Kannada poet’s creation goes international

Sumit Bhattacharya | NT

Bengaluru: Visitors of Bangalore International Centre experienced a poetic evening over the weekend. ‘The Churn and Churning of the Word’ event was about a book release written by Madhav Ajjampur. Friday evening turned into a nostalgic poetic evening on Dattatreya Ramachandra Bendre. The book is all about Da Ra Bendre’s poem translation.

Da Ra Bendre is a renowned name among classic Kannada poets. The translator Madhav Ajjampur thought of translating some poems into English to make Da Ra international. The author told how he got attracted to Bendre’s poems. Da Ra is an opposite ivory-tower poet, he mentioned. He also mentioned that Bendre’s way of writing was unexplainable sometimes.

Some translated poems he recited and some he had sung for the audience's request. The moment the translator started singing Kannada poems by Da Ra Bendre, the audience got mesmerised. He also sang Da Ra’s unpublished poems. Praising the Kannada poet, the poet and translator said, "The style of writing and projection were extremely powerful and awesomely contemporary."

The programme was not only about the release of the book, but it was also a trip down memory lane for all literature lovers, especially Bendre lovers. The second half of the event was for a Q&A session. The audiences were extremely keen to know more about the book The Pollen Waits On Tiptoe, selected poems of Dattatreya Ramachandra Bendre in English.

Poems such as Gumma, The ‘Child-Widow’, and Beyond The Mind powerfully presented the narratives of Bendre’s thoughts. “Yes I had a number of difficulties, but I did not try to go beyond Bendre, rather I recited and enjoyed all his poems,” he told the News Trail in the Q&A session. It was tough to reach Da Ra Bendre and his philosophy, so, he did as much as he could, he added.

One of the significant things in translation was the originality of the meaning, on this note, the writer of The Pollen Waits On Tiptoe said he tried his best to retain all meanings of the original poem, which was written in Kannada.

The more the originality remains, the more the essence of the writing would remain, he said. The programme interlocutor was Deepa Ganesh, who is a professor & executive director, at the Center of Visual and performing arts, at R V University