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Adding wings to similes
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Pavan K. Varma on his recent English translation of Gulzar’s poetry
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Decoding Gulzar Pavan K. Varma
His range varies from the contemporary to the medieval to the mythological. All his 12 books belong to different genres, from biographies to commentaries on modern India. His next, he threatens, will be a magnum opus on culture and identity. A career diplomat, Pavan K. Varma has also been known as a lover of Urdu poetry, mouthing couplets at the drop of a hat. And now this Director General of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations has rendered 45 of Gulzar’s somewhat recent verses into English. Named “Selected Poems,” it is published by Penguin India.
Says Varma, “What impressed me about Gulzar’s work is the wide range of his imagery. He has a way with words, a twist of a phrase here and casually adding a simile there. What is also interesting about his language is that it is more Hindustani than chaste Urdu. There is always a touch of the earth, or the soil in his work.” Though that makes Gulzar a difficult proposition to render into a foreign language like English. “Look at the poems like ‘Naseerudin Shah’, ‘Pancham’, ‘Portrait of a Prostitute’ and ‘Rape’. The simplicity of expression is in direct contrast to the strong images. Elaborating, he says, “I have sought to provide all possible answers in my ‘Translator’s Note’ in the book as to why Gulzar’s verse is unique. I think, from the overall effect, it is his evocation of the environment, his subtle and profound lines about relationships that make his poetry unique. He has the ability to juxtapose a thought with an image so powerfully that a reader is literally wrenched out of his or her world.”
His first meeting
Although Varma says he has been an avid admirer of Gulzar’s poetry for a long time, he met him first during a seminar organised by the ICCR at Neemrana two years ago where Gulzar read out a thought-provoking poem called “Books”. “During our next meeting I happened to talk about the intensity of his work, he asked me whether I would like to translate his poetry. Although several people have tried their hands, he said he wasn’t satisfied with the outcome. I have always felt charged with the feeling that more of our poetry needs to be translated from one Indian language to another, and until that happens there should be translations in English to expose some great poetry to a wider audience,” he says. So while he accepted the offer and “the challenge with some gratitude”, he says, “I must confess translating his works is not easy. I worked and worked on these poems for a long time and then sent them to him for comments.”
“These poems cover a wide range, from birth to death, separation and reunion, love, grief and hope.” Many of these poems, Varma says in the ‘Translator’s Note’, “deal with Nature and the callous manner in which man continues to denude it. Another category dwells on relationships — between man and woman, husband and wife, father and daughter.”
SURESH KOHLI
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