topics: |  poetry | india | kannada | translation | anthology

Nadig is an important Kannada poet who takes up cudgels for translation,
but the results are rather pale.  The book comes with the best wishes of
R. Gunda Rao, Chief Minister of Karnataka, and a lukewarm foreword by
Nissim Ezekiel:
	 I find Nadig's translations very readable... Two kinds of Indian
	 translators - one may be called the innocent if not the foolish who
	 rush in where the angels... and the other the defiant, who know the
	 odds very well but are not to be put off by them.

He doesn't place Nadig in either of these categories, but I suspect he would
rather have him among the innocents.

While it is true that some of these names you may never hear without this
book, if you are as ignorant as I am about Kannada poetry, you may be
better served by reading Ramanujan's translations (and selections) in
Dharwadker and A.K. Ramanujan's The Oxford Anthology of Modern Indian Poetry which
also shares some poems with this volume.  As an example, here's Nadeeg's
translation of M. Gopalakrishna Adiga's Do something brother:

Be doing something, brother

   Be doing something, brother, something, anything.
   You must not simply be.
   ...
   All around the walls push-buttons parade potency
   Close your eyes, press a dozen; the earth, water
   And the sky are all your golden goose
   Cut and rip them.

The second line itself kills the poem for me.  Here's Ramanujan's version:

Do something, brother

   Do something, brother:
   keep doing something, anything;
   you musn't be idle.
   ...
   All over the walls
   virility's master switches
   itch for your fingers;
   close your eyes
   and pull down twenty of them.
   Earth, water, the skies,
   they're all your geese with golden eggs:
   gouge them out, slash them.
		 (read the rest here)
Also the selection leaves much to be desired - some poems are downright
schoolboyish - e.g. see My love excerpted below.

Nonetheless, it does cover a broad sweep of Kannada poetry, and the
introduction presents a history of the early Navodaya movement modeled
after English romantic poetry, and the Navya modernist rebellion
spearheaded by M. Gopalakrishna Adiga.  Interestingly, as in Bengali
literature, many of the leading lights were also professors of English.
Given the scarcity of translations of Indian poetry, this was a welcome
find.

Poets

Govinda Pai
D. V. Gundappa (2)
Masti Venkatesha Iyengar
P. T. Narasimhachar
T. N. Sreekantaiah
K. S. Narayanaswamy (8)
M. Gopalakrishna Adiga (13)
V. G. bhat
Gnagadhara Chittal
B. C. Ramahandra Sharma (5)
G. S. Shivarudrappa (9)
Channaveera Kanavi (2)
Shankar okashi Punekar (2)
A. K. Ramanujan (3)
Arvind Nadkarni
H. M. Channaiah (2)
Sumatheendra Nadig (9)
     	Before our marriage, you were
	a bunch of grapes.  Did my tongue
	water to snatch you from your mother?
K. S. Nisar Ahmed (4)
N. S. Kalshminarayana Bhatta (2)
Chadrashekhara Kambar (2)
Siddalinga Puttanshetty (2)
K. V. Tirumalesh (3)
H. S. Venkatesha Murthy (2)
B. R. Lakshmana Rao (2)
Doddarange Gowda
Jayasudarshana
Siddalingaiah (3)
Ramjan Darga (2)

Excerpts

It is said that poetry is what is lost in translation.
	(said by Robert Frost?) p.11

H. S. Venkatesha Murthy : My love

Because I love you
The cheeks of the sky turn rosy

Because I love you
The image of the sun comes down to enter the dew drop.

Because I love you
The space bird covers the whole world with its warm wings

Because I love you
The same sun who sets in the West rises in the East.

See also: This discussion of Poetry anthologies,
with a focus on Indian poetry.