Monday, December 12, 2005

A call for Bharathiar fans

The main purpose of starting A Spark of Fire, a translation of Bharathiar's works was to introduce non Tamil readers to his poems. I was a bit surprised when most of the Tamil Junta were ignorant about his works and were happy to read it in English. As I was discussing with a friend, Bharathiar is still remembered in schools only because he is suited for fancy dress competitions. Not pointing fingers, just my thoughts.


Painting by K. Bhashyam source: www.chennaimuseum.org

I am no expert on Bharathi or his usage of words. I use Cologne on line Tamil Lexicon to arrive at meanings. I request fellow fans of Bharathiar to participate in the effort of translating his works into English. The tamil online versions of his poems are available at Pondicherry Online and Tamil Nation website (check the links on the right hand side). You can send your translations to me at chenthilnathan at gmail dot com. I will post in the blog under your name. Let this be our tribute to the Mahakavi, whose birthday it was yesterday, 11th Dec.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good Initiative Chenthil :-) I will give a try. Bayama irukku. Irundhaalum will give a try

Woodooz said...

Me shall give it a shot too... You may use your discretion to decide if its postable (in case it really does not tarnish Bharathiyar's original)

Chenthil said...

Waiting for your efforts Ferrari, Somu. Spread the word

Srinivas said...

Chenthil,

Awesome effort, I'd like to join hands and try some. Let me know how we can proceed.

Nivi said...

know i am really late.. but me gonna give it a shot too..btw do u ahve any idea where we can find an archive of barathi's songs..

venky said...

Good luck to you all. I was looking for the English translation of Vellai Thamaraip poovil iruppaal"- to send to my daughter on Teacher's day. Could not find the lyrics on line (I left my constant companion of Bharathi at home when went on trip this time) , nor did I have the patience to listen to Jesudas' rendering on You Tube so I could do the translation myself!). I found a lot of other s llike Avvai andTiru Kural readily.Hope some of you do these by dividing the task poetwise,I will be back soon and have my hardcopy sonGood luck

bharathi rasigan said...

good effort i will try my level best to u r ideas vazhga bharathi
vazhga bharatham...