Papers by Viplav Kumar Mandal
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND ANALYTICAL REVIEWS (IJRAR), 2015
Shaw finds society a laboratory where the social scientist picks up a particular phenomenon, obse... more Shaw finds society a laboratory where the social scientist picks up a particular phenomenon, observes it, and concludes based on observation and experiment. Interestingly, in Shaw's case, the conclusions are numerous. De-mystification of the conventional social norms and ethos is Shaw's forte. This paper attempts to explore those conclusions in the form of Shaw's ideas or points of view with his play, Mrs Warren's Profession, as a case study. The attempt here considers Shavian ideas on education, hierarchy, and capitalism and how these instruments control and penetrate the individual consciousness and social fabric.
PARAMPARA PRAKASHAN, KOLKATA, INDIA, 2014
INTRODUCTION
When selecting these poems, I did not act as a judge, a specialist. I valued the div... more INTRODUCTION
When selecting these poems, I did not act as a judge, a specialist. I valued the diversity, contemporaneousness, and universality of themes inherent in them. Attention of a poem to its theme, not the translator’s private perception of the subject, was the benchmark in its selection. The questions of acceptability and rejection were inconsequential because while an artist can squeeze the sap out, directing him to return the sap back into the source is a misconduct. Complete is an unpragmatic, ambiguous and punishing term when applied to a creation. Here some poems are dark, others sketchy; a few underscore the comprehensive hollowness behind the concrete noncomprehensive truth; one or two celebrate random and popular people their lives, temperance, fortitude and defeats. Though local and literary value of some of the poems impressed my choice the presiding thought was to respect the poet’s intention and treatment of the subject. No denying the fact that the author begets the thoughts feelings pangs relief…. --the translator attempts to conduit them in a different tongue to the world.
I formed my own little -ism during the course of translation imagining myself a bee hopelessly trying to access colourful succulent flowers and fruits in a garden because a crystal-clear glass stood between me and the garden. I repeatedly bump into it trying to catch at the blooms. I try I fail I try I fail but try I continue. It’s a love story-a sketchy-type-of unrequited love; of humour that darkens as it sheds its onion layers. But love it is anyway and story it will be-perception, varied. Thoughts of how a reader might respond to conscious diversion of mythical, cultural, and socio-political nuances and metamorphoses of localese left me disconcerted at times. Will the reader reject the translation and, in the process, disregard the poet? - I ruminated. I questioned myself
What is a work?
Who is an author?
Who between the author and the translator is an impersonal agency?
Who is the medium-the author, the translator, the reader?
Is the original work a meaning and the translation an interpretation?
Is the translation an exploration/assessment of the many selves of the translator? Or, a vent to pent up complexes?
Answers were difficult to come by and questions endless.
TRANSLATOR POET TRANSLATION
A translator is not a target-less shooter. He/She, at least ensures a trajectory, which, again, is not a self-conceived one. The interesting part of the exercise is the realization (with a hint of equanimity) that it is a question of a question-not being a translator but the being of a translator; from meaning to interpreting a meaning. I chalked out a lazy chart more to convince myself than others
ORIGINAL WORK
AUTHOR TRANSLATED WORK (WORK?)
TRANSLATOR (AUTHOR?)
ORIGINAL WORK TRANSLATED WORK
FIRST-HAND ASSESSMENT 1. FIRST-HAND ASSESSMENT OF A FIRST-HAND ASSESSMENT
2. STUDY OF THE AUTHOR/ORIGINAL WORK+STUDY OF THE TRANSLATOR’S SELF
RESULT FROM ORIGINAL TO TRANSLATION TO ????
A poet’s mind is too diverse and complex to follow. Any fixed pattern or academic methodology to comprehend the worlds his mind is situated in will result in bewilderment. It will more hamper than help the translator. Instead, the translator can attempt a synthetic cognition of the variety, complexity, wisdom, experience, alienation and conflicts of the poet with the near-similar nature and structures of his typical world-the lived experience and the acquired ones (conscious and otherwise, both). The mixing and matching of the mind’s body will be the recipe for furthering the new journey-the unnamed endless undecipherable journey.
There can be no Essentials to Translation. No two observations are on the same plane. Reader comes in here. We do not need a jolting arousal to discover that whatever amount may be written on/about/for translation, the reader may or may not know the original poem/may or may not have read the original poem/may or may not read the original poem, hypotheses will survive. It will only help in furthering the cause of translation. Newer criticism will encourage newer translations potentially benefitting poetry itself.
Translation is a re-moved truth. The reader’s reading of the translation a not truth twice re-moved: its relatively novel, if not original. Let’s not err in calling it a perceived truth proper but it's no less different either. So, what it is then? It’s inconclusive conclusion (to borrow from Homer) traversing between a beginning and a mirage-ending. A reader acknowledges writing as a creation. A creation has an entity and identity of its own just like a new-born has. The reader responds to its presence and by virtue of his novel response registers a novel impression. So, the question of how much a work remains of its creator or how much of a work remains of its author post-delivery is debatable. His role is similar to that of a courier-fellow: pick drop and leave. When a poet translates his poem there lingers a possibility that the end-result will be a nostalgic recreation with oodles of self-indulgence. Such a translation will have self-evident proofs of linguistic, verbal and emotional registers. In fact, at times it may be convenient for an author to be introduced than to introduce. I won’t dare to say that an objective translation is special and minus biases of the translator’s experience and persona. The author can, at least, rest assured that even without authorial identity his/her poem will remain a poem.
CONCLUSION
The purpose of presenting as vivid a picture as intelligence and sincerity allowed has taken the shape of this book. An essentially unorthodox poet that Biswanath Laha is, I struggled to recognize the abstractness of the original text several times. But I never attempted to paint on the lily. Realistic fidelity to the original text was my credo. Yes, there were tight corners when handling linguistic registers. Translating into Hindi from Bengali is less formidable because they share somewhat similar and familiar philological and cultural patterns. English is an arduous unforgiving foreign terrain.
Biswanath Laha -A Study
In the winter of 2005, Dr. Shibani Roy, my colleague at Gangarampur College, introduced me to Biswanath Laha. At his residence in Balurghat, a lanky gentleman with a broad smile and shy kohl eyes welcomed us in. A fine host that he is, I hadn't the faintest idea that I was talking to a bereaved father who had lost his only daughter very recently. It was also the year I read his anthology Durobarti Balukana (1998). By January 2006 I read Dag Bhag O Annyanya(1994) and Kachghar o Minjanma (2004). Jal Jaee Jal Ashi (2010), Nirbachito Kobita (2012) and Annya Jal Vinnya Aakash (2013) followed in the next 6 years. It won't be out of place to mention here that some of the poems in the anthologies of 2008 and 2010 also appear in Durobarti Balukana (1998) and Dag Bhag O Annyanya (1994).
While doing the review of Jal Jaee Jal Ashi (2010) I made up my mind to
translate poems from that anthology. In the spring of 2011, we were discussing the paradigm shifts" and "harsh English consonants'" used in the target language. Biswanath Laha was working upon Annya Jal Vinnya Aakash then. I requested him to allow me to translate some of the poems from the unpublished anthology. He politely refused as he had committed to his publisher. I then offered to translate poems from that anthology post-publication. He agreed. Interestingly, Nirbachito Kobita came out in 2012, before Annya Jal Vinnya Aakash. I was told that Nirbachito Kobita (2012) "would be [a] much-needed punctuation mark" to "sum up the past and to make way for the future". I guess he was trying to sum up emotional lag of yesteryears and take on a new line of thinking. A noticeable change between the writings before the publication of Nirbachito Kobita and the later poems is that he moved within than looking at society for fodder. The year 2012 and Nirbachito Kobita turn out to be water shed in his poetic career. Most of the poems in Nirbachito Kobita I had already translated. The bulk of my work constitute poems from Durobarti Balukana (1998), Dag Bhag O Annyanya (1994), Kachghar O Minjanma (2004) and Jal Jaee Jal Ashi (2010).
Laha speaks very little of his poetry or anyone else's for that, though one may find him oracular with pen in hand. During an interview he summed up himself thus:".... my poetry hovers between truth and truth unreconciled. It is not the sort most love to read....My mother once told me that every flower has a garden to it. May be, mine will meet some garden one day...may be, have already met.. may be, will never get one. I personally don't ride on a let-down god. Look, I am a businessman
who thrives on public custom; I don't live on free enterprise." Born to Taranikanta Laha and Maya Laha on 15 December 1953, Biswanath Laha owns a lathe workshop in Balurghat, a small town with a surprisingly rich cultural and historical legacy. Nestled cozily on the lap of river Atreyee (also known as Atrai), Balurghat was once a throbbing town that acted as a business corridor with Bangladesh. It skirts along the Indo-Bangla border and is the district head-quarter of Dakshin Dinajpur District (erstwhile West Dinajpur District). The Lahas hail from Kaloha village in Tangail District (formerly a sub-division), Bangladesh. Biswanath Laha
was born in a village called Gunjarpur (under Kamarpara post office area) in the unbifurcated West Dinajpur District of West Bengal, India.
In Bangladesh the Lahas were into a variety of trades from haberdashery to grocery to sweets to gold. They were floating business-men literally because of the practice of conducting trade on boat-shops (Gawal in Bengali) that served as house-boat cum mobile-shopping-centres. A great part of their life-time was spent on such boats. Biswanath Laha must have heard of such commercial activity and the adventure and associated experiences from his father who h...
IJRAR (INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND ANALYTICAL REVIEWS), May 29, 2019
It is intriguing to try to define what literature is. Some say it is a fictional representation o... more It is intriguing to try to define what literature is. Some say it is a fictional representation of life which is taken to be a truthful presentation or rendering of the enigma or phenomena called life. Then if it is something false, how can it hold our attention, lure us after it like something better, brighter, more reverberating than the real life? Alternatively, what happens to our emotions and passions activated through our literary or Art experiences. This article seeks to explore these sweet-sour questions.
IJRAR (INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND ANALYTICAL REVIEWS), May 31, 2019
The human mind is a sea of emotions. Sometimes clear as daylight, sometimes, unfathomable. D.H. L... more The human mind is a sea of emotions. Sometimes clear as daylight, sometimes, unfathomable. D.H. Lawrence, in his epoch-making work "Sons and Lovers," sets about delineating intense workings of human mind and emotions. A possessive and doting mother, a meek and condescending son is just the upper crust of the story. The subterranean tale of transference of love and deflection of emotions is something that that needs a serious pursuit. They are two individuals with independent identities and also exact corollaries. To each other, they are everything they longed for. To each other, they are also bête noirs. Each one is a perfect replica and otherwise. Lawrence etches the characters and the souls of the characters with a poetic hue. The result is a brilliant reading of eternal passions of love, life, lust, and loss.
IJBAR (INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BASIC AND APPLIED RESEARCH), Apr 26, 2019
Partition encompasses the division of a given territory peacefully and efficiently. The Partition... more Partition encompasses the division of a given territory peacefully and efficiently. The Partition of India in 1947, sordidly, led to a holocaust. The Holocaust took one million lives and an equal number being either displaced or rendered missing or refugee (Mufti 55). The Partition, ironically, has become bread and butter to politicians and capitalists on both sides of the border. Invariably these state operators are being operated by some non-state actors residing thousands of miles away from the site of strife and safe from being suspected or implicated. Surprisingly, little fiction of considerable importance and proportion on the Partition is available. The available literature is, again, not proportionate to the effects it had on the lives of people. The problem is not indecipherable though. Partition is a significant issue in the history of India and Pakistan with an ever-evolving pertinence. Now and then it rises from its ashes and claims lives. Sometimes the losses are of catastrophic proportion. There is no particular intellectual or rational constant on which a writer can delve for a long time while handling it. Emotions have always taken the upper hand while discussing Partition. The Partition and its ever-changing algorithm are comparable with the Israel-Palestine issue in the Middle-East. This paper has steered clear of such lopsided emotional discourses and focussed on the feel the universal vibes in the writings of some prominent writers of Pakistan and India who saw the dark days of Partition and subsequently ventilated their experiences in prose and verse. Through the looking glass of their writings, this paper will look-within the limited span of a research paper, of course-at the fate of humanity during a tumultuous phase in the history of two-nations, many partitions.
IJRAR (INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND ANALYTICAL REVIEWS), Apr 2019
To understand his genius, we need to look into his poetry. They give a deep insight into his soci... more To understand his genius, we need to look into his poetry. They give a deep insight into his socio-mystic nature. A critic may also find suggestions of Buddhism in his pursuit for Truth. However, these are mere traits; 'Agyeya' surveys life here and hereafter. His surveilling temperament never sits in peace. His works are a penthouse flow down from where the water of love and humanity. The present paper is one such humble attempt to understand the quagmire of modern existence through Agyeya's poetic art and philosophy. Understanding Agyeya may seem a bit intimidating at first because of the inherent complexity of his philosophy. Translation of his 1967 poem Kitni Navon Mein Kitni Baar as So often in boats many is an effort to make the poet a little more familiar. It acts as the bedrock of this research paper.
IJRSS (INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SOCIAL SCIENCES), Jun 2016
This paper attempts to read Fitzgerald's epoch-making novel The Great Gatsby as a cultural discou... more This paper attempts to read Fitzgerald's epoch-making novel The Great Gatsby as a cultural discourse of super-charged times. The post First World War was a time of great social, economic, and cultural upheaval across the globe. The U.S. was not left untouched. This novel is a living and throbbing document of its time. Gatsby's rise and fall is only the upper turf of the story. The factors leading to his becoming what he became and the later course of events that ultimately destroy him make up for the subterranean part of the story. This paper tries to look into the economic aspect of the story alongside the emotional and social aspects as well.
EXPOSURE: THE JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE AND HUMANITIES, Jun 2016
Several of the existentialists are famous play writers. Perhaps, Sartre is the most recognized of... more Several of the existentialists are famous play writers. Perhaps, Sartre is the most recognized of them all as demonstrated in the continuing popularity of his No Exit, The Respectful Prostitute, and, The Flies. Lesser popular are the dramas of Gabriel Marcel. Besides, cinema, tales, and, short stories function as fictional techniques of conveying philosophical perspective (Crowell,2012). The leniency of a comedy has a more extensive effect than an intellectual, logical piece such as Sartre's Being and Nothingness. Again, Graphic novels provoke insightful intellectual in a manner that an essay cannot.
Furthermore, Marcel articulates on this, "Nevertheless, one might say that it is the function of drama to arouse secondary reflection in us." (Buell,1995) Only some existentialists have been fictional discretely generating drama. Other approaches, such as journals and allegory, serve significant media for Kierkegaard and Marcel. These stressed strategies to communication need not to be eliminated; the direct message of notions alongside conventional philosophical techniques of argumentation. A decent description of existentialism is challenging to generate since, existentialism is by the landscape of the movements against fine, hard backed categories.
IJRAR (INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND ANALYTICAL REVIEWS), Apr 2015
Religious dogmatism has been handled in a poetic vein by Ananthamurthy in Samskara. The fault lin... more Religious dogmatism has been handled in a poetic vein by Ananthamurthy in Samskara. The fault lines have been shown through conflicts of and in human relationship. Religion is at fault when it becomes deductive. This deductivism has its advocates and critics in this novel. The present paper attempts to bring to fore both these aspects of Hinduism through its study of the protagonist in this novel. Praneshacharya dares tradition. He shatters formula. Through him, Ananthamurthy sets about diagnosing and treating the age-old beliefs that more damage than build. Via Praneshacharya's voice, Ananthamurthy calls for the much-needed change in the customs and beliefs that are to him and his mouthpiece protagonist nothing more than meaningless pageantry.
Books by Viplav Kumar Mandal
Parampara Prakashan, Kolkata, India, 2014
THAKUMAR JANYO EKTI KOBITA (A POEM FOR GRANDMA) is an anthology of poems by Biswanath Laha transl... more THAKUMAR JANYO EKTI KOBITA (A POEM FOR GRANDMA) is an anthology of poems by Biswanath Laha translated into English by Viplav Kumar Mandal.
INTRODUCTION
When selecting these poems, I did not act as a judge, a specialist. I valued the diversity, contemporaneousness, and universality of themes inherent in them. Attention of a poem to its theme, not the translator’s private perception of the subject, was the benchmark in its selection. The questions of acceptability and rejection were inconsequential because while an artist can squeeze the sap out, directing him to return the sap back into the source is a misconduct. Complete is an unpragmatic, ambiguous and punishing term when applied to a creation. Here some poems are dark, others sketchy; a few underscore the comprehensive hollowness behind the concrete noncomprehensive truth; one or two celebrate random and popular people their lives, temperance, fortitude and defeats. Though local and literary value of some of the poems impressed my choice the presiding thought was to respect the poet’s intention and treatment of the subject. No denying the fact that the author begets the thoughts feelings pangs relief…. --the translator attempts to conduit them in a different tongue to the world.
I formed my own little -ism during the course of translation imagining myself a bee hopelessly trying to access colourful succulent flowers and fruits in a garden because a crystal-clear glass stood between me and the garden. I repeatedly bump into it trying to catch at the blooms. I try I fail I try I fail but try I continue. It’s a love story-a sketchy-type-of unrequited love; of humour that darkens as it sheds its onion layers. But love it is anyway and story it will be-perception, varied. Thoughts of how a reader might respond to conscious diversion of mythical, cultural, and socio-political nuances and metamorphoses of localese left me disconcerted at times. Will the reader reject the translation and, in the process, disregard the poet? - I ruminated. I questioned myself
What is a work?
Who is an author?
Who between the author and the translator is an impersonal agency?
Who is the medium-the author, the translator, the reader?
Is the original work a meaning and the translation an interpretation?
Is the translation an exploration/assessment of the many selves of the translator? Or, a vent to pent up complexes?
Answers were difficult to come by and questions endless.
TRANSLATOR POET TRANSLATION
A translator is not a target-less shooter. He/She, at least ensures a trajectory, which, again, is not a self-conceived one. The interesting part of the exercise is the realization (with a hint of equanimity) that it is a question of a question-not being a translator but the being of a translator; from meaning to interpreting a meaning. I chalked out a lazy chart more to convince myself than others
ORIGINAL WORK
AUTHOR TRANSLATED WORK (WORK?)
TRANSLATOR (AUTHOR?)
ORIGINAL WORK TRANSLATED WORK
FIRST-HAND ASSESSMENT 1. FIRST-HAND ASSESSMENT OF A FIRST-HAND ASSESSMENT
2. STUDY OF THE AUTHOR/ORIGINAL WORK+STUDY OF THE TRANSLATOR’S SELF
RESULT FROM ORIGINAL TO TRANSLATION TO ????
A poet’s mind is too diverse and complex to follow. Any fixed pattern or academic methodology to comprehend the worlds his mind is situated in will result in bewilderment. It will more hamper than help the translator. Instead, the translator can attempt a synthetic cognition of the variety, complexity, wisdom, experience, alienation and conflicts of the poet with the near-similar nature and structures of his typical world-the lived experience and the acquired ones (conscious and otherwise, both). The mixing and matching of the mind’s body will be the recipe for furthering the new journey-the unnamed endless undecipherable journey.
There can be no Essentials to Translation. No two observations are on the same plane. Reader comes in here. We do not need a jolting arousal to discover that whatever amount may be written on/about/for translation, the reader may or may not know the original poem/may or may not have read the original poem/may or may not read the original poem, hypotheses will survive. It will only help in furthering the cause of translation. Newer criticism will encourage newer translations potentially benefitting poetry itself.
Translation is a re-moved truth. The reader’s reading of the translation a not truth twice re-moved: its relatively novel, if not original. Let’s not err in calling it a perceived truth proper but its no less different either. So, what it is then? It’s inconclusive conclusion (to borrow from Homer) traversing between a beginning and a mirage-ending. A reader acknowledges writing as a creation. A creation has an entity and identity of its own just like a new-born has. The reader responds to its presence and by virtue of his novel response registers a novel impression. So, the question of how much a work remains of its creator or how much of a work remains of its author post-delivery is debatable. His role is similar to that of a courier-fellow: pick drop and leave. When a poet translates his poem there lingers a possibility that the end-result will be a nostalgic recreation with oodles of self-indulgence. Such a translation will have self-evident proofs of linguistic, verbal and emotional registers. In fact, at times it may be convenient for an author to be introduced than to introduce. I won’t dare to say that an objective translation is special and minus biases of the translator’s experience and persona. The author can, at least, rest assured that even without authorial identity his/her poem will remain a poem.
CONCLUSION
The purpose of presenting as vivid a picture as intelligence and sincerity allowed has taken the shape of this book. An essentially unorthodox poet that Biswanath Laha is, I struggled to recognize the abstractness of the original text several times. But I never attempted to paint on the lily. Realistic fidelity to the original text was my credo. Yes, there were tight corners when handling linguistic registers. Translating into Hindi from Bengali is less formidable because they share somewhat similar and familiar philological and cultural patterns. English is an arduous unforgiving foreign terrain.
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Papers by Viplav Kumar Mandal
When selecting these poems, I did not act as a judge, a specialist. I valued the diversity, contemporaneousness, and universality of themes inherent in them. Attention of a poem to its theme, not the translator’s private perception of the subject, was the benchmark in its selection. The questions of acceptability and rejection were inconsequential because while an artist can squeeze the sap out, directing him to return the sap back into the source is a misconduct. Complete is an unpragmatic, ambiguous and punishing term when applied to a creation. Here some poems are dark, others sketchy; a few underscore the comprehensive hollowness behind the concrete noncomprehensive truth; one or two celebrate random and popular people their lives, temperance, fortitude and defeats. Though local and literary value of some of the poems impressed my choice the presiding thought was to respect the poet’s intention and treatment of the subject. No denying the fact that the author begets the thoughts feelings pangs relief…. --the translator attempts to conduit them in a different tongue to the world.
I formed my own little -ism during the course of translation imagining myself a bee hopelessly trying to access colourful succulent flowers and fruits in a garden because a crystal-clear glass stood between me and the garden. I repeatedly bump into it trying to catch at the blooms. I try I fail I try I fail but try I continue. It’s a love story-a sketchy-type-of unrequited love; of humour that darkens as it sheds its onion layers. But love it is anyway and story it will be-perception, varied. Thoughts of how a reader might respond to conscious diversion of mythical, cultural, and socio-political nuances and metamorphoses of localese left me disconcerted at times. Will the reader reject the translation and, in the process, disregard the poet? - I ruminated. I questioned myself
What is a work?
Who is an author?
Who between the author and the translator is an impersonal agency?
Who is the medium-the author, the translator, the reader?
Is the original work a meaning and the translation an interpretation?
Is the translation an exploration/assessment of the many selves of the translator? Or, a vent to pent up complexes?
Answers were difficult to come by and questions endless.
TRANSLATOR POET TRANSLATION
A translator is not a target-less shooter. He/She, at least ensures a trajectory, which, again, is not a self-conceived one. The interesting part of the exercise is the realization (with a hint of equanimity) that it is a question of a question-not being a translator but the being of a translator; from meaning to interpreting a meaning. I chalked out a lazy chart more to convince myself than others
ORIGINAL WORK
AUTHOR TRANSLATED WORK (WORK?)
TRANSLATOR (AUTHOR?)
ORIGINAL WORK TRANSLATED WORK
FIRST-HAND ASSESSMENT 1. FIRST-HAND ASSESSMENT OF A FIRST-HAND ASSESSMENT
2. STUDY OF THE AUTHOR/ORIGINAL WORK+STUDY OF THE TRANSLATOR’S SELF
RESULT FROM ORIGINAL TO TRANSLATION TO ????
A poet’s mind is too diverse and complex to follow. Any fixed pattern or academic methodology to comprehend the worlds his mind is situated in will result in bewilderment. It will more hamper than help the translator. Instead, the translator can attempt a synthetic cognition of the variety, complexity, wisdom, experience, alienation and conflicts of the poet with the near-similar nature and structures of his typical world-the lived experience and the acquired ones (conscious and otherwise, both). The mixing and matching of the mind’s body will be the recipe for furthering the new journey-the unnamed endless undecipherable journey.
There can be no Essentials to Translation. No two observations are on the same plane. Reader comes in here. We do not need a jolting arousal to discover that whatever amount may be written on/about/for translation, the reader may or may not know the original poem/may or may not have read the original poem/may or may not read the original poem, hypotheses will survive. It will only help in furthering the cause of translation. Newer criticism will encourage newer translations potentially benefitting poetry itself.
Translation is a re-moved truth. The reader’s reading of the translation a not truth twice re-moved: its relatively novel, if not original. Let’s not err in calling it a perceived truth proper but it's no less different either. So, what it is then? It’s inconclusive conclusion (to borrow from Homer) traversing between a beginning and a mirage-ending. A reader acknowledges writing as a creation. A creation has an entity and identity of its own just like a new-born has. The reader responds to its presence and by virtue of his novel response registers a novel impression. So, the question of how much a work remains of its creator or how much of a work remains of its author post-delivery is debatable. His role is similar to that of a courier-fellow: pick drop and leave. When a poet translates his poem there lingers a possibility that the end-result will be a nostalgic recreation with oodles of self-indulgence. Such a translation will have self-evident proofs of linguistic, verbal and emotional registers. In fact, at times it may be convenient for an author to be introduced than to introduce. I won’t dare to say that an objective translation is special and minus biases of the translator’s experience and persona. The author can, at least, rest assured that even without authorial identity his/her poem will remain a poem.
CONCLUSION
The purpose of presenting as vivid a picture as intelligence and sincerity allowed has taken the shape of this book. An essentially unorthodox poet that Biswanath Laha is, I struggled to recognize the abstractness of the original text several times. But I never attempted to paint on the lily. Realistic fidelity to the original text was my credo. Yes, there were tight corners when handling linguistic registers. Translating into Hindi from Bengali is less formidable because they share somewhat similar and familiar philological and cultural patterns. English is an arduous unforgiving foreign terrain.
Biswanath Laha -A Study
In the winter of 2005, Dr. Shibani Roy, my colleague at Gangarampur College, introduced me to Biswanath Laha. At his residence in Balurghat, a lanky gentleman with a broad smile and shy kohl eyes welcomed us in. A fine host that he is, I hadn't the faintest idea that I was talking to a bereaved father who had lost his only daughter very recently. It was also the year I read his anthology Durobarti Balukana (1998). By January 2006 I read Dag Bhag O Annyanya(1994) and Kachghar o Minjanma (2004). Jal Jaee Jal Ashi (2010), Nirbachito Kobita (2012) and Annya Jal Vinnya Aakash (2013) followed in the next 6 years. It won't be out of place to mention here that some of the poems in the anthologies of 2008 and 2010 also appear in Durobarti Balukana (1998) and Dag Bhag O Annyanya (1994).
While doing the review of Jal Jaee Jal Ashi (2010) I made up my mind to
translate poems from that anthology. In the spring of 2011, we were discussing the paradigm shifts" and "harsh English consonants'" used in the target language. Biswanath Laha was working upon Annya Jal Vinnya Aakash then. I requested him to allow me to translate some of the poems from the unpublished anthology. He politely refused as he had committed to his publisher. I then offered to translate poems from that anthology post-publication. He agreed. Interestingly, Nirbachito Kobita came out in 2012, before Annya Jal Vinnya Aakash. I was told that Nirbachito Kobita (2012) "would be [a] much-needed punctuation mark" to "sum up the past and to make way for the future". I guess he was trying to sum up emotional lag of yesteryears and take on a new line of thinking. A noticeable change between the writings before the publication of Nirbachito Kobita and the later poems is that he moved within than looking at society for fodder. The year 2012 and Nirbachito Kobita turn out to be water shed in his poetic career. Most of the poems in Nirbachito Kobita I had already translated. The bulk of my work constitute poems from Durobarti Balukana (1998), Dag Bhag O Annyanya (1994), Kachghar O Minjanma (2004) and Jal Jaee Jal Ashi (2010).
Laha speaks very little of his poetry or anyone else's for that, though one may find him oracular with pen in hand. During an interview he summed up himself thus:".... my poetry hovers between truth and truth unreconciled. It is not the sort most love to read....My mother once told me that every flower has a garden to it. May be, mine will meet some garden one day...may be, have already met.. may be, will never get one. I personally don't ride on a let-down god. Look, I am a businessman
who thrives on public custom; I don't live on free enterprise." Born to Taranikanta Laha and Maya Laha on 15 December 1953, Biswanath Laha owns a lathe workshop in Balurghat, a small town with a surprisingly rich cultural and historical legacy. Nestled cozily on the lap of river Atreyee (also known as Atrai), Balurghat was once a throbbing town that acted as a business corridor with Bangladesh. It skirts along the Indo-Bangla border and is the district head-quarter of Dakshin Dinajpur District (erstwhile West Dinajpur District). The Lahas hail from Kaloha village in Tangail District (formerly a sub-division), Bangladesh. Biswanath Laha
was born in a village called Gunjarpur (under Kamarpara post office area) in the unbifurcated West Dinajpur District of West Bengal, India.
In Bangladesh the Lahas were into a variety of trades from haberdashery to grocery to sweets to gold. They were floating business-men literally because of the practice of conducting trade on boat-shops (Gawal in Bengali) that served as house-boat cum mobile-shopping-centres. A great part of their life-time was spent on such boats. Biswanath Laha must have heard of such commercial activity and the adventure and associated experiences from his father who h...
Furthermore, Marcel articulates on this, "Nevertheless, one might say that it is the function of drama to arouse secondary reflection in us." (Buell,1995) Only some existentialists have been fictional discretely generating drama. Other approaches, such as journals and allegory, serve significant media for Kierkegaard and Marcel. These stressed strategies to communication need not to be eliminated; the direct message of notions alongside conventional philosophical techniques of argumentation. A decent description of existentialism is challenging to generate since, existentialism is by the landscape of the movements against fine, hard backed categories.
Books by Viplav Kumar Mandal
INTRODUCTION
When selecting these poems, I did not act as a judge, a specialist. I valued the diversity, contemporaneousness, and universality of themes inherent in them. Attention of a poem to its theme, not the translator’s private perception of the subject, was the benchmark in its selection. The questions of acceptability and rejection were inconsequential because while an artist can squeeze the sap out, directing him to return the sap back into the source is a misconduct. Complete is an unpragmatic, ambiguous and punishing term when applied to a creation. Here some poems are dark, others sketchy; a few underscore the comprehensive hollowness behind the concrete noncomprehensive truth; one or two celebrate random and popular people their lives, temperance, fortitude and defeats. Though local and literary value of some of the poems impressed my choice the presiding thought was to respect the poet’s intention and treatment of the subject. No denying the fact that the author begets the thoughts feelings pangs relief…. --the translator attempts to conduit them in a different tongue to the world.
I formed my own little -ism during the course of translation imagining myself a bee hopelessly trying to access colourful succulent flowers and fruits in a garden because a crystal-clear glass stood between me and the garden. I repeatedly bump into it trying to catch at the blooms. I try I fail I try I fail but try I continue. It’s a love story-a sketchy-type-of unrequited love; of humour that darkens as it sheds its onion layers. But love it is anyway and story it will be-perception, varied. Thoughts of how a reader might respond to conscious diversion of mythical, cultural, and socio-political nuances and metamorphoses of localese left me disconcerted at times. Will the reader reject the translation and, in the process, disregard the poet? - I ruminated. I questioned myself
What is a work?
Who is an author?
Who between the author and the translator is an impersonal agency?
Who is the medium-the author, the translator, the reader?
Is the original work a meaning and the translation an interpretation?
Is the translation an exploration/assessment of the many selves of the translator? Or, a vent to pent up complexes?
Answers were difficult to come by and questions endless.
TRANSLATOR POET TRANSLATION
A translator is not a target-less shooter. He/She, at least ensures a trajectory, which, again, is not a self-conceived one. The interesting part of the exercise is the realization (with a hint of equanimity) that it is a question of a question-not being a translator but the being of a translator; from meaning to interpreting a meaning. I chalked out a lazy chart more to convince myself than others
ORIGINAL WORK
AUTHOR TRANSLATED WORK (WORK?)
TRANSLATOR (AUTHOR?)
ORIGINAL WORK TRANSLATED WORK
FIRST-HAND ASSESSMENT 1. FIRST-HAND ASSESSMENT OF A FIRST-HAND ASSESSMENT
2. STUDY OF THE AUTHOR/ORIGINAL WORK+STUDY OF THE TRANSLATOR’S SELF
RESULT FROM ORIGINAL TO TRANSLATION TO ????
A poet’s mind is too diverse and complex to follow. Any fixed pattern or academic methodology to comprehend the worlds his mind is situated in will result in bewilderment. It will more hamper than help the translator. Instead, the translator can attempt a synthetic cognition of the variety, complexity, wisdom, experience, alienation and conflicts of the poet with the near-similar nature and structures of his typical world-the lived experience and the acquired ones (conscious and otherwise, both). The mixing and matching of the mind’s body will be the recipe for furthering the new journey-the unnamed endless undecipherable journey.
There can be no Essentials to Translation. No two observations are on the same plane. Reader comes in here. We do not need a jolting arousal to discover that whatever amount may be written on/about/for translation, the reader may or may not know the original poem/may or may not have read the original poem/may or may not read the original poem, hypotheses will survive. It will only help in furthering the cause of translation. Newer criticism will encourage newer translations potentially benefitting poetry itself.
Translation is a re-moved truth. The reader’s reading of the translation a not truth twice re-moved: its relatively novel, if not original. Let’s not err in calling it a perceived truth proper but its no less different either. So, what it is then? It’s inconclusive conclusion (to borrow from Homer) traversing between a beginning and a mirage-ending. A reader acknowledges writing as a creation. A creation has an entity and identity of its own just like a new-born has. The reader responds to its presence and by virtue of his novel response registers a novel impression. So, the question of how much a work remains of its creator or how much of a work remains of its author post-delivery is debatable. His role is similar to that of a courier-fellow: pick drop and leave. When a poet translates his poem there lingers a possibility that the end-result will be a nostalgic recreation with oodles of self-indulgence. Such a translation will have self-evident proofs of linguistic, verbal and emotional registers. In fact, at times it may be convenient for an author to be introduced than to introduce. I won’t dare to say that an objective translation is special and minus biases of the translator’s experience and persona. The author can, at least, rest assured that even without authorial identity his/her poem will remain a poem.
CONCLUSION
The purpose of presenting as vivid a picture as intelligence and sincerity allowed has taken the shape of this book. An essentially unorthodox poet that Biswanath Laha is, I struggled to recognize the abstractness of the original text several times. But I never attempted to paint on the lily. Realistic fidelity to the original text was my credo. Yes, there were tight corners when handling linguistic registers. Translating into Hindi from Bengali is less formidable because they share somewhat similar and familiar philological and cultural patterns. English is an arduous unforgiving foreign terrain.
When selecting these poems, I did not act as a judge, a specialist. I valued the diversity, contemporaneousness, and universality of themes inherent in them. Attention of a poem to its theme, not the translator’s private perception of the subject, was the benchmark in its selection. The questions of acceptability and rejection were inconsequential because while an artist can squeeze the sap out, directing him to return the sap back into the source is a misconduct. Complete is an unpragmatic, ambiguous and punishing term when applied to a creation. Here some poems are dark, others sketchy; a few underscore the comprehensive hollowness behind the concrete noncomprehensive truth; one or two celebrate random and popular people their lives, temperance, fortitude and defeats. Though local and literary value of some of the poems impressed my choice the presiding thought was to respect the poet’s intention and treatment of the subject. No denying the fact that the author begets the thoughts feelings pangs relief…. --the translator attempts to conduit them in a different tongue to the world.
I formed my own little -ism during the course of translation imagining myself a bee hopelessly trying to access colourful succulent flowers and fruits in a garden because a crystal-clear glass stood between me and the garden. I repeatedly bump into it trying to catch at the blooms. I try I fail I try I fail but try I continue. It’s a love story-a sketchy-type-of unrequited love; of humour that darkens as it sheds its onion layers. But love it is anyway and story it will be-perception, varied. Thoughts of how a reader might respond to conscious diversion of mythical, cultural, and socio-political nuances and metamorphoses of localese left me disconcerted at times. Will the reader reject the translation and, in the process, disregard the poet? - I ruminated. I questioned myself
What is a work?
Who is an author?
Who between the author and the translator is an impersonal agency?
Who is the medium-the author, the translator, the reader?
Is the original work a meaning and the translation an interpretation?
Is the translation an exploration/assessment of the many selves of the translator? Or, a vent to pent up complexes?
Answers were difficult to come by and questions endless.
TRANSLATOR POET TRANSLATION
A translator is not a target-less shooter. He/She, at least ensures a trajectory, which, again, is not a self-conceived one. The interesting part of the exercise is the realization (with a hint of equanimity) that it is a question of a question-not being a translator but the being of a translator; from meaning to interpreting a meaning. I chalked out a lazy chart more to convince myself than others
ORIGINAL WORK
AUTHOR TRANSLATED WORK (WORK?)
TRANSLATOR (AUTHOR?)
ORIGINAL WORK TRANSLATED WORK
FIRST-HAND ASSESSMENT 1. FIRST-HAND ASSESSMENT OF A FIRST-HAND ASSESSMENT
2. STUDY OF THE AUTHOR/ORIGINAL WORK+STUDY OF THE TRANSLATOR’S SELF
RESULT FROM ORIGINAL TO TRANSLATION TO ????
A poet’s mind is too diverse and complex to follow. Any fixed pattern or academic methodology to comprehend the worlds his mind is situated in will result in bewilderment. It will more hamper than help the translator. Instead, the translator can attempt a synthetic cognition of the variety, complexity, wisdom, experience, alienation and conflicts of the poet with the near-similar nature and structures of his typical world-the lived experience and the acquired ones (conscious and otherwise, both). The mixing and matching of the mind’s body will be the recipe for furthering the new journey-the unnamed endless undecipherable journey.
There can be no Essentials to Translation. No two observations are on the same plane. Reader comes in here. We do not need a jolting arousal to discover that whatever amount may be written on/about/for translation, the reader may or may not know the original poem/may or may not have read the original poem/may or may not read the original poem, hypotheses will survive. It will only help in furthering the cause of translation. Newer criticism will encourage newer translations potentially benefitting poetry itself.
Translation is a re-moved truth. The reader’s reading of the translation a not truth twice re-moved: its relatively novel, if not original. Let’s not err in calling it a perceived truth proper but it's no less different either. So, what it is then? It’s inconclusive conclusion (to borrow from Homer) traversing between a beginning and a mirage-ending. A reader acknowledges writing as a creation. A creation has an entity and identity of its own just like a new-born has. The reader responds to its presence and by virtue of his novel response registers a novel impression. So, the question of how much a work remains of its creator or how much of a work remains of its author post-delivery is debatable. His role is similar to that of a courier-fellow: pick drop and leave. When a poet translates his poem there lingers a possibility that the end-result will be a nostalgic recreation with oodles of self-indulgence. Such a translation will have self-evident proofs of linguistic, verbal and emotional registers. In fact, at times it may be convenient for an author to be introduced than to introduce. I won’t dare to say that an objective translation is special and minus biases of the translator’s experience and persona. The author can, at least, rest assured that even without authorial identity his/her poem will remain a poem.
CONCLUSION
The purpose of presenting as vivid a picture as intelligence and sincerity allowed has taken the shape of this book. An essentially unorthodox poet that Biswanath Laha is, I struggled to recognize the abstractness of the original text several times. But I never attempted to paint on the lily. Realistic fidelity to the original text was my credo. Yes, there were tight corners when handling linguistic registers. Translating into Hindi from Bengali is less formidable because they share somewhat similar and familiar philological and cultural patterns. English is an arduous unforgiving foreign terrain.
Biswanath Laha -A Study
In the winter of 2005, Dr. Shibani Roy, my colleague at Gangarampur College, introduced me to Biswanath Laha. At his residence in Balurghat, a lanky gentleman with a broad smile and shy kohl eyes welcomed us in. A fine host that he is, I hadn't the faintest idea that I was talking to a bereaved father who had lost his only daughter very recently. It was also the year I read his anthology Durobarti Balukana (1998). By January 2006 I read Dag Bhag O Annyanya(1994) and Kachghar o Minjanma (2004). Jal Jaee Jal Ashi (2010), Nirbachito Kobita (2012) and Annya Jal Vinnya Aakash (2013) followed in the next 6 years. It won't be out of place to mention here that some of the poems in the anthologies of 2008 and 2010 also appear in Durobarti Balukana (1998) and Dag Bhag O Annyanya (1994).
While doing the review of Jal Jaee Jal Ashi (2010) I made up my mind to
translate poems from that anthology. In the spring of 2011, we were discussing the paradigm shifts" and "harsh English consonants'" used in the target language. Biswanath Laha was working upon Annya Jal Vinnya Aakash then. I requested him to allow me to translate some of the poems from the unpublished anthology. He politely refused as he had committed to his publisher. I then offered to translate poems from that anthology post-publication. He agreed. Interestingly, Nirbachito Kobita came out in 2012, before Annya Jal Vinnya Aakash. I was told that Nirbachito Kobita (2012) "would be [a] much-needed punctuation mark" to "sum up the past and to make way for the future". I guess he was trying to sum up emotional lag of yesteryears and take on a new line of thinking. A noticeable change between the writings before the publication of Nirbachito Kobita and the later poems is that he moved within than looking at society for fodder. The year 2012 and Nirbachito Kobita turn out to be water shed in his poetic career. Most of the poems in Nirbachito Kobita I had already translated. The bulk of my work constitute poems from Durobarti Balukana (1998), Dag Bhag O Annyanya (1994), Kachghar O Minjanma (2004) and Jal Jaee Jal Ashi (2010).
Laha speaks very little of his poetry or anyone else's for that, though one may find him oracular with pen in hand. During an interview he summed up himself thus:".... my poetry hovers between truth and truth unreconciled. It is not the sort most love to read....My mother once told me that every flower has a garden to it. May be, mine will meet some garden one day...may be, have already met.. may be, will never get one. I personally don't ride on a let-down god. Look, I am a businessman
who thrives on public custom; I don't live on free enterprise." Born to Taranikanta Laha and Maya Laha on 15 December 1953, Biswanath Laha owns a lathe workshop in Balurghat, a small town with a surprisingly rich cultural and historical legacy. Nestled cozily on the lap of river Atreyee (also known as Atrai), Balurghat was once a throbbing town that acted as a business corridor with Bangladesh. It skirts along the Indo-Bangla border and is the district head-quarter of Dakshin Dinajpur District (erstwhile West Dinajpur District). The Lahas hail from Kaloha village in Tangail District (formerly a sub-division), Bangladesh. Biswanath Laha
was born in a village called Gunjarpur (under Kamarpara post office area) in the unbifurcated West Dinajpur District of West Bengal, India.
In Bangladesh the Lahas were into a variety of trades from haberdashery to grocery to sweets to gold. They were floating business-men literally because of the practice of conducting trade on boat-shops (Gawal in Bengali) that served as house-boat cum mobile-shopping-centres. A great part of their life-time was spent on such boats. Biswanath Laha must have heard of such commercial activity and the adventure and associated experiences from his father who h...
Furthermore, Marcel articulates on this, "Nevertheless, one might say that it is the function of drama to arouse secondary reflection in us." (Buell,1995) Only some existentialists have been fictional discretely generating drama. Other approaches, such as journals and allegory, serve significant media for Kierkegaard and Marcel. These stressed strategies to communication need not to be eliminated; the direct message of notions alongside conventional philosophical techniques of argumentation. A decent description of existentialism is challenging to generate since, existentialism is by the landscape of the movements against fine, hard backed categories.
INTRODUCTION
When selecting these poems, I did not act as a judge, a specialist. I valued the diversity, contemporaneousness, and universality of themes inherent in them. Attention of a poem to its theme, not the translator’s private perception of the subject, was the benchmark in its selection. The questions of acceptability and rejection were inconsequential because while an artist can squeeze the sap out, directing him to return the sap back into the source is a misconduct. Complete is an unpragmatic, ambiguous and punishing term when applied to a creation. Here some poems are dark, others sketchy; a few underscore the comprehensive hollowness behind the concrete noncomprehensive truth; one or two celebrate random and popular people their lives, temperance, fortitude and defeats. Though local and literary value of some of the poems impressed my choice the presiding thought was to respect the poet’s intention and treatment of the subject. No denying the fact that the author begets the thoughts feelings pangs relief…. --the translator attempts to conduit them in a different tongue to the world.
I formed my own little -ism during the course of translation imagining myself a bee hopelessly trying to access colourful succulent flowers and fruits in a garden because a crystal-clear glass stood between me and the garden. I repeatedly bump into it trying to catch at the blooms. I try I fail I try I fail but try I continue. It’s a love story-a sketchy-type-of unrequited love; of humour that darkens as it sheds its onion layers. But love it is anyway and story it will be-perception, varied. Thoughts of how a reader might respond to conscious diversion of mythical, cultural, and socio-political nuances and metamorphoses of localese left me disconcerted at times. Will the reader reject the translation and, in the process, disregard the poet? - I ruminated. I questioned myself
What is a work?
Who is an author?
Who between the author and the translator is an impersonal agency?
Who is the medium-the author, the translator, the reader?
Is the original work a meaning and the translation an interpretation?
Is the translation an exploration/assessment of the many selves of the translator? Or, a vent to pent up complexes?
Answers were difficult to come by and questions endless.
TRANSLATOR POET TRANSLATION
A translator is not a target-less shooter. He/She, at least ensures a trajectory, which, again, is not a self-conceived one. The interesting part of the exercise is the realization (with a hint of equanimity) that it is a question of a question-not being a translator but the being of a translator; from meaning to interpreting a meaning. I chalked out a lazy chart more to convince myself than others
ORIGINAL WORK
AUTHOR TRANSLATED WORK (WORK?)
TRANSLATOR (AUTHOR?)
ORIGINAL WORK TRANSLATED WORK
FIRST-HAND ASSESSMENT 1. FIRST-HAND ASSESSMENT OF A FIRST-HAND ASSESSMENT
2. STUDY OF THE AUTHOR/ORIGINAL WORK+STUDY OF THE TRANSLATOR’S SELF
RESULT FROM ORIGINAL TO TRANSLATION TO ????
A poet’s mind is too diverse and complex to follow. Any fixed pattern or academic methodology to comprehend the worlds his mind is situated in will result in bewilderment. It will more hamper than help the translator. Instead, the translator can attempt a synthetic cognition of the variety, complexity, wisdom, experience, alienation and conflicts of the poet with the near-similar nature and structures of his typical world-the lived experience and the acquired ones (conscious and otherwise, both). The mixing and matching of the mind’s body will be the recipe for furthering the new journey-the unnamed endless undecipherable journey.
There can be no Essentials to Translation. No two observations are on the same plane. Reader comes in here. We do not need a jolting arousal to discover that whatever amount may be written on/about/for translation, the reader may or may not know the original poem/may or may not have read the original poem/may or may not read the original poem, hypotheses will survive. It will only help in furthering the cause of translation. Newer criticism will encourage newer translations potentially benefitting poetry itself.
Translation is a re-moved truth. The reader’s reading of the translation a not truth twice re-moved: its relatively novel, if not original. Let’s not err in calling it a perceived truth proper but its no less different either. So, what it is then? It’s inconclusive conclusion (to borrow from Homer) traversing between a beginning and a mirage-ending. A reader acknowledges writing as a creation. A creation has an entity and identity of its own just like a new-born has. The reader responds to its presence and by virtue of his novel response registers a novel impression. So, the question of how much a work remains of its creator or how much of a work remains of its author post-delivery is debatable. His role is similar to that of a courier-fellow: pick drop and leave. When a poet translates his poem there lingers a possibility that the end-result will be a nostalgic recreation with oodles of self-indulgence. Such a translation will have self-evident proofs of linguistic, verbal and emotional registers. In fact, at times it may be convenient for an author to be introduced than to introduce. I won’t dare to say that an objective translation is special and minus biases of the translator’s experience and persona. The author can, at least, rest assured that even without authorial identity his/her poem will remain a poem.
CONCLUSION
The purpose of presenting as vivid a picture as intelligence and sincerity allowed has taken the shape of this book. An essentially unorthodox poet that Biswanath Laha is, I struggled to recognize the abstractness of the original text several times. But I never attempted to paint on the lily. Realistic fidelity to the original text was my credo. Yes, there were tight corners when handling linguistic registers. Translating into Hindi from Bengali is less formidable because they share somewhat similar and familiar philological and cultural patterns. English is an arduous unforgiving foreign terrain.