The Untranslatable Poetry

May 22, 2021 at 9:15 PMMay (Literature, Poetry, Slice Of Life, Soliloquy)

In the year 2017 when the publishers of my first book sent me the complimentary copies of my book,  I showed it to my mother with great pride. My mother smiled reading its title ‘rooparoopagaLanu daaTi‘ and asked me what was the book about. I told her it’s a compilation if 74 poems from across the globe, from different languages, translated into Kannada by me. She said nothing after that went back to cooking, and I got back to my room.

In some time Amma knocked at my door and when I opened she held a bowl of gaajar ka halwa… She scooped out a spoonful of halwa, put it in my mouth saying, “I dont understand poetry, but I am very happy for you.” There was mist in her eyes.

As I got back to work station, with halwa in my mouth and tears in my eyes, I realized that the best poetry is mother’s love. That, I realized, I will never be able to translate.

***

That evening when I natrated this to my friend Randheer Kaur, she recollected a poem by Surjit Patar, originally written in Punjabi, and roughly translated it for me into English…

The poem by Surjit Patar in the translation of Gurshminder Jagpal reads:

My mother could not comprehend my poem
though it was written in my mother tongue

She only understood
son’s soul suffers some sorrow

But with me alive
wherefrom did his sorrow arrive

With utmost keenness
my unlettered mother gazed at my poem
Look!
The womb-born
conceal from mother
and confide sorrow in papers

My mother picked the paper
and held it close to bosom
Perhaps, thus
would get closer
born from me.

(Originally written as an Instagram post on 2021 mothers’ day)