in the flower garden at the southern corner
you'll come you said - with your
friend when the moon is high.
You have broken your promise - Kannamma
my heart beats hard for you.
Wherever I look - I see images
just like you.
My body's burning - my head
is spinning with pain
All over the sky - see how
this moon is embracing her lover
Everything is silent - This
entire world is asleep Kannamma - Why
should I alone suffer this hell
called separation?
It is very hard - the guards are
always there in your palace.
Even after the slaves enter - I can't
come in whenever I want.
I can't stand this torture - full of
restrictions and guards over there.
Impartial queen are thee - then
Why are you shy to see me?
To meet together - the entire night
spent cuddling amorously-to
embrace you a million times,
fulfill my heart's desire - and
beam with pleasure singing
blissful songs - I haven't
been blessed to do that Kannamma.
cross posted in A Spark of Fire
11 comments:
Perfect for the Valentines Day
Thanks anon. Unfortunately my valentine is not very happy with this translation, she thinks it could have been better
I agree with your wife(assuming she is your valentine and all).
chen..wat happened to u? this translation seems to be done by somebody else!
"spark of fire" totally missing!
Apt one Chenthil... translation is not bad.. but not too good either.
Awesome selection!! Just curious to know why we have to translate it in the first place :)
i agree with the talkative man! the beauty is lost most of the time when you trslate! But not many people have the privelege to aprreciating Tamil...
TTM, Santosh - The translation effort is aimed at bringing Bharathi to non Tamil readers. Many people have already done this, there are many books, this is my effort at bringing it to blogs.
Many native Tamil speakers also need the translations. If you read the Tamil version, the last line in second stanza, says "Nagaram" while the actual poem says "Naragam". I translated it correctly, but the Tamil version that I took from Project Madurai has the mistaken word. And nobody has pointed it out so far :-)
Thats one of Bharathiar's gems. I agree you want to be polite to non-tamil readers but you can make an exception once in a while. This translation is like Sachin hitting half-century in an ODI. People are bound to complain.;-)
Chen, pardon me if i sound rude like a tamil-veriyan but if people(esp. tams) dont make an effort to learn tam, they dont deserve a X-lation anyway! I'm still in the ezhuthukootipadichufying stage myself but x-lation would stop the true tamil-seeker from learning the poetic words and understanding their depth(includes me).
It's another matter that a Bharathiyar work is always worthy of translation :)
awesome!
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