Attempt to translate a few Tamil poems
Here is an attempt to translate a few Tamil poems by a youngster from
the North. His anthology titled "Manothodu Malaik Kaalam" (With Mind
During the Rainy Season) will be launched by the publisher of a fine
literary monthly called Jeevanathy at Kalai Akam in Alvvai North West in
the North on the poet's birthday on October 16, 2011.
He happens to be the assistant editor of the journal edited by
another undergraduate specializing in psychology at the University of
Yaalpaanam - Kalamany Bharaneetharan. The current issue of Jeevanathy is
a special number on the contributions to Lankan Tamil Literature by this
columnist.
Let's get back to my attempt at translating at least a few poems
found in this collection.
Achap Piranthiya Iravup Pirakadanam (Fear invested Night
Proclamation)
Allow me to speak aloud.
No more can I keep my pen idle
Keeping my bursting feelings
Within me
Just waiting like a hen
Over the eggs.
 In the unknown life
Only the known terrors
Are borne out
In everyone's minds.
In all spaces of happenings
That terrorize all is fear
That results.
While on one hand
Formless fears torture
On the other
Already- formed fears
Continue following us.
Wont' the nights at least
Show pity on us?'
The pillows are floating
In spaces of delight
As if they do not have
Anything to perform
In the middle of the night
Come fearsome languages
Instilling fear
The two phases of the night
Are spent as one phase
Though understood
Truths remain not understood
Our own evidences in support
Lose their grips against the
Demons.
Like this every night
Remain only for us
Proclaimed
'Fear - invested nights'?
Aaraam Arivai Santhekitha laai (Suspecting the Sixth Sense?)
Even amidst unrequited dreams
That burns with heat
Within our hearts as
Some unfulfilled yearnings
In the life of the humans'
Residues that hangs around
Here and there: pains, deceit
and
Broken hearts.
Humanism struggles unable
To retrieve owing to
Pressuring meanings.
Despite all this losses
The mind hesitates to
Accept everything as normal
Rises to forcibly welcome
Death
Bolds itself to kill itself
Suspecting even the existence of
The Sixth Sense
Drives to hasty conclusion
What for? But like broken pieces
of glass
Why pretend that's your mind?
Imagine that they're
Solid Changes.
Unwanted conclusions
Could end in pain.
Unpalatable happenings
Only end up in suicide
Day by day only heaps of
Corpses only could fill
The middle of the streets'
In the cosmos born a wonderful
Creature Human (ism)
Within a second
Destroys life.
Is it an act of
going beyond
A desert that is
knowledge?
Irukiya
Ithayangal
(Hardened Hearts)
There the
Scientific Many
Works hard to
give feelings to
Robots there.
Here heart-hardened
Un - scientific
Man
Thinks how
Robots
Could be
developed to
show
Differences in
human species.
As readers would acknowledge translation of poetry in particular,
from one language to the other is extremely difficult and cannot be
perfect and accurate. I have tried to understand the mind of the poet
Thushyanthan who like many in the Tamil-speaking regions have struggled
hard to exist during the bloody war that engulfed them for more than
four decades or so.
Many people young and old had experienced severe mental blocks owing
to freezing of their emotions and thinking power due to fear.
In such a situation it is even difficult to express their experiences
in clear direct terms. So like this poet, they try to compress what they
want to say in a' felt language 'prompted by their own individual
imaginative creative ability. This poet, doing in his poems.
Please consider these poems as well:
Elutha Mudiyaatha Elilkal
(Beauties that cannot be Described)
Sunset, Night in moonshine
Cluster of Stars, Waves that
embrace the sand beach
The swaying of coconut leaves
Against the smooth wind
Mother's lullaby
The eyes of the loved girl
The giggle of the babble of the
baby-
Beauties that cannot be written in words
Even tried, paucity of words
That remains.
Nirambatha Vettidangal (Unnfilled Vaccum)
God Live say devotees, No god say atheists
Empty space for ages between
Existence and non-existence
The responses for this lacuna
Remains a question in each
one's mind.
Unless God descend on earth
'Aathikam' (Belief in God)
Will always be the winner.
Enjoy, if you can.
[email protected]
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