Storm

by Anu

Image courtesy Internet: Snow Storm painting by J.M.W Turner

Having made a home atop a mountain
Can I say I am afraid of wild animals?
 
Having made a home on the seashore
Can I say I am scared of foaming waves?
 
Having made a home inside the market
Can I say the noise embarrasses me?
 
Since I am born into this world
When praise or blame comes
I cannot let brimming anger
Disturb my mind’s calm.
 
Cennamallikarjuna!
 
My Translation of Akkamahadevi’s vacana – Bettathe Melae Maniaya Maadi

This Kannada Vacana was translated from the book Vacanas of Akkamahadevi by Menzes and Angadi, 1973. You can hear the above vacana being sung in the second half of the video below.

Comments

[sphujidhwaja]

My Telugu version:

దూరపు కొండపై ఇల్లుగట్టి
క్రూర మృగాలకు భయమేలయ్య?

సముద్ర తీరాన వసతి చేసి
అలలహోరుకు భయమేలయ్య?

సంతలోన తావు చేసి
శబ్దాలకు చికాకేలయ్య?

చెన్నమల్లికార్జునదేవ చెప్పయ్య
లోకమందు పుట్టిన పిదప
స్తుతి-నిందలు వస్తుంటే
మనసులో కోపాన్ని తాళుకొని
సమాధానపడవలెనయ్య!

[Crazyfinger]

sphujidhwaja,

Quite impressive! I love your energy and enthusiasm and the spontaneity. Were you thinking of English version when you did the Telugu version? Or were you listening to the Kannada version? I don't understand Kannada but I am quite sure the translations would be different based on your starting point. You probably noticed a sort of break in the rhythm in the first line of the 3rd verse. santalOna taavu chEsi...compared to the two previous "parallel" verses. I like the way you began the last verse with Cennamallikaarjuna...the english translations stick out like sore thumb by ending the verses with this phrasing. Never liked that approach. Even A.K.Ramanujam does that. More thoughts on this later.

Crazyfinger

[sphujidhwaja]

Thanks CF, but you are giving me too much credit than I deserve. My starting point was Kannada text, and I merely substituted each of the Kannada words with equivalent Telugu words. The Kannada text I found at
http://www.vicharamantapa.net/content/node/14 had the following text:

beTTada mElondu maneya mADi
mRgangaLiganjidoDentayya?

samudrada taDiyalondu maneya mADi
noreteregaLiganjidoDentayya?

santeyoLagondu maneya mADi
Sabdakke nAchidoDentayya?

chennamallikAjunadEva kELayya
lOkadoLage huTTida baLika
stuti-nindegaLu bandare
manadalli kOpava tALade
samAdhAniyAgirabEku

Now you can see that it was all in the original :). Yes, the original used "maneya maaDi" in all three lines and I tried to use different phrases like "illu gaTTi", "vasati jEsi", "taavu jEsi", because somehow I thought "santa lOna illu gaTTi" doesn't make much sense. YMMV.

[sphujidhwaja]

By the way, in Kannada "kELu" can mean either "to ask" or "to listen". Anu can correct me, but I think listen is what is meant here, so my translation should have said:

cennamallikArjuna dEva vinavayya (instead of ceppayya)

[anu]

Hey sphujidhwaja,

I cannot read Telugu :(

You ought to send your translations to CF as fresh posts, they should not be hidden in comments. Did you do the translation by ear or sight?

CF,

"I like the way you began the last verse with Cennamallikaarjuna...the english translations stick out like sore thumb by ending the verses with this phrasing. Never liked that approach."

Wonder how you view translations, reproductions of form or content? To me translations allows one worldview to be interpreted for another, it brings into popular discourse scared/forgotten/inaccessible texts/verses, and of course to see if the content works for me personally.

The invocation of Cennamallikarjuna anchors the poem to the Indian ethos, to akkamahadevi. It could be in the middle or at the end.

Rest of the vacana is universal, it could have been written and its content be applicable to any part or times of the world.

And I also wonder when you left India, a century back? :) that you think invoking a deity's name at the end of completing a task, or giving an advise or saying, ranting or muttering to one self is something that the English language introduced clumsily during translations? It is a very Indian thing to do.

I do find it a little off that AKR uses "jasmine tender' next to Cennamallikarjuna, but that is his interpretation and style of rendering the English version. You can be a puritan and project attitudes about translations or just enjoy and take what it offers -a glimpse into another's thoughts, entirely your choice. :).

[anu]

Hi sphujidhwaja,

will get to your longer comment on the other post in a while, i seem to have missed this part before:

"I thought "santa lOna illu gaTTi" doesn't make much sense."

she uses different metaphors and combines it with emotions to convey the main theme : choice and consequence.

for the mountain and seashore metaphor the emotion used to describe the anticipation of consequences is 'fear' anjidoDentayya.

for the market metaphor she chooses the emotion shyness/embarrassment and not fear..... i was thinking about this for a while, in kannada and many other indian languages market/santa is used with negative connotations for a woman inhabiting those spaces.... could it be "Sabdakke nAchidoDentayya" was meant to mean 'feel embarrassed by hurtful words' ?

for the last verse where birth is not a choice, she provides no metaphors instead gives her experience of dealing with the consequences by controlling the emotion 'anger'.

[Crazyfinger]

Anu - You missed my point entirely. My gripe with the word "Cennamallikarjuna" is with the placement of it. Poetic intuitions are hard to describe, so are poetic proclivities, and much more harder to justify or explain in a way others find acceptable or satisfactory. Somehow it just feels better to me lead with this word, rather than leave it dangling at the end of the verse.

Crazyfinger