Learning my first language through poetry
Kuldip Gill

Punjabi is my first language, however I had never learned the script. It was only when I decided to translate poetry that I felt the need to be able to read Punjabi more earnestly than when I was curious about the content of old family letters. What followed was two years of Punjabi language classes learning to read and write in another script. The Gurmukhi script is identified with the Sikh population of India and for Sikhs the Punjabi language has the authority of a scriptural language. I learned that Punjabi is one of only twenty languages in the world that do not rely on Roman script; it has its own script.

I first translated one small poem written by a famous Punjabi poet, Mohan Singh. That was followed by translation of a set of five poems known as The Creation Poems, by an Indian woman poet and famous activist, Amrita Pritam.

Translating words, phrases, idioms and culturally loaded sentences into English, combined with my need as an anthropologist to achieve the meanings and cultural symbolism implied by the author, has been intellectually challenging and arduous. Many words are hard to translate. As Jai Ratan, the distinguished Indian translator has remarked about kinship terms and roles,

"…'Bhabi', 'Devar', 'Bhanoi', 'Nanad', and 'Saali',etc. cannot be easily conveyed to the non-Indian reader except through explanatory notes. How will you translate 'Ghar Ki Bahu' [the new young bride in an Indian household, my notation] which reflects the beauty and tenderness of Indian culture? So far as the language problem itself is concerned some effort and assiduity can overcome it. But one may have a tough time in conveying the exact shades of meanings and may fail miserably in spite of one's best effort, especially in case of poetry."

I felt compelled to talk with Ajmer Rode, a living author, as I began the process of selecting poems from his book "Leela." Luckily, he is both an accomplished poet in English and in Punjabi, and a most agreeable collaborator. He was happy that I wanted to translate his poetry, and offered any help I needed. As well he told me he would translate some poetry from my book Dharma Rasa (Nightwood, 1999).

At the start I randomly selected ten poems from his book and gave him the references in his book. He never offered to substitute any poems in my selection. I asked him if he could tape the poems for me and he quickly responded. The process I used was to first read the poems in Punjabi and then to write out an English version phonetically, using Roman letters. This version, I read repeatedly, often listening to Ajmer Rode's taped version for the cadence and rhythm of his lines.

Punjabi language sometimes posed difficulties for me. Although I knew many of the simple Punjabi words, there were many other words for which I had to use my Punjabi language, and Punjabi to English, dictionaries. I sought the etymology of words I was unfamiliar with. Then, I wrote a literal word for word translation of the whole poem. It was here that I became uneasy with the lines. Often, we cannot completely capture the nuance as the author has stated it in his line. The translator of poetry is challenged to seek endlessly to get as close as possible to the meaning and tone of the original language. In this short essay I cannot convey all of the implications involved in language translation. Suffice it to say I believe Rode was amazed at the amount of work it took on my part to achieve an understanding of his poetic phrases, their nuances, and of his intentions for his poems. In these poems I attempted to preserve the meaning and tone, the energy and the structure of Ajmer Rode's poetry. Stylistically, his writing is often in the Western imagist style. His images are sharp, concise and dramatic. I have tried to convey that in my translation of his poems.

I was reminded that any spoken language uses only a few of the available words that enrich and add emotional and symbolic content to it, in its written literature. As I translated, I learned of my ignorance of the beauty and grace of my language; and was enchanted with the metaphors and similes available to a Punjabi reader and writer. I learned that translation was not just a process of translating word for word, but the art of communication in two languages. I was beginning something that could, given patience and hard work, be an achievement of linguistic and stylistic proficiency, in reading and perhaps writing better in those languages. More important for this project however was to try to impart what Ajmer Rode's writing implied between the lines, and thus the character and integrity of his poetry, as I read and comprehended his words in Punjabi.

Translating a poet into another language helps to share and convey that culture, to honour the poet, to move beyond our geographical boundaries and into the world. The translation of these poems have I hope, achieved these objectives.