To Be Wordless

Kunwar narain is one of the finest Hindi poets of his generation, a meditative poet of unsurpassed brilliance. His poetry is an astonishing combination of deep thought and controlled lyricism. It is profound, but lightly carried; never for a moment forgetting that a poem is not a self-indulgent exercise, but a compact between the reader and the poet to ascend to a point of self-consciousness where ordinary prose cannot. There is a fundamental honesty in his oeuvre. Despite its depth of engagement with different facets of existence, it is poetry, that unusually for its age, is meant to be read aloud; its aural quality as much a part of its force as its meaning.

Poems like “Chakravyuh” or “Lucknow” have this double effect: a profound unfolding of meaning made more forceful by the peculiar rhythms and metre in which they are expressed. The range is also impressive: at times deeply, but never inaccessibly, philosophical; at times engaged in a minute observation of nature; at times a subdued political protest; at times an ironic engagement with history; at times an engagement with one’s own inner demons.

Translations are never easy. Much of Hindi poetry and its references depend on grasping specific words in the context of a tradition. For instance, how does one translate the wonderfully evocative line in “Lucknow”, “shaame awadh ko shaamate awadh ki tarah bitaya”? Or give the technical resonances of the term ulatbansi in “Aaj Ka Kabirdas”? But it is a measure of Kunwar Narain’s accessibility, and the success of these translations, that they mange to overcome these challenges. Apurva Narain’s translation will definitely set a new benchmark. The translations are luminous, evidence of someone having wrestled with the inner meaning of the poems. The judgment calls, on when to translate and when to paraphrase, when to emphasise rhyme and when to privilege meaning, are very well made. For those not fluent in Hindi, the translations will serve as outstandingly readable poems in their own right. And for those fluent in Hindi, they open up new vistas of interpretation. This volume has both the Hindi and the English versions.

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