'தமிழ்நாட்டின் இலக்கிய, ஆன்மீகவாதிகள் என்ற இரு சாராருமே சுத்தானந்த பாரதியாரையும் அவரது படைப்புகளையும் மறந்து விட்டனர் என்று தோன்றுகிறது.' -
Jataayu B'luru
The truth is not far from what is expressed with anguish by Sri Jataayu . Somehow we allow really great people to slip away so negligently from the collective memory. Another such catastrophe is Kotthamangalam Subbu. But the list is long and here I do not want to elaborate this list as a topic. But coming to Kaviyogi Suddhananda Bharati, my bench mark list of ideal translators was having only his name and the poet Thiruloga Sitaram until recently. But after reading 'anbu vazhi' the translation of Barabbas by Par Lagerkvist by Sri K N S (ka naa su) my list has become open and waiting. Sri K N S is excellent in this book as a translator.
Why I estimate Kaviyogi as a translator excellent is from books like 'Ezhai padum paadu', 'ILiccha Vaaayan' and books like that. He brings in the original ethos of the primary author so naturally into the target language. What is his magic should constitute our study of him as part of translation studies. But I think the translation studies in Tamil are quite happily ignorant of him.
I will illustrate the strength of Kaviyogi as a translator by quoting a piece from 'The Laughing Man' by Victor Hugo and the translation of that portion by Kaviyogi in his 'Illiccha Vaayan'.
"Ursus and Homo were fast friends. Ursus was a man, Homo a wolf. Their dispositions tallied. It was the man who had christened the wolf: probably he had also chosen his own name. Having found Ursus fit for himself, he had foundHomo fit for the beast. Man and wolf turned their partnership to account at fairs, at village fêtes, at the corners of streets where passers-by throng, and out of the need which people seem to feel everywhere to listen to idle gossip and to buy quack medicine. The wolf, gentle and courteously subordinate, diverted the crowd. It is a pleasant thing to behold the tameness of animals. Our greatest delight is to see all the varieties of domestication parade before us. This it is which collects so many folks on the road of royal processions.
Ursus and Homo went about from cross-road to cross-road, from the High Street of Aberystwith to the High Street of Jedburgh, from country-side to country-side, from shire to shire, from town to town. One market exhausted, they went on to another. Ursus lived in a small van upon wheels, which Homo was civilized enough to draw by day and guard by night. On bad roads, up hills, and where there were too many ruts, or there was too much mud, the man buckled the trace round his neck and pulled fraternally, side by side with the wolf. They had thus grown old together. They encamped at haphazard on a common, in the glade of a wood, on the waste patch of grass where roads intersect, at the outskirts of villages, at the gates of towns, in market-places, in public walks, on the borders of parks, before the entrances of churches. When the cart drew up on a fair green, when the gossips ran up open-mouthed and the curious made a circle round the pair, Ursus harangued and Homo approved. Homo, with a bowl in his mouth, politely made a collection among the audience. They gained their livelihood. The wolf was lettered, likewise the man. The wolf had been trained by the man, or had trained himself unassisted, to divers wolfish arts, which swelled the receipts. "Above all things, do not degenerate into a man," his friend would say to him.
Never did the wolf bite: the man did now and then. At least, to bite was the intent of Ursus. He was a misanthrope, and to italicize his misanthropy he had made himself a juggler. To live, also; for the stomach has to be consulted. Moreover, this juggler-misanthrope, whether to add to the complexity of his being or to perfect it, was a doctor. To be a doctor is little: Ursus was a ventriloquist. You heard him speak without his moving his lips. He counterfeited, so as to deceive you, any one's accent or pronunciation. He imitated voices so exactly that you believed you heard the people themselves. All alone he simulated the murmur of a crowd, and this gave him a right to the title of Engastrimythos, which he took. He reproduced all sorts of cries of birds, as of the thrush, the wren, the pipit lark, otherwise called the gray cheeper, and the ring ousel, all travellers like himself: so that at times when the fancy struck him, he made you aware either of a public thoroughfare filled with the uproar of men, or of a meadow loud with the voices of beasts—at one time stormy as a multitude, at another fresh and serene as the dawn. Such gifts, although rare, exist. In the last century a man called Touzel, who imitated the mingled utterances of men and animals, and who counterfeited all the cries of beasts, was attached to the person of Buffon—to serve as a menagerie.
Ursus was sagacious, contradictory, odd, and inclined to the singular expositions which we term fables. He had the appearance of believing in them, and this impudence was a part of his humour. He read people's hands, opened books at random and drew conclusions, told fortunes, taught that it is perilous to meet a black mare, still more perilous, as you start for a journey, to hear yourself accosted by one who knows not whither you are going; and he called himself a dealer in superstitions. He used to say: "There is one difference between me and the Archbishop of Canterbury: I avow what I am." Hence it was that the archbishop, justly indignant, had him one day before him; but Ursus cleverly disarmed his grace by reciting a sermon he had composed upon Christmas Day, which the delighted archbishop learnt by heart, and delivered from the pulpit as his own. In consideration thereof the archbishop pardoned Ursus "
Kaviyogi Suddhananda Bharati's translation :
”உர்ஸுஸ், ஓமோ -- இருவரும் இணைபிரியாத நண்பர். உர்ஸுஸ் மனிதன், ஓமோ ஓநாய். அவன் அதையே விரும்புவான்; அது அவனையே விரும்பும். இருவருக்கும் மெத்தப் பிடித்தம். இருவரும் ஒருவர் இயல்பில் இன்னொருவர் கடன்வாங்கிக் கொண்டனர். ஓமோ, பழகிய வீட்டு நாய் போன்று சாதுவாய் இருக்கும். தனது மனித நண்பன் குறிப்பறிந்து நடக்கும்.
உர்ஸுஸ் தனிமையிலே வாழ்ந்து, முதிர்ந்து, முடிவில் இந்த ஒரே நண்பனைக் கண்டுபிடித்துப் பழக்கினான். இருவருக்கும் உயிர் நட்பு ஏற்பட்டது. ”நான் இறந்த பிறகு என்னைப்பற்றி அறிய விரும்புவோர் ஓமோவைப் பாருங்கள்” என்பான் உர்ஸுஸ்.
உர்ஸுஸ் காட்டுத் தனிமையை விரும்புவான்; தனக்குத்தானே பேசுவான்; வேறொருவருடனும் கலக்க மாட்டான். “மஹாத்மா ஸோக்ரதரும் தனிமையில் தனக்குத்தானே பேசுவார். லூதரும் அவ்வாறே. அப்படியே நானும்” என்பான் உர்ஸுஸ்.
உர்ஸுஸ் உலகம் ஒரு பெட்டி வண்டிதான்; அவ்வண்டியை இழுப்பது ஓமோ; பாதை கடினமாயிருந்தால் இருவரும் சேர்ந்தே இழுப்பர்.
வண்டிக்குள் அவனது சிற்றுலகம் அடங்கியிருந்தது. அதில் ஒரு நீளப்பெட்டி யிருந்தது. அதில் அவன் புத்தகம், சட்டைத் துணி, லொட்டு லொஸ்குகளெல்லாம் அடக்கம். அவன் அதன் மேல் ஜமக்காளம் விரித்துப் புத்தகத்தைத் தலைக்கு வைத்துக்கொண்டு ஹாயாகப் படுப்பான். “எனக்கு இரண்டு தோல்கள் - இதுதான் உண்மைத் தோல்” என்று ஒரு பழைய கரடித் தோல் போர்த்துக் கொள்வான். அதனுடன் கரடித் தொண்டையும் கூடினால் கேட்க வேண்டுமா! அசல் ஜாம்பவான்தான்.!
உர்ஸுஸ் உலகை வெறுப்பான்; உலகோர் நடையைக் கண்டு சிரிப்பான். “நீ படைத்த உலகின் லட்சணத்தைப் பார்; தேனுண்ணும் உதட்டில் தேனீ கொட்டுகிறது. ரோஜாவுக்கடியில் முள் அடர்ந்திருக்கிறது; பொதுப் பணத்தைக் கொண்டு பிரபுக்கள் இடம்பக் கூத்தாடுகிறார்கள்; ஏழைகள் அனாதைகளாக வருந்துகிறார்கள்; பார் உலகின் அழிநாடகத்தை” என்று கடவுளை அவன் அடிக்கடி இடித்துரைப்பான்.”
(பக் 62 --69, இளிச்ச வாயன், (மொழிபெயர்ப்பு The Man who Laughs by Victor Hugo) கவியோகி சுத்தாநந்த பாரதி, அன்பு நிலையத்தார் இராமச்சந்திரபுரம், பிரமாதி, மார்கழி)
I hope I am driving my point home by putting in parallel the original and target language narration.
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