TRANSLATION OF THE

POETS

The poems of Jatindranath Dowerah, Ananda Chandra Agarwalla, Dimbeswar

Neog, Durgeswar Sarma, Ananda Chandra Baruah and Parvatiprasad Baruva echo

sentiments in poets from Shelley to Tennyson because of their affinities as poets and

translators. The romantic strain struck responsive chords in them and even in pre-

romantic and Victorian poetry their choices were mostly determined by their life world

and their immersion in their own cultural milieus. Jatindranath Dowerah perfected the

Assamese lyric and in doing this his knowledge of English stood him in good stead. His

Apon Sur( ) and Banphul ( ) contain lines which are actually echoes from

poets like Shelley, Tennyson and others. The poems of Jatindranath Dowerah are

emotionally sensitive to the nuances of the language. He has translated many of

Shelley’s poems and that is why Lakshminath Bezbaroa referred to him as Assamese

Shelley. Dowerah’s Sapunor Sur ( ) is a translation of Shelley’s Mutability .

The flower that smiles today

Tomorrow dies

All that we wish today

Tempts and then flies.

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āji mor hanhā phul pāhi

kāliloi lereli śukāi,

āji jāk bukure sāvaṭo,

kāliloi kenibā palāi.

(My flower that smiles today, decays and withers on the morrow. What we embrace

likewise vanishes tomorrow).

In both the translation and the original poem the melancholic awareness of the

transitory of love is reflected in simple lyrical language. Jatindranath Dowerah has

internalized the poem and it comes out as an original one with his subjective insistence.

The endeavour to generalize in Shelley with perhaps an intention of objective validity

becomes a limited personal experience which is the poet’s own and cannot be questioned

outside the context. Besides the addition of “mor” (my) helps to maintain the rhythm of

the original poem with its moorings in authentic Assamese idiom.

Dowerah’s translation of Shelley’s Lines to an Indian Air as Tomaloi ( )

is addressed in the second person.

My cheek is cold and white, alas!

My heart beats loud and fast;

O! press it close to thine again

Where it will break at last.

90

mār jak tomār bukute

antahīn sur biṣādar,

hānhi mukhe māgilon melāni

tumi mor pratimā prāṇar.

( Let the endless tune of sadness set in your bosom. With a smile I bid adieu, the idol

nursed by my heart).

In diction words like “mār jak” in Dowerah’s Tomāloi which have harsh

consonants reflects the complexity of language and emotion. The pain of lover’s

separation is more attenuated in the Assamese version. Thus Jatindranath Dowerah is

reinventing the romantic emotion in a modern Assamese lexicon inscribing meanings

according to the changing cultural and social scenario. His Āpon Sur is a translation of

Shelley’s To a Skylark.

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not:

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught ;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

hanhā kandā jagatar rīti cirantan

biṣādat ulāhar gān,

poharat āndhārar andha āvaraṇ,

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niyatir bicitra bidhān.

( Smiles and tears are ways of the world, songs of ecstasy in sadness. In light there is the

envelope of darkness, destiny’s mysterious ways).

In Jatindranath Dowerah the immediacy in his response to Shelley may be due to

a kind of affinity in their emotional response to the situation. In one of his letters in

Laxminath Tamuly edited book Jatindranath Dowara Rasanavali he has written I can

only say with Shelley, “our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought”. To this

I can also even add another line from Victor Hugo which runs thus “man respires,

aspires and than expires”. ( 583)

There are three poems of delicate sensitiveness in Dowerah’s Nāvarīyā group of

poems. In these poems as Hem Barua has stated in his book Assamese Literature, “the

desire to drift with the stream like a forlorn soul is emotionally vivid” (165). The last

poem Nāvarīyā Ga ( ) is a direct translation of Tennyson’s Crossing the Bar.

Sun set and evening star

And one clear call for me.

And may there be no moaning of the bar

When I put out to sea.

mār ga’le rangā beli saru tarāṭiye

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diye mok sādarar śeṣ āvāhan,

olām jetiyā mai sāgarar pine

nuśuno ghāṭat jen karuṇ kāndon. .

( The tiny star beckons me lovingly as the sun sets. Let me not hear wails when I move

towards the beach).

Dowerah’s translation has a subjective similarity with the original poem. His

discerning intellect was at work in his translation. Tennyson’s language in Crossing the

Bar is simple and powerful whereas in Dowerah’s Nāvarīyā Ga there is an added

poignancy of the lonely soul . Jatindranath Dowerah’s Ekhani Gānvar Mariśālir Ocarat

( ) is a translation of Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written Upon A

Country Churchyard.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen ,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

aśeṣ ratan thāke sāgar bukut

mānohar cakur ānrat,

katano dhunīyā phul lereli śukāi

nirjan banar mājat.

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( Precious stones lie in the ocean hidden from the human eye. Beautiful flowers

wilt and wither in the quiet of wilderness ).

There is a conceptual change in Dowerah’s Ekhani Gānvar Mariśālir Ocarat.

Instead of “desert” he has used “nirjan banar mājat” (in the middle of quiet forest). He

has changed to ‘locale’ to make the theme familiar and accessible to his readers.

Jatindranath Dowerah’s translation of Fitzgerald’s translation of Rubaiyat of

Omar Khayyam reflects Dowerah being influenced by Omar’s philosophy. Jatindranath

Dowerah and Omar Khayyam as poets at times shared the same believes on fate and

destiny . Omars rubayis were written in quatrains but Jatindranath Dowerah translated

the quatrain into two stanzas.

Ah, my Beloved, fill the cup that clears

To-Day of past Regrets and future Fears—

To-morrow?---Why, To-morrow I may be

Myself with Yesterday’s Sev’n Thousand Years.

dharā priyatam prāṇar piyalā

jīvan madirā bharāi diyā

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atīt- bhabiṣhya sok dukh bhai

ājir bhābanā uṭāi niyā.

ājieye diyā kāliloi kiya

kone jāne mor kāli ki ha’ba ?

hājār hājār bachar biyapā

hayto atīte sāmari tha’ba.

( Give today who knows what comes tomorrow. May be the past will then embrace it

which stretches beyond millennia).

Jatindranath Dowerah in his Preface to Omar Tirtha confesses that under affinity

of soul in certain intimate moments one would remember Omar Khayyam and his lines

and they will be part of his being. It is in like moments that he has translated the feeling

of oneness. He states that if the expression is incomplete it is the translators failure not

Omar’s. His endeavour to present in Assamese is imbued with the hope that may be one

lone soul will respond to the yearnings as well as the ease of Omar Khayyam. In Omar

Khayyam it is an enthusiastic will to embrace the present because the past and the future

are not within man’s control. Omar is neither a materialist nor a pessimist proper but

believes in a kind of destiny whose resonance we can also discover in Dowerah.

Jatindranath Dowerah’s translations and creations were condemned by a section

of youthful aspiring modern writers who condescend that to the alleged excess of feeling

and emotion in Dowerah’s originals and translations. They appear to be blissfully

ignorant of the hard boiled interaction of W.H. Auden , in The Sea and the Mirror in

Alonso’s speech to Ferdinand.

But should you fail to keep your kingdom

And, like your father you come

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Where thought accuses and feeling mocks,

Believe your pain…

Jatindranath Dowerah had gone through the pain and believed in it and the

consequence is this translation. True in the manner and idiom of his language he was

modest and did not conform to what the modern poet’s called about the visibility of the

translator.

Dowerah’s translation of Tennyson’s Tears Idle Tears as Cakulo ( )

expresses his want to get to the nature of tears to be shed without any occasion of grief.

That is why he does not use the word “idle” in his translation. It is not an exercise but the

affinities of belief and approach which determines the choice of his translation.

Tears idle tears, I know not what they mean

Tears from the depth of some divine despair

Rise in the heart and gather to the eyes.

kon sudūrar sapon purīr

birah bātari la’i,

cakulo dudhāri pariche bāgari

bujiba novārāka’i.

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(Bearing the parting news of some distant fairyland , tears stream down without

knowing what it is all about).

In his translation of Tears Idle Tears Dowerah adds a note of poignancy. The

Assamese version is as aurally interstitched as the English one and the reminiscences of

past memories make the poet aware of the inevitability of death. In the last part of

Pāhara Sur ( ) we can see the influence of Shelley’s Love’s Philosophy.

The fountains mingle with the river

And the rivers with the ocean,

The winds of heaven mix for ever

With a sweet emotion;…

ketiyāno pāmgai mahāsāgarar pār

sukh dukh sakaloṭi ja’t hai ekākār?

nāi ja’t dukh rāśi, śok chabi biṣādar,

cira sukh cira śānti birājiche ki sundar!

( When would I reach the ocean where joy and sorrow merge into one. Where

there is eternal beauty and peace, with no vision of parting nor strings of sorrow).

His Soṇovālī Bālir Emuṭḥi ( ) is a translation of Poe’s A

Dream Within A Dream.

97

I stand amid the roax

Of a surf tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand -

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep--while I weep!

anantar sāgar pārat

āchon akaloi thiya ha’i,

soṇovālī bālir emuṭḥi

hātar muṭḥite āchon la’i !

98

bālikaṇā jur jur kari

sare āngulir surungāi,

bandhā muṭḥi bandhāte thākil

bāli mor keni uri jāi ?

muṭḥi mor ṭān kari punu

bejārate katano kāndilon

kata mor prāṇar minati

sāgarar uddeśhye pathālon.

( I stand alone by the eternal sea with a fistful of golden sand. The grains of sand

slip through chinks and gaps, the tightened fist notwithstanding. Tightening the fist

again I cried and wailed in grief, addressing my life’s pleadings to the sea).

In his translation Jatindranath Dowerah makes the experience of loss his own

which gives a peculiar authenticity to his idioms. The loneliness in the above poem is

also expressed in one of his own composition Pakhilā ( ):

enedare nite nite natun bhābat

uron mai akalśarīyā,

ākāl bhanrāl mor nāi akaṇike

nāi mor kono lagarīyā.

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( In this way with renewed thoughts I fly all alone . I have not saved anything for

a rainy day nor do I have any company).

In Laxminath Tamuly edited book Jatindranath Dowara Rasanawali, in a letter

to Amulya Baruah Jatindranath Dowerah has written “In fact I always like being alone

to myself and it suits me best...”( 725). A deep touch of melancholy and a brooding

sadness are the characteristics of his poems. The poems of Shelley which Dowerah

translated reflected the melancholy that is indelibly stamped in the composition of both

these poets. His poem Milan ( ) bore the influence of Hafiz and Shelley. Like

Shelley in Ode to the West Wind, he is imploring the wind. The transcendental love

depicted in Milan is the influence of Hafiz. Through this poem we meet Dowerah as a

mystic lover. Dowerah’s translation of the Russian poet Ivan Turgenev’s Poems in

Prose as Kathā Kabitā ( ) was a significant contribution to Assamese poetry.

The personal lives of both Turgenev and Jatindranth Dowerah were full of sadness.

Turgenev’s poems were inspired by a sense of loss after having found it but Dowerah’s

was burdened with unfulfilled expectations from life. His sense of loss is poignant. Thus

the emphasis of both Turgenev and Jatindranath Dowerah are different. In a letter to

Amulya Baruah brooding over his life he writes as it appears in the above mentioned

book suddenly the appalling wretchedness of life is borne in upon me—my isolation—

hollowness of everything—the sad loneliness of heart, which is lulled and deceived by its

own imaginings to the brink of the grave ( 724). Thus the poems in prose of the poets

were filled with the sadness that they experienced as poets. He has imitated the technique

and presentation from Turgenev but the content was his own. It is an amalgamation of his

myriad experiences presented through beautiful images. But Mor Śeṣ Pāṭḥ ( )

from Kathā Kabitā is a translation of Alphonse Daudet’s The Last Lesson. It depicts the

experiences of a small child when for the last time French lessons were imparted in a

school in Alsace in France. The school has come under the authority of Germany and

order has come from Berlin that only German will be taught in the schools of Alsace (

Daudet 4 ). In his Presidential speech of the twenty fourth session of Assam Sahitya

Sabha in 1955, Dowerah lamented that when he was a child Bengali was the medium of

100

instruction in the schools of Assam. And may be that is why the theme of The Last

Lesson, the replacement of French by German in the schools of Alsace and Lorraine in

France, could touch his heart and he translated it in a very touching way. In the words of

Banikanta Kakati he has made them vibrant with the warmth of his blood as stated in

Laxminath Tamuly edited book Jatindranath Dowara Rasanawali.( 48).

Another pioneer of translation in Assamese literature was Ananda Chandra

Agarwalla. Unlike other translators he has translated the poems of some less renowned

poets. Among the romantic poets he has translated only two of Shelley’s poems. His

dexterity as a translator lies in the fact that whenever he faces challenges in translating

he successfully transcends it into the semantics of the target language creating the same

aesthetic effect. By venturing into the poetic arena of the target language his translations

could create the same response in the target audience as the original poem. In the words

of critics his poems are transcreations rather than translations. Instead of trying to

squeeze every last kernel from the source language text he tried to translate what the

source language poet meant thus retaining the original idea of the poem intact. This is

exemplified in the translation of the following lines of John Gay’s poem The Shepherd

and the Philosopher into Assamese as Cahā Āru Pandit:

Rapacious animals we hate,

Kites, hawks and wolves, deserve their fate.

Do not we just abhorrence find

Against the toad and serpent kind?

Bear stronger venom in their bite.

101

itar prāṇīr māje āche- anekar;

āche hingsā boirī - bhāb krodh sihantar.

bhāluk, keśarī, bāgh, ghong jāraṇit,

mahā krur sarpa jāti āche agaṇit.

( There is much violence, enmity, anger in other lower animals like bear, lion,

tiger in the forest. Not to mention the cruel snakes countless).

Gay’s poem is pre ideational with a slight didactic intent. Ananda Chandra

Agarwalla responds to this and makes Gay’s sentiments central to his translation. As

Mahendra Bora stated in his Preface to Ananda Chandra Agarwalla Granthawali that

Ananda Chandra Agarwalla’s own poetic compositions were burdened with moral

bearings and whether it be considered as a quality or a flaw no other Assamese poet could

supersede him in this respect.( 12). This particular attribute of his poetry must have

motivated him to translate Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s A Psalm of Life as Jīvan

Sangīt ( ):

In the world’s broad field of battle,

In the bivouac of life

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

Be a hero in the strife!

…

102

…sangsār junjar ṭḥāi, śubar sakām nāi,

kāci-pāri junjā sabe kari prāṇ paṇ.

elāh-nihāli thovān, bīr- beś gāt lovān,

naha’bā marār prāi mānuh – santān;

naha’bā garur dare, khucilehe khoj dhare,

raṇat bīrendra buli honvā khyātimān.

( Life is a battle field with no room for rest. Fight ardently pledging your life.

Leave the bed of laziness and put on the garb of a hero. Don’t be like a dead human being

nor a dumb cattle that moves only when goaded. Be a hero like the king of God’s and

earn honour and fame in the battle) .

Ananda Chandra Agarwalla’s translation is more exhoratory and continuing. His

abiding didactic strain hectors the young to a life of enterprise and principles.

Longfellow’s poem A Psalm of Life is closer to Ananda Chandra Agarwalla’s own belief

and faith which smack of oriental mysticism, in that it underlies the vacuity of pomp and

show and the worth of actual living:

Tell me not in mournful numbers,

Life is but an empty dream!

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

103

śokar kabitā raci, dudhāri cakulo maci,

naka’bā jīvan michā niśār sapon;

asār sangsār bhāi, iyāt sakām nāi,

mohamay māyāmay sakalo māthon.

( Writing sad verse, wiping streaming tears don’t ever say life is a false dream of

night. For life builds on hope, with no room for thoughts of illusion or maya).

Ananda Chandra Agarwalla in the translated version tries to capture the essence

of the original poem ie, the transience of human life in a way which makes it difficult to

recognize it as a translated poem. Some of his poems like Sukhar Ṭḥāi ( ) the

translation of Felicia Hermans The Better Land, and Oliver Goldsmith’s Hermit as Jogī

( ) demonstrates his allegiance to the original. These are literal translations where

Ananda Chandra Agarwalla decodes the motive of the source language text and re-

encodes it in the target language text. His linguistic ability enabled him to render the

poem into another language which reads like the original poem. Ananda Chandra

Agarwalla’s poems Cumā ( ) and Chabi ( ), are a direct consequence of his

rendering of Shelley’s Love’s Philosophy. He could have given us a direct literal

translation of the poem but he gave us two poems instead. In his endeavour to belong to

his time and values they can be considered original creations which are structurally

perfect. In Cumā human sentiments and emotions are expressed analogously with

reference to flowers swing in the wind.

Nurtured in the romantic spirit of the west the influence of Wordsworth is

discernible in the poems of Durgeswar Sarma . His Sādarī ( ) is a translation of

Wordsworth’s Lucy Poems. ( A slumber did my spirit seal ).

104

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her Grave, and Oh!

The difference to me.

āchil najanā keve, nejāne konove

lai pāle sādarī jetiyā,

jetiyā śmaśān hāi, la’le sādarīye,

mor jui jbalil tetiyā.

( Unknown to anyone, none got to know when Sadari wilted. She embraced the

pyre in the grounds making my fire blow).

The first poem of Sādarī is a translation of A Slumber did my spirit seal from

Lucy Poems. The pain of the death of Lucy in the original poem “the difference to me”

is more aggravated in the translated poem where the poet give us the image of fire “mor

jui jbalil tetiyā” (making my fire blow) which reflects his inner turmoil at the loss of

Sādarī. Appreciating the creativity of an artist his Gīt Āru Chabi ( ) is a

transcreation of Robert Brownings Fra Lippo Lippi.

For, don’t you mark? we’re made so that we love

First when we see them painted, things we have passed

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Perhaps a hundred times not cared to see:

And so they are better, painted-better to us ,

Which is the same thing.

sadāi cakure dekhā gach pātṭio

chabiṭit bhāl hoi pare,

sadāi kāṇere śunā saru kathāṭio

gīt ha’le prāṇ ṭāni dhare.

(The familiar leaf looks grand in the picture as word heard always draw the heart in song).

In the above poem we see that in a very precise way, Durgeswar Sarma was

successful in transcreating the whole idea of the original poem by Browning about how

trivial things of life which might escape the notice of an ordinary person can be

transformed into something artistic . Similarly his Amil ( ) is a replica of William

Wordsworth’s Ode on Intimations of Immortality where in a simplified manner he is able

to emphasize on the central theme of the poem, the fading of the “visionary gleam” as

one grows in age and gets entangled in the material world. Thus “shades of the prison

house begin to grow upon the growing boy” in the original poem, is simplified as

“bayasar lage lage āhichon āntari” in the Assamese rendition quite unlike the

philosophical contemplations in Wordsworth’s poem.

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

106

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing Boy.

āhichon sakalo āmi svarga- bās eri,

bayasar lage lage āhichon āntari,

la’rā avasthāt thāke chānyā svargar

hei bābe saralatā nejāi manar.

(With age we move away from our sojourn in heaven. In childhood alone do we

carry the stamp of heaven keeping innocence intact).

Prakritiloi ( ) is a literal translation of Shelley’s Love’s Philosophy. His

poems which are picturesque in content and musical in phrase , symphonies of sound and

colour weave themselves into strange and rich melodies.

The fountains mingle with the river

And the river with the ocean,

The winds of Heaven mix for ever

With a sweet emotion;…

107

noit āhi parbatar nijarā pariche,

noi pare sāgarat ga’i;

malayār jur bāyu sadāi miliche

madhur bhangimā eṭi la’i.

(The brook meets the river as the river meets the sea. The soothing breeze of

spring merges always in a sweet posture).

To keep the beauty of the original poem intact he has found an equivalent in the

target language for the “winds of heaven mix for ever/with a sweet emotion” as “malayār

jur bāyu sadāi miliche / madhur bhangimā eṭi la’i”. Thus “malayār jur bāyu” reciprocates

a kind of feeling which the people of the target culture experiences when the pleasant

“malayā” (breeze) blows. The profanity of his translation could create the right kind of

response in the target audience.

Dimbeswar Neog’s translation ranges over diverse creations and ages. Unlike

Dowerah he did not limit himself with the romantic poets. With equal facility he also

treated lesser known poets like Lovelace. Metaphysical poet Robert Herrick’s To

Daffodils is translated as Bināś ( ) where the flower daffodil which the poet

addresses in the poem is replaced by Dimbeswar Neog with the rose.

Fair Daffodils, we weep to see

You haste away so soon:…

...

108

dhunīyā golāp kali! kiya jnai parān?

dekhi mor cakulo olāi;…

(Seeing the rose bud wilt, tears stream down my eyes).

To bring the same effect as “fair daffodils” Dimbeswar Neog has used “dhunīyā

golāp kali”. “Golāp kali” (rose bud) in itself has the connotation of softness and

sweetness in it. His substitution is accessible to the Assamese reader. The transitory of

the daffodils is mourned by the poet with the use of the word “weep” and Dimbeswar

Neog laments by using the word “cakulo” (tears) which projects wonderfully the feeling

of the poet. Dealing with the same theme is the poem Taṭinī ( ) a translation of

Tennyson’s The Brook where the continuous flow of the brook is juxtaposed with the

ephemeral life of human beings both in the original poem and in the translated one.

Similarly in his translation of William Wordsworth’s The Daffodils as Sariyah Ḍarā

( ) (mustard bed ) he replaces the daffodils with sariyah (mustard), which unlike

the daffodils being an unfamiliar flower to the target language audience is a common

sight in Assam during winter. Just as reminiscing the sight of the daffodils makes the poet

happy in a “pensive” or in a “vacant mood” the same therapeutic effect is also projected

in the translated poem:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills

And dances with the daffodils.

109

tathāpi paṭit pari jetiyā nīrale

harṣa natu biṣādar śuno nānā kathā;

bijulī -latār dare antarat jvale

sei citra jiti dān dile nirjanatā.

tetiyā hṛday mor bhare haraṣere ,

nāci uṭḥe hāli-jāli soṇālī phulere.

(Lying, yet when I lie alone on my bed and sad or joyous chords heard, glow like

meandering lightning in my heart, which is a gift of solitude. Then my heart fills with

joy and dances with golden flowers).

In the above translation we see that Dimbeswar Neog finds some equivalence in

the target language with those metaphors in the source language. Robert Southey’s The

Scholar is translated as Gñānārthī ( ). Dimbeswar Neog being an academician

spent his life among books. That is why he finds a kind of affinity with Robert Southey’s

poem.

My days among the Dead are passed,

Around me I behold ,

Where’er these casual eyes are cast,

The mighty minds of old:…

110

marār mājat din mor jāi,

daśodiśe dekhā pāon

marā amarar amaraṇ man

jeniyei ghuri cāon.

(I spend my days among the dead. Wherever I turn, I see the immortal minds of

the dead).

It is a literal translation where “marā amarar amaraṇ man” recreates exactly the

thrust and intent of the original “the mighty minds of old”. This endeavour parallels the

insistent exactitude advocated by translators from Hebrew and Greek in the early part of

the nineteenth century. But those translations were more often than not liturgical. The

kind of sad echo in Thomas Moore’s The Light of Other Days is also resounded in

Dimbeswar Neog’s translation of the poem as Atīt Smriti ( ).

I feel like one

Who treads alone

Some banquet hall deserted,…

…

sangsārar bhāvanāt

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mānthon mai akasmāt,

ghuri – paki phuricho nīrale;…

( I tread alone in thoughts of the world).

“Banquet hall deserted” finds its adequate expression in “ghuri paki phuricho

nīrale”. Similarly “The smiles the tears/ Of boyhood’s years” of the original poem has

been generalized as “soṇovālī smritire ganthā / śoiśavar jata kathā” (strewn with golden

memories the thoughts of childhood years) to enable the target language reader easier

access into the work .

Dimbeswar Neog’s Priyār Prem ( ) is a translation of Ben Jonson’s To

Celia where he succinctly brings out the reluctance of the poet’s beloved to accept his

love. By fluent translating the translator’s invisibility enables him to write in the

transparent discourse that prevails in Assamese thus masking domestication of foreign

texts.

… But thou thereon didst only breathe

And sent’st it back to me;

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,

Not of itself but thee !

…

… tāke tumi sungi, muṭḥei ebeli,

dilān mok olatāi;

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ketekīr gondh nahai etiyā,

priyāhe malmalāy.

(You snipped at it and sent it back to me, which is now fragrant with you and not

the flower) .

In Garabinī ( ) a translation of Sir Walter Scott's The Pride of Youth pride

is personified in the title itself. In the very beginning of the poem pride is addressed as

“Garabinī Āideo”. The whole setting of the poem is shaped to a local situation by words

such as “neem” , “citāt”, etc. The message of the original poem ie. the futility of pride

when death is inevitable is very successfully reproduced by the closest equivalent in the

target language by translating “The grey headed sexton/ That delves the grave” as “Āideo

jetiyāi sāngī nibaloi / cārijane citāt tuliba” (

). (Āideo, when four people will lift the bamboo stretcher into the funeral pyre).

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Children is translated as Jīvanta Kabitā (

). Like the original poem, in the translation Dimbeswar Neog celebrates the

vivaciousness of children and imagines what life would have been devoid of them. The

lines like “And the questions that perplexed me / Have vanished quite away” is translated

as “bāro-buri kathā sudhi āmani lagovā” ( ). ( Boring me with

sundry questions). Even in the translation of Lovelace’s poem To Lucasta, On going to

the Wars translated as Shradhā Prīti the line “And with a stronger faith embrace / A

sword, a horse, a shield” in the original poem is translated as “bāndhichon bukut āji

duguṇ henpāhe/dhāl-tarovāl khār-bāru” ( )

(with renewed enthusiasm I have armed myself to the teeth) . Although both the poems

are literal translation but to make it acceptable for a new recipient in the target language a

degree of adjustment is made by incorporating images and metaphors from the target

language like “baro- buri kathā” in Jīvanta Kabitā and in Shradhā Prīti “dhāl”,

“tarovāl”, “khār”, “baru”.

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Stanzas for Music by Lord Byron is translated as Saundarjya Kuvanrī (

). Dimbeswar Neog’s translation allows the target language reader easier access to

the original poem by efficiently communicating the intent of the original poem.

And the midnight moon is weaving

Her bright chain o’er the deep,

Whose breast is gently heaving

As an infant’s asleep:…

majniśā jonṭiye ganthā

mālādhāri jaladhiye pindhe;

ṭopanir kensuvār dare

bukukhani bhābat ophande!

(The garland strewn by the evening is worn by the gathering clouds and the heart

heaves like a baby asleep).

Bakulī ( ) is a translation of Wordsworth’s Lucy Gray, the title of the poem

being an Assamese name enables the text to be easily accessed by the reader. The pain of

losing Bakuli by her parents is expressed in an idiom which can strike the right chords in

the reader. The parents response “in heaven we shall meet” in the original poem is aptly

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expressed with some equivalence with the metaphors inherent in Assamese “sipurīt

dekhā -dekhi ha’m ponāṭire” ( ) . The first three stanzas of

Shelley’s poem The Cloud is translated as Megh ( ) where Dimbeswar Neog has

translated the exact contextual meaning of the original ie. the function performed by

clouds on earth . “I hear light shade for the leaves when laid / In their noonday dreams”

in the original poem is translated as “Ābaron śītal chānre pāt duparat/ saponar aveśere

bharā” ( I cover in the afternoon with

cool shade filled with the eagerness of a dream).

In his translation of Shelley’s To A Skylark as Skylarkaloi ( ) he

balances idiomatic smoothness with fidelity to the poet’s intention of projecting the

bird as a harbinger of joy with a tinge of sadness in its song. “Our sweetest songs are

those that tell of saddest thought” in Shelley’s poem is translated by Dimbeswar Neog as

“ati miṭḥā gīt siṭi/ ja’t dukh sonvaraṇi pāon” (The

sweetest song is one where we find reminiscences of sadness). It is an ebullient line for

the poet. His preference is always towards idiom, to find some equivalence within those

metaphors inherent to spoken English.

Āmi Sāt Bhāi-Bhanī ( ) is a translation of Wordsworth’s We Are

Seven.

‘ How many are you then,’ said I,

‘If they two are in Heaven?’

Quick was little Maid’s reply ,

‘O Master! We are seven’.

“But they are dead; those two are dead!

Their spirits are in heaven!’

’T was throwing words away; for still

The little Maid would have her will,

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And said, ‘Nay, we are seven!”

“dujan śvargat; tente keijan

bākī ra’l, āikaṇ?”

ṭaparāi tāi ka’le punu, “āmi

bhāi - bhanī sātjan.”

“dujan dhukāl; āchān keijan,

konvā bhālkai gaṇi?”

ka’t kathā śune? numalīye ka’le----

“Āmi sāt bhāi –bhanī.”

( If two are in heaven the little girl was asked to reply counting properly then how

many of them remain. She instantly replied they are seven brothers and sisters ).

The same pain of loss that we find in Bakuli is also registered by the poet in Āmi

Sāt Bhāi –Bhanī a translation of Wordsworth’s We Are Seven. It is made intenser by the

girl’s blissful ignorance of the passing away of her siblings. The acceptance of death as a

part of living makes her obdurate enough to accept the loss of her siblings inspite of the

poet’s repeated request to accept it though he does it in a very subtle way.

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From the above translation we can say that Dimbeswar Neog internalized the

poem, turned it into an Assamese poem for the Assamese reader. From his school days he

had an inclination towards composing poetry. As mentioned by Nagen Saikia in his

Preface to Dimbeswar Neog’s Rachanawali, it was through the magazine Bhumuki in

his school days that Dimbeswar Neog introduced himself as a writer. In the same book

Dimbeswar Neog stated that after fourteen fifteen years of age he always had an

inspiration from within to compose poems.(0.6)

Ananda Chandra Baruah’s identity as a translator rests primarily on the

unpublished anthology Parāg. He has translated a few English poems into Assamese

very skillfully. We can cite the example of Algernon Charles Swinburne’s poem A Match

which is translated into Assamese as Mil ( ).

If love were what the rose is

And I were like the leaf.

golāp phular dare huvā ha’le prem,

moi eṭi seujīyā pāt.

( If love was like the rose, I am a green leaf ).

Its Assamese translation is difficult to differentiate from the original. It catches

the same simplicity of diction, same lyricism of feeling the same contrast of leaf and

flower. Another example of Ananda Chandra Baruah’s poetic talent is Garakhīyār Prem

( ). This poem is a translation of Marlowe’s, The Passionate Shepherd To His

Love. It is a pastoral poem where Marlowe uses the conventions of Renaissance

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pastoralism and idyllic landscape which has been transformed into an Assamese village

environment by the use of evocative Assamese images like “mugār mekhelā āru

rechamar culā” ( ) for “a gown made of the finest wool” and

“kaṇjahā caolar bhāt rāndhi loi” ( ) for “thy silver dishes for thy

meat”.

Parvatiprasad Baruva’s adherence to the romantic mode of the English romantic

poets and their alienation from the madding crowd are informed at the same time by a

social awareness .With the ease of translation that he was capable of and the subjective

affinities with some of his own poems his translated poems are from Shelley, Byron and

Hafiz. The theme of the seven poems translated by Parvatiprasad Baruva addresses

uniform concerns. Six of the poems deal with English romantic poetry’s theme of love,

dejection and the ultimate union which transcends death. The seventh poem that of Hafiz

is very close to Parvatiprasad Baruva’s general principles of poetic creation. Youngest

romantic poet Shelley was a revolutionary and Byron’s life’s journey and writing

technique was based on reality. Hafiz abounds in mysticism , positivity and spirituality.

Like Parvatiprasad Baruva even in some of Hafiz’s poems his despair is being enriched

with his being alien to all negativity. Parvatiprasad Baruva translated those poems which

had affinities to his poetic creations.

Shelley’s poem The Flight of Love begins in generalized sadness:

When the lamp is shatter’d

The light in the dust lies dead…

and ends in personal despair:

Leave thee naked to laughter,

When leaves fall and cold winds come .

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It is translated into Assamese in a similar manner by Parvatiprasad Baruva in the

poem Premar Bidāi as

…

thunukāi bhāge cakiṭi jetiyā

dhūlir mājat puhare herūvāi prāṇ,…

( Light loses itself in the dust when the brittle lamp shatters).

eriba tomāk lok hānhiyāt kari

jetiyā jārar kunvalī baliba

eṭi duṭi kari pāt jāba jahi sari.

( You will be laughed at like the bare tree when its leaves fall).

The translated poem ends in a similar note of despair as in the original poem.

“Thunukāi” (brittle) expresses the fragility of the lamp in a very delicate way. The poem

might have had a bearing on the personal experiences of Parvatiprasad Baruva. The death

of his brother’s family in an accident left him shattered for a period when he totally

retreated from creative writing (Sharma 96). Probably that is why Shelley’s lines in the

poem inspired him to translate it into Assamese :

The heart echoes render

No song when the spirit is mute-

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No song but sad dirges,

Like the wind through a ruin’d cell,

Or the mournful surges

That ring the dead seaman’s knell.

gīt samidhān hiyār dibale’ nāi—

gīt nāi mānthon karūṇ binani,-

gūhā –surūngār jīrṇa bāyur gān,

sāgar bukur biṣād – ūrūmi

marā nābikar śangkhadbanir tān.

( The heart has no song nor solution but sad wailing like the wind that hums the

chinks in the cave, the wailing from the sea or the rhapsody of the dead sailor).

The above lines resonates his own numbness after the death of his brother’s

family. One of his own poems Nīrav Kiya Ṭokārī Tor also echo similar thought:

nīrav kiya ṭokārī tor

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a’ ba’rāgī?

acal dekhon naokhani tor

kūl tyāgi?

(Why is the minstrel’s tokari (stringed instrument) mute and the boat motionless

drifting away from its clan?)

One of the main themes of Shelley’s poetry is the search for the meaning of

existence and many of his poems seem to be desperately searching for a sense of

coherence in a world full of chaos. Even Parvatiprasad Baruva through pain and suffering

gains self-realization and at a certain phase of life compares himself with a toy (putala)

with which he played during his childhood as refered in Pabanath Sharma’s book

Parvatiprasad Baruva Rachanavali.

ābeli ubhati cāi chānṭo dekhilon

siyo jen eṭā putalā

sarute omalā sei putalaṭor nicināi .

( I saw the shadow looking like a doll I have played with in childhood, in

returning in the afternoon).

The metaphorical extension of childhood to stand for the receding meanings of

life will immediately remind us of Shelley’s outlook referred to above. Shelley uses

immaterial analogies in his poem Love’s Philosophy --- sunlight, moonbeams which are

impossible to capture. Hence he invites the closeness of his beloved:

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What are all these kissings worth,

If thou kiss not me?

which Parvatiprasad Baruva translates in the poem Praṇai- Tattva as:

imān cumār bāru kino mol āche

jadi mok nucumilā tumi?

( What is the worth of many kisses if you do not kiss me ? )

In Parvatiprasad Baruva’s translation of Byron’s When We Two Parted, the

relationship between the couple, a love torn apart where neither words nor futile

arguments could keep them together, is similarly reflected.

When we two parted

In silence and tears

Half broken –hearted

To sever for years,...

āmi duyo āntari āhilon

mane mane cakupānī loi,

122

ādhā bhagā hiyā dukhanik

nilagāi bahu din loi.

( We came away with secret tears , separating our broken hearts for long).

As Maurice Bowra in his book The Romantic Imagination states:

For the Romantics imagination is fundamental because they think that

without it poetry is impossible. This belief in the imagination was part of

the contemporary belief in the individual self. The poets were conscious of

a wonderful capacity to create imaginary worlds, and they could not

believe that this was idle or false. On the contrary they thought that to curb

it was to deny something vitally necessary to their whole being. They

saw that the power of poetry is strongest when the creative impulse works

untrammeled, and they knew that in their own case this happened when

they shaped fleeting visions into concrete forms and pursued wild thoughts

until they captured and mastered them. ( 1).

Thus in Shelley’s poem, Music , when soft voices die, imagination triumphs over the

transience of things:

Music , when soft voices die,

Vibrates in the memory---

Odours , when sweet violets sicken

Live within the sense they quicken.

123

sangītar sumadhur dvani mār ga’le

amiyā kanpani tār smaraṇat tole;-

dhunīyā mālatī pāhi lereli śukāi

manar mājat tār gondh ba’i jāi.

( The music fading away leaves its resonance in memory. The malati (flower) wilts and

dies leaving its fragrance in the mind).

Rose leaves when the rose is dead,

Are heaped for the beloved’s bed;

And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,

Love itself shall slumber on.

…

golāpar pāhibor chigi sari goi,

cenehīr phular śetelikhani hai;

tenekoiye tumi ga’le tomār bhābanā,

kariba premar seye sapon racanā,...

(The wilting petals of the rose becomes my beloved’s floral bed. In the same way

when you are gone your thoughts will build dreams of love).

As with the romantic poets in the above lines with the image of the “violets” the

poet describes memories and how memories manage to transcend this materialistic world

to last forever. In the poem Shelley hints at this kind of impermanence and yet

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emphasizes that memory of this love will slumber on. Parvatiprasad Baruva captures the

essence of the poem by replacing “violets” with “malati” a flower popular among the

target audience.

The following lines are from Parvatiprasad Baruva’s translation of Hafiz’s poem

The Feast of Spring into Assamese as Basanta Uchav( ).

How blest am I ! Around me swelling-

The notes of melody arise;

I hold the cup with juice encelling,

And gaze upon thy radiant eyes.

O Hafiz! – never waste thy hours

Without the cup, the lute, and love!

dhanyo jīvan mor! caupāśe mor,

uṭḥaliche sumadhur gīt-laharī:

tuli laon piyalāṭi, ras bhar-pūr

cāi āchon nayanar rūp –mādhurī!

herau hāfiz! tai nakaṭābi kāl

piyalā, tokārī, āru pīriti binā.

.

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(I am blessed with melodious songs around me. Looking at the beauty of the eyes

I lift up the succulent cup. Oh! Hafiz do not waste time without the cup, lute and love).

The mysticism that inheres in Sufism which we encounter in Hafiz’s lines struck a

chord in Parvatiprasad Baruva’s mind and it is not too distant from the viewpoint of the

English romantics that he was so fond of.

Birinchi Kumar Barua stated “As a result of the spread of the western system of

education and the consequent impact of western ideas on the minds of the people,

Assamese poetry underwent radical changes in both form and content.These changes

began to be noticed in the last decades of the 19th

century”. (B. K. Barua 110). The

educated Assamese youths like Parvatiprasad Baruva, Dimbeswar Neog, Jatindranath

Dowerah and others who were pursuing higher studies in Kolkata came into contact with

English poetry. The translated works of the English poets and the openness to new

experiences gave them the idea that through translation they too could enrich their own

literature. In the words of Jatindranath Dowerah inspite of these influences Assamese

poetry did not turn out to be an emulation of English poetry but the translators maintained

its distinctiveness by being the votaries of their mother tongue. The zeal behind the

translations was the consciousness of the translators for the development of their own

mother tongue and community. Dimbeswar Neog in his Preface to Asamiya Sahitya

Jilingani wrote that he wanted to bring the consciousness of the people to the richness of

Assamese literature and thereby motivating the Assamese people to read their literature

with respect . Ananda Chandra Baruah’s translations of the Russian poems as Soviet

Kabita pinpoints to the importance that he gave to the knowledge of world literature for

superior literary practices. Jatindranath Dowerah was an avid reader and the literature of

different countries fascinated him. And whenever he found anything interesting he

converted it into an Assamese poem keeping the target audience in mind. He said as

mentioned in Laxminath Tamuly edited book Jatindranath Dowara Rasanawali: “ I

believe that mainstream language has to be broken in like a fresh daughter-in- law to be

effective in the regional parlance”.( 570).

126

Imbued with a creative passion Wordsworth had a tremendous influence on their

poetic thoughts. Besides Sādarī in Durgeswar Sarma’s Tumi Deva Pārijāt (

) the first version of Sādarī the influence of Wordsworth’s Lucy Poems “ Three

years she grew in sun and shower” is evident:

The stars of midnight shall be dear

To her, and she shall lean her ear

In many a secret place

Where rivulets dance their wayward round,

And beauty born of murmuring sound

Shall pass into her face.

127

śuni jaraṇār gīt

tomār komal cit

uṭḥichil parichil

ṭḥeve ṭḥeve tāt;

tomār nuphurā nāi

parbatīyā bāṭ.

sarū noir oparat,

candramār poharat,

rūpālī kiraṇ parā

dekhichilā tāt;

śile dhari phen tolā

śunichilā māt.

(Your mind will thrill to the purr of the spring, which leaves no hilly tract

untreaded. You saw the silvery moonlight upon the rivulets and heard the foaming clatter

against the rocks).

128

Nurtured in the romantic spirit of the west in his translation Durgeswar Sarma

could retain Wordsworth’s simplicity of approach. In the words of Hem Barua, “under

western inspiration imagination is extended to invest common place objects of life and

nature with a vision of art. This vision of art, the power to transmute ordinary things into

objects of perennial beauty is one of the most precious possessions of our new poetry”.

( Barua 154).

The experience of death encountered by the translators in their personal lives must

have indulged them to translate poems with death as the central theme. Durgeswar

Sarma’s Sādarī a translation of Wordsworth’s Lucy Poems and Dimbeswar Neog’s Āmi

Sāt Bhāi Bhanī a translation of Wordsworth’s We Are Seven has death as its theme. Even

some of the poems of Parvatiprasad Baruva are ingrained with the misfortunes that he

encountered in life, and at times he compared himself with “dubari ban” very similar to

Jatindranath Dowerah :

sapon āntari ga’le diṭḥake janāi diye

bāṭar kaṣar mai bananir phul.

(When dream fades away reality makes me aware that I am a wild flower by the

roadside).

Shelley’s expression “our sweetest thoughts are those that tell of saddest

thoughts” is applicable to the melancholy that is inherent in the poems of Parvatiprasad

Baruva. The experience of the accident where he lost his brother and other family

members driven him to reflect his feelings in his poetic creations. Just as Tennyson has

said that “tears from the depth of some divine despair” similarly Parvatiprasad Baruva

also realized that “cakulo je param pabitra gangā jalatkayu śuci”

(Tears are purer than the waters from the river Ganga).

129

Most of the translations of Jatindra Nath Dowerah, Ananda Chandra Agarwalla,

Durgeswar Sarma, Dimbeswar Neog, Ananda Chandra Baruah and Parvatiprasad Baruva

were literal translation. Some of their translated poems were rewriting of the original

poems but at the same time masked this rewriting. They achieved an extraordinary

readability, an ease and transparency that produced the illusion of original composition.

Since the original poems were directed to English language audiences, the translations

simultaneously assimilated the foreign texts to Assamese literary values, making them fit

for Assamese readers.

130

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