AT KACHIGUDA RAILWAY STATION - Translation of a Hyderabad fragment KACHIGUDA NILDAANADALLI ಕಾಚಿಗುಡ ನಿಲ್ದಾಣದಲ್ಲಿ from AKSHAYA KAVYA

Here is another ‘Hyderabad’ fragment from K. V. Tirumalesh’s AKSHAYA KAVYA ... this fragment is a train journey from Kachiguda station is Hyderabad ... I discovered Astapovo for myself for the first time while translating this fragment ... and how that elevates this train journey!!   

 

POET: K. V. Tirumalesh

KANNADA ORIGINAL: first line of the fragment: ಕಾಚಿಗುಡ ನಿಲ್ದಾಣದಲ್ಲಿ

‘At Kachiguda railway station’ from AKSHAYA KAVYA (2010)

ENGLISH TRANSLATION: S. Jayasrinivasa Rao

 

 

 

At Kachiguda railway station all were there 

and none were there

I looked around, no familiar faces

All travellers were new

Yet the expression on their faces 

were not new I felt 

I have seen that many times 

at many places the same

And then from one station to another station

featureless shops pushcarts coolies

beggars itinerant hawkers 

debauched expressions

railway officers the engine’s whistle

The grating wheels

over the bridge it went

cleaving familiar forests

rolling on into the lap of the Arabian Sea

It was this same train that bored through 

the belly of Sahyadri mountains

 

Half-awake and the other half asleep

the train was running 

over me the whole night

 

The night continued as night

And when dawn broke on the east

I was hearing chatter from another land 

in another tongue 

gestures and expressions were a bit different

 

I have to but alight at the designated place

if not today, tomorrow

So many revolutionary thoughts 

are sitting up awake in my head

Like the passenger sitting by the window

Like there was something of note 

in every scene that was flashing past

 

Could I wave to myself

when I get down?

Out of sheer habit 

would I raise my arm in return?

What will they think 

those who are walking ahead

I waved for them they’d think

Oh, my thoughts,

Why have you abandoned me?

 

After the train leaves the station

nothing seems as barren as the rails

Astapovo, have we reached Astapovo

I continue to ask everybody 

Though the train has left Kachiguda

it hasn’t left Kachiguda  

I was in a hurry to get off 

even before we started off

I never knew if it was before 

or after Astapovo 

 

*****

 

KOTI AA GAYI, KOTI AA GAYI - Translation of a Hyderabad fragment ಕೋಠಿ ಆಗಯೀ ಕೋಠಿ ಆಗಯೀ ‘Koti aa gayi, Koti aa gayi’ from AKSHAYA KAVYA

Here is another ‘Hyderabad’ fragment from K. V. Tirumalesh’s AKSHAYA KAVYA ... this one reads like a city-bus journey from Tarnaka to Koti ... and, does the poet take you for a ride?  ... and what a ride this is ...  

 

POET: K. V. Tirumalesh

KANNADA ORIGINAL: first line of the fragment: 

ಕೋಠಿ ಆಗಯೀ ಕೋಠಿ ಆಗಯೀ

‘Koti aa gayi, Koti aa gayi’ from AKSHAYA KAVYA (2010)

ENGLISH TRANSLATION: S. Jayasrinivasa Rao

 

 

Oh man, you who are yelling, 

‘Koti aa gayi, Koti aa gayi,’ 

Where have you come from?

 

Where are all these people going?

To one destination, but with 

different intentions, as if

I’m standing at one place hanging 

on to the handgrip

Vidyanagar, Shankarmath, Nallakunta, 

Koranti Hospital, Barkathpura 

How many times? 

A young man and a girl next to him

In this crush too they have made 

space for themselves

Leg-space, hand-space 

Space for the body to shrink, to swell

She was pregnant

Another fellow is snoozing here

Yet another fellow is looking 

worriedly outside the window 

An endless journey

Ads for abortion without surgery

in red words stuck by an unseen hand 

above our heads

 

Which woman in this crowd is headed there?

Otherwise why make this futile effort? 

 

The driver is sitting like god

His face can’t be seen, body can’t be seen

One hand on the gear-stick can be seen

The conductor is like the messenger of god

‘Ticket, ticket’ he says as he comes circling

He stretches his arm like the long arm of the law

When he thumps the roof the bus stops

When he thumps the roof the bus starts

He is the last spokesperson 

of the government, this conductor

Oh passenger, you who have been yelling 

‘Koti aa gayi, Koti aa gayi,’ since a long time,

What on earth is waiting for you in Koti?

What sort of hope or is it anxiety?

 

Two hundred years ago 

on a bullock cart too

this same man was yelling 

as he is now 

I for one behaved as if

I didn’t know any of this

Unable to speak despite knowing 

all that would happen in the future

 

People are climbing 

like ants onto the mountain

I can see that from the mountain on this side

I too was with them earlier

Then I wouldn’t have been able to see this scene

When I can see this I am not with them

What’s across the mountain? 

Could anyone living on the other side 

be looking at me? 

Should I be with them or be looking at them?

 

‘Uthro, uthro,’ said the driver and

pushed them out

People roll and roll and fall like sacks 

into deathworld

 

*****

Reality, reality ... - Translation of a Hyderabad fragment ರಿಯಾಲಿಟಿ ರಿಯಾಲಿಟಿ 'Reality Reality' from AKSHAYA KAVYA

Here is another ‘Hyderabad’ fragment from K. V. Tirumalesh’s AKSHAYA KAVYA ... he returns to one of his favourite walking haunts, Seetaphal Mandi ... 

 

POET: K. V. Tirumalesh

KANNADA ORIGINAL: first line of the fragment: 

ರಿಯಾಲಿಟಿ ರಿಯಾಲಿಟಿ

‘Reality reality’ from AKSHAYA KAVYA (2010)

ENGLISH TRANSLATION: S. Jayasrinivasa Rao

 

 

Reality, reality ... 

Do you want reality?

 

The boots that I brought from England

What will I do with them 

As soft as fur and as pure but 

 

the street I walk on every day is Seetaphal Mandi

Rotting vegetables flies spittle dust 

This is reality

 

Water from broken sewage pipes puddling everywhere 

I leap across all these and as I was feeling triumphant,

the railway-crossing gate had dropped

There eternity makes us sit and wait

 

Two dogs in the garbage bin

scavenging among eggs, ovaries, 

and sanitary pads

 

All are waiting the beggars too

Saint Thomas Aquinas told me

Nothing happens without a reason

 

The train from a different era comes in

as if slashing through people’s vision-lines

Shaking the earth belching fire

Shaping the cause-and-effect correlation

For two minutes

 

Should I look for clean places to walk on

Should I teach my boots the trick of leaping

Should I reveal the natural smells of the earth 

and meld it with the land or

Should I send them flying forth 

from the balcony across to

 

The Arabian Sea Mount Ararat

The Sahara desert and the Atlantic Ocean

 

If only history were just an underwear

We could turn it inside out

We could wash and dry it when dirty

A saint

one who has lost the sense of dirtiness, and

one who is free of it is the ‘supreme-swan’ 

one who wears no clothes is empty 

of all questions and the

only one who stands here every day

sells leafy greens just on a whim

***** 

THIS YEAR’S YUGADI - Translation of 'EE SALADA YUGADI' ಈ ಸಲದ ಯುಗಾದಿ

ANOTHER YUGADI POEM FOR YUGADI ... ಯುಗಾದಿಗೆ ಇನ್ನೊಂದು ಯುಗಾದಿ ಕವನ

Continuing with the spirit of Yugadi ... here is my English translation of a Yugadi poem by K. V. Tirumalesh ... EE SALADA YUGADI ಈ ಸಲದ ಯುಗಾದಿ ... from his 1986 collection 'AVADHA' ... 

 

 

Kannada original: EE SALADA YUGADI ಈ ಸಲದ ಯುಗಾದಿ

Poet: K. V. TIRUMALESH

English translation: S. Jayasrinivasa Rao

 

THIS YEAR’S YUGADI

 

This year’s Yugadi is not like last year’s Yugadi 

Last year’s Yugadi was like a dry thunderstorm; 

it flashed and rumbled and went away 

without soaking the earth.

 

This year’s Yugadi would truly begin 

a new year – and so, as soon as I sit down 

to pen new resolutions, I was attacked

 

by mosquitoes!  You, at the beginning of this year, 

we, at the end, they sing.  I won’t fear 

for I have bought a new mosquito net.

 

This year’s yugadi is not like last year’s Yugadi – 

how would these insects know this?  On last year’s 

Yugadi we had poppyseed payasa, seekaraNe*, new clothes,

 

a movie, company of women, lots of fun, honestly; 

this time none of these.  Only memories.  

Memories are sweeter than reality I believe and

 

I savour the breeze, and the aroma of my

beautiful neighbour’s cooking that floats in with the breeze! 

For this year’s Yugadi I have Greek plays

 

Ionesco’s stories, Ananthamurthy’s ‘Avasthe.’

Enough no, what more does a writer want?

Apart from these, there are few bits written by me.

 

So that they don’t fly away I have kept 

them under a stone procured from Haridwar.  

A round stone that had bathed in the Ganges for 

thousands of years and turned smooth.

 

It is, in reality, sitting on my conscience

soaking up all the sins of my words and their senses,

gaining weight every minute.

 

 

* A kind of sweet salad made using raw mango or plantain fruit, sugar, milk, cardamom seed powder, etc

 

*****

SUNDAY MARKET - Translation of the fragment ಸಂಡೇ ಮಾರ್ಕೆಟ್ ‘Sunday Market’

Here is another ‘Hyderabad’ fragment ... this fragment is from K. V. Tirumalesh’s AVYAYA KAVYA ... an extended poetic creation in the form of a symphony, as Tirumalesh says. He goes on to say that, in a sense, Avyaya Kavya is a continuation of his earlier long poem Akshaya Kavya and more dramatic.  I, for my part, read these long poems to see if I can pick out Hyderabadi pearls ... this fragment is one such Hyderabadi pearl ... 

 

Just as Tirumalesh, the poet, uses poetic licence, I thought I’d experiment with ‘translator’s license’ ... I don’t know if there is one.  In the fifth stanza, the poet mentions various vegetables ... he uses potato and tomato as English words to create rhyme and rhythm ... whereas potato has a Kannada counterpart, tomato doesn’t; tomato is tomato in Kannada, pronounced differently ... but for onion and garlic he uses their Kannada counterparts eeruLLi beLLuLLi to create rhythm.  I decided to use ‘translator’s licence’ and have retained the Kannada words for onion and garlic in my English translation to retain the rhythm.   And all other names of vegetables end in kaayi again creating rhythm.  Bittergourdand snakegourd rhyme, but cucumber doesn’t rhyme with them.  And out of the blue, he mentions pumpkin (white pumpkin) using its Telugu name gummadikaaya (vegetables in Telugu end in kaaya) and references a popular proverb in Kannada and Telugu, when loosely translated reads – ‘when somebody said ‘pumpkin thief,’ he checked his shoulder.’  An English counterpart would be ‘Guilty conscience pricks the mind’ and its Hindi variation – chor ke daaDi mein tinka.’  He then mentions the Kannada term for ‘pumpkin,’ so that the proverb is understood by Kannada readers.  And it looks like the poet is doing all this to lighten the mood before the final two stanzas where the poem is taken to another level ... remarkable ...  I have retained ‘chhatrapati’ in the penultimate stanza; it works in Kannada, but I didn’t want to let it go so that at least some people might make the connection ... 

 

As you can see, Tirumalesh uses quite a few English words here, and an entire line in the second stanza is in English in Kannada script in the original.  There is also Telugu ... I have italicised those parts that appear in English and Telugu ... and I have ‘bolded’ the words that I have retained in my translation ... all this to retain the multilingual intricateness of this fragment ...  

 

Thank you all ... this experiment is mine alone, so blame me if you find this too much to handle ... 

 

 

POET: K. V. Tirumalesh

KANNADA ORIGINAL: first line of the fragment: ಸಂಡೇ ಮಾರ್ಕೆಟ್

‘Sunday Market’ from AVYAYA KAVYA (2019)

ENGLISH TRANSLATION: S. Jayasrinivasa Rao

 

 

Sunday market Monday market Tuesday market

Each day a different market

What we have is Sunday market

 

Every Sunday it rises up like magic

out of nothing really

on both sides of the wide road

opposite Gokul Mart 

Its excitement is infectious 

Those who go there once go there every week

 

Some are covered, some are bare, some on the ground

Some on pushcarts and some more on their imitations

Like Plato said no pushcart is real

The pushcart of truth is not here

On the earth and on the sky and 

everything here are imitations

Among them us too

What’s real what’s an imitation 

Why did we come here I don’t remember 

We wander around or stand around

 

These busy ladies are perhaps Rambhas, Urvashis 

and Tilottamas, celestial maidens, in disguise, 

have come here tired of heaven or cursed by someone

This is a Goblin Market

Come here, come here, they call you

Whose shop do we go to, whose shop do we skip

We like all of them though

 

We haggle we appeal we cajole a bit

We remember the farmer who’s not here

potato tomato eeruLLi beLLuLLi

haagalakaayi padavalakaayi tender southekaayi

The gummadikaaya that reminds you of the thief of yore

I mean kumbaLakaayi

watermelon pineapple and papaya 

 

The shops selling plastic toys that attract children 

imitation jewellery cell-phone 

a bear that laughs when you twist its ears 

a cat that cries when you pull its tail 

 

An old man used to sit on one side with a heap of lemons

An unfurled umbrella resting on his shoulder 

as if he were a chhatrapati

He sat detached as if he had nothing to do with the lemons

Doesn’t call out to anyone doesn’t look at anyone

One day he was not to be seen 

As if he had gone to Plato’s truth-world 

Nobody asked where he was 

That place remained vacant

 

On a Sunday subsequently, in that place 

lemons were seen, the umbrella was seen

Under the umbrella an old woman was seen 

She too was silent 

More real than anyone else

 

*****