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Amrita Pritam wrote Pinjar, an Urdu novel on which a successful Hindi film of the same name has been made. Her prose has been translated into several languages. However, despite the success of her prose, Amrita Pritam the poet remains relegated to the cultural domain of Hindi and Punjabi, largely unheard, and therefore, unappreciated by large swathes of readers.
Her Hindi-Urdu poetry is the acme of her literary accomplishment. In her poems, she employs everyday, sometimes rural images to convey her ideas of social change and existential angst. Her poetry constantly questions the ensemble of social norms that attenuates the individual to an acceptable mean. The reader can see her words stretching upwards in search of the sky.
In her mind, death is a way station in the cosmological continuum, and she strides through galaxies of thought with the ease of a winged bard. At the same time, she examines the human condition at an organic level – man is one with nature, a part of creation, no more, no less.
In this category Reinterpreting Amrita Pritam, I interpret her Hindi poems in English, for and in the present, where even as living is brighter and brisker, life itself remains rooted in a seemingly motionless journey through the ages.
I hope my readers enjoy these translocations … I enjoy working on them. Here’s the latest one.
Empty Space
There were two roads before them –
One frowned at the both of them,
and the other, they
chose to walk past.
In a naked sky
she bathed in a colorful rain
for hours –
he too melted away
in a rainbow shower.
Then swallowing the passion
of a lifetime, he dropped
her trembling hand from his.
‘We should build a memory for these moments!’
he said stepping back, ‘Look! There in the distance
is a little space
between the truth and a lie…’.
This is wonderful. Must get down to reading the original.
The original in Hindi is so beautiful… some of it completely untranslatable into English, quite culturally remote from Hindi-Urdu. Go on,read it… I’m sure you will be hooked, like I was!
Beautiful translation. I can surely imagine how magical it would have been in Urdu.
thanks Geetha.
Wish I could read her poetry in Urdu……so much gets lost in translation. I see a lot of influence in your verses you know Meenakshi 🙂
Translating her poems is very tough… and you are right,a lot is lost in translation. But English is what it is: no match for the delicacy of Urdu. Thanks for reading, Madhu.
You did a great job nevertheless 🙂