First day of Devi Navaratri - 2017

Today I found the following slokam on FB, thanks to Sri Kompella Ramakrishna Murthy. The slokam is as follows

अनायासेन मरणम्
विना दैन्येन जीवनम्
देहन्ते तव सायुज्यम्
देहिमे पार्वतीपते।

అనాయాసేన మరణమ్
వినా దైన్యేన జీవితమ్
దేహన్తే తవ సాయుజ్యమ్
దేహిమే పార్వతీపతే

I translated it this way

peace when passing on
life deviod of misery
my manifest form's unity
with your divinity,
for these i beseech you
O pati of Parvati

Ghalib and Anonymous

Ghalib lived during the last mughal Bahadur Shah Zafar II's times. He outlived the mughal regime in Delhi and saw British establish their stranglehold on the city. In the aftermath of suppression of rebellion by sepoys, a large portion of his work was supposedly destroyed. Much of his literary output was kept alive by those that loved his poetry, wrote or sang his lines till they were etched in the collective memory of a generation. Thus his Urdu writings were handed down to the next generation.

Here is a couplet introduced to me by my friend Biren Bhuta.

उनकॆ दॆखेसे जो आजाती हैँ मुहँ पर रौनक

वो समझते हैँ कॆ बीमार का हाल अच्छा हैँ

My translation is as follows:

the sight that bestows radiance and peace
in me by her is perceived as salubrity in disease

Another one sent by my friend Puneet Sharma goes as follows. Provenance of these lines is unknown.

तू मत देख कोई शक्स गुनहगार है कितना..,
बस यह देख वो तेरे साथ वफादार है कितना

हो सकता हैं उसे कुछ लोगो से नफरत हो
पर ये देख उसे तुझ से प्यार हैं कितना…

My translation is as follows:

wouldn't it be better to see
in a person his loyalty
than an apparent deficiency
though he might have hurt
others that do not matter
to see his demeanor that
remains firm and friendly

Emily Dickinson's Peace

Thanks again to Dr Mythili Abbaraju. Today she wrote a free verse translation of Emily Dickinson's poem below, the title of which is unknown to me. I called it Peace. My translation is in a Telugu metre called tETageeti. 

I many  times thought peace had come,
When peace was far away;
As wrecked men deem they sight the land
At centre of the sea,

And struggle slacker, but to prove,
As hopelessly as I,
How many the fictitious shores
Before the harbor lie

అలసి జలనిధిలో మునక లగునపుడు
నావికు కనుల కగుపడు రేవు మిథ్య
యగుచు జతనము సడలజేయగల కల్ల
యై చెలఁగు నటులనె మదీయాత్మ వేల
యలజడులలోన జిక్కుచుఁ విలవిలమను
సమయముల నిరుద్వేగప్రశమన మొందు
భ్రాంతి నొందుచు నున్నది శాంతతీర
మెంతయో దూరమైయున్న వింత గనదు

Clear night - Walt Whitman

Thanks to Dr Mythili Abbaraju for an introduction to the lines by Walt Whitman below.
 
This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson
done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the
themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.

( Clear midnight, Walt Whitman )

Here is my translation in Telugu

సీ. కర్మమార్గము గాని, ధర్మసూత్రము లేని, కలజనుల్ విహరించు కలలదీవి
మాటలు మలిగిన మౌనమార్గములకు, వ్రాతలను కళలవాసరములఁ
జదివిన పాఠముల్ వదిలిన వీథులఁ, జరియించు కోర్కెలు దరినిజేర
నిజరూప మెంతయుఁ నిశివేళఁ జనియింప, నవలోక నాలోచ నాదికముల
తే. కెగసి పోవు సమయమయ్యె నేగిరమ్ము
వేగిరమ్ముగ నిదురించు వేళవచ్చె
దీర్ఘనిద్రకు చెల్లెలు తెరలివచ్చె
చూడచక్కని చుక్కలుచూపవచ్చె

A scientific mind

" పరలోకం అనటం తోటే ముఖాలు ముడుస్తారేమోయి ? గణిత శాస్త్రంలో ఒక్క నియమితమైన వస్తువు యొక్క వెల కనుక్కోవలసి వస్తే , ఒక లేని అంకమును సంకల్పించుకొని దానిమీద గణితం చేసి ఆ యదార్థమైన దాన్ని తెలుసుకొంటారు. అందుచేత నీవు ఊహింపతగినది అయిన పరలోకం ఉందనుకో; అప్పుడీ లోకం యొక్క నిజమైన వెల నీవు కట్టగలవు "

- పులుల సత్యాగ్రహము నుంచి. ( విశ్వనాథ )


విశ్వనాథవారి వాక్కులే ప్రేరణగా...

O dear mind ever precise
fed on rational thought and word
nurtured on questions wise
and a belief in self seen touched or heard

Dear mind ever in the agruing act
look at those exponents in fields scientific
that venture into complex and abstract
in an effort to make sense of "the unspecific"
Much closer home in Math, to be able
to find the value of a known entity
you create an unknown variable
to arrive at the answer in its entirety
Why then the dear one your stubborn refusal
to accomodate the thought of a world spiritual

అటజనికాంచె A gem from allasAni peddana's manucharitra

"in an instant the pious one reached and espied

heavenly water gates birthing whorls and eddies

unending resounds abounding a beautiful sky

footfalls of lumbering elephants shaking the trees

deceived peafowls unfurling a riot of feathery hues

a snowy peak's divine beauty no longer abstruse"

That's a translation of a beautiful and immensely popular poem from allasaani peddana's swarOchishamanu sambhavamu popularly and perhaps incorrectly known as manucharitra. 

The original poem is as follows

అటజని కాంచె భూమిసురు డంబరచుంబి శిరస్సరజ్ఝరీ

పటల ముహుర్ముహుర్ లుఠ దభంగ తరంగ మృదంగ నిస్వన

స్ఫుట నటనానుకూల పరిఫుల్లకలాప కలాపి జాలమున్

గటక చరత్కరేణు కరకంపిత సాలము శీతశైలమున్

Thanks to Sri BhairavabhaTla Kameswara Rao for explaining this poem so beautifully in his blog (telugupadyam.blogspot.com). He mentions that onomatopoeic quality of the highlighted lines and I tried to capture that sabdaalankaaram in my translation though it can never match up to the unparalleled way peddana wove his magic. 

The background of the poem is when Pravara travels to Himalayas with the help of a magical paste he manages to get hold of from a wandering saint. As an inert Brahmana till then who hasn't moved from his city, he has an abiding interest in seeing the sights of the world. The moment the saint agrees to give him a handful of the paste, without a second thought he heads to Himalayas. What follows is an interesting encounter with a heavenly beauty Varudhini. But before that, a bit about what Pravara saw at the foot of the snowy peak. And that's where peddana excels in paining a motion picture for the readers using the right amount of sabdaalankaaram making the poem a gem.

The first highlighted and underlined part 'paTala muhurmuhur luTha" tells us about the water falling on mountain rocks both in its meaning and also through the hard sounding syllables. The part I wanted to bring this out was in "heavenly water gates birthing whorls and eddies".

In the same way 'abhanga taranga mrdanga' tells us about the musical quality of the sound emanating that confuses the peafowls to think that the skies are melting and unfurling their beautiful shimmering feathers.  And this part in "unending resounds abounding".

That's my effort as I tried to capture the beauty of the original gem in my translation. It is up to the readers to decide whether I succeeded in my attempt or not. 

On the Gorakhpur tragedy

Holding a mirror

Soy, O boy reading the angst ridden lines
of a mother in a tongue i'm not so fluent
a pang of guilt reminded me of the times
when my conscience played truant

So what if I had to open
a dictionary to comprehend
a realisation that to care to know
effort ensues to go with an emotional flow

Shall we then spare a second
to understand where it all started
for it would be time well spent
to see why political discources
are deemed normal in the wake of departed

let us then not be deceived
that need of the hour is a game
played to assign suitable blame
when the ravaged bereaved
ungrieved souls haven't yet healed

but i am cautious too,
to lay bare my thoughts
with no guile or pretence
in a group that can at times be cold
and weigh thoughts by an opinion poll

when an odd joker in the pack
stands up and says hark
not knowing a diddly squat
am glad we managed to bell the cat

in peroration, while we preach moderation
i beseech you to care for rhyme and reason

(Posted in IIMC34 group on 15th August in response to a post on Gorakhpur tragedy)