Kavyanjali - released

On the day of Gandhi Jayanti, the translated works of Shri Haldhar Nag, titled Kavyanjali was released at function in Cha cTea, Bhubaneswar. Translation from the original Koshali into English has been done by Surendra Nath. The event was attended by the literature enthusiasts of the twin cities of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack, among them were bureaucrats, writers, people from the academia, businessmen and media persons.

The release was preceded by a deliberation on ‘Translations’ which was moderated by the noted author Ramendra Kumar, whose books have been widely translated into 12 languages. Ramendra said that translating to bring out the exact literal reproduction was not enough. The translator needs to convey the sense in a comprehensible manner using the new language. This could be termed as ‘trans-creation’. He said translating poetry was far more difficult than doing it with prose and added that Surendra had done a commendable job in the pages of Kavyanjali. Surendra talked of his experience while translating and informed the audience that it had taken him four months of work while keeping himself closed in his room for 10 hours each day. Trying to balance between the rhyme scheme, the length of each line and adhering to the meaning within each stanza was a challenge.

After the release Shri Nag recited a poem form his collection and soon after Surendra Nath read out its translated version. Shri Nag spoke on the occasion and said that translations help literature to spread worldwide and reach common readers. He spoke of Valmiki’s Ramayan and Tulsi Das’ Ramcharit Manas to clarify how the common people of our country have been benefitted by the simple language used in the later version by Tulsi Das. Similarly Atibadi Jagannath Das’ Bhagwat has become a household name, while the original Bhagwatam in Sanskrit remains beyond comprehension of the common man. He also talked of his experience of going to meet the President to receive the Padma Shri award and his interaction with the glitterati who were also present at the Rashtrapati Bhavan to receive their awards.

Kavyanjali is 254-page bilingual (Koshali-English) with every odd page in Koshali while its facing page carries the translation in English. It is published by Zenith Star and is available at all leading book stores and also online in Amazon.in. A Kindle ebook version is also available online.