Suman K. Sharma
Well, everyone knows that Julius Caesar was a Roman statesman and well versed in Latin, his mother tongue. But if William Shakespeare could make Caesar and his contemporaries speak Elizabethan English in his play Julius Caesar, why can’t our own Madan Gopal Padha put khand mitthi Dogri on their firangi lips? Padha’s translation, William Shakespeare da Julius Caesar (Drama) (Sarasvati Prakashan, Jammu, 2014) is a brave effort, in his own words, ‘to enrich my mother tongue with a translation of a Shakespeare’s play’ (p.72). Samples from the book:
Dua Shehri : Mein saaf taur par dassi deyan je aun khraab sol (ruh) (sol shabd par jor dinde hoi) theek karna (p.77)
Second Commoner: A trade, sir, that, I hope, I may use with a safe conscience; which is, indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles. (Act 1, Scene 1)
Glossing the Bard’s pun on ‘sole ‘ (=soul), Padha has used the parenthetic phrase ‘sol shabd par jor dinde hoi’ – laying stress on the word ‘sole’. It is a deft stroke of a translator.
Portia: …Kya mera thuada sarbandh ni’ra kitthe rutti khane da, saune de belai araam karne da, jaan fhi kden kadaalen gall-baat karne da gai…(p.111)
Portia : …Am I yourself But, as it were, in sort or limitation, To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed, And talk to you sometimes? (Act 2, Scene 1)
Mark Padha’s rendition of the original phrase ‘comfort the bed’ as ‘saune de belai araam’ – being at ease at bed-time. What Shakespeare’s Portia says is something different. The last line in her monologue makes it explicit: ‘Portia is Brutus’ harlot, not his wife.’ Nearer our times, we may recall, the Japanese Imperial Army recruited Chinese and Malaysian ‘comfort women’ – prostitutes – during World War II, for its battle-weary personnel. Padha ji, immured as he seems in Dogra culture, has chosen to avoid delving into conjugal intimacies of Brutus and Portia. Here is an instance of a translator’s cultural trait subverting the author’s intent.
And yet another sample:
Caesar: Tere bhrau gi nijme mtabak jalabatan kita ai, te tu’n ohde leyi dohra hoi hoi pave’n, arja’n-minnta’n kare’n, jalaalat di dum l’haye’n, taa’n tugi katoore ahla lekha thudda mariye apne rste sha door kari odgan, tugi pataa hona lodchda ai je Caesar anyaa’n neyi’n karda te na ge bilabajah patte’nda ai.(p.126)
Caesar:Thy brother by decree is banished: If thou dost bend and pray and fawn for him, I spurn thee like a cur out of my way. Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause
will he be satisfied. (Act 3, Scene 1)
Padha’s Dogri version not only adheres strictly to the original passage, but it also resounds with the thunderous outburst of a mighty hero giving a piece of his mind to a cringing kin of someone who has roused the hero to a towering rage.
What adds immensely to the value of the book is a 62-page Preface by Late Prof Lakshmi Narayan Sharma. The erudite write-up is divided into four parts, comprising an introduction to Shakespeare’s life and works, a literary criticism of the play Julius Caesar, an eye-opening discussion on Dogri vis a vis English and an appraisal of Padha’s translation of the play. Parts I and II can prove a goldmine to a student of Shakespeare. I stand to correction, but Prof Sharma’s is perhaps the first attempt in Dogri to encapsulate the Bard’s vast oeuvre. In Part III, however, the bald claim that Sanskrit had considerable influence over the language of the Hittites (p.42) has to be taken with a pinch of salt since there are several hypotheses to the contrary. Better it would be, therefore, to leave this matter to linguists and let them outshout each other. Adverting to Dogri, the learned professor notes that an unnamed Dogra scholar had translated Part II of the New Testament into Dogri, way back in 1818! The vocabulary used in that 1818 Dogri translation would surprise even an ardent supporter of pristine Dogri. What is Morla Purasb, for instance? Today we would call it Peh’la ‘Dhya – First Chapter. Lastly, while showering accolades on Madan Gopal Padha for his valorous attempt to wrestle out meaning from English words of archaic and confounding usage, Prof Sharma has made a strong case for Dogri to assimilate ‘foreign’ words.
The book deservedly finds a place of honour in Shakespeare Institute Library, University of Birmingham in the Bard’s native town of Stratford-on-Avon, England. Indeed, it is an asset to academics, in spite of its glitches. At page 9, Shakespeare is said to have born on 23 April, 1566. Sixty pages later, Padha ji informs us – and that is the widely acknowledged fact – that the poet’s date of birth is 23 April 1564. At pages 69-71, Stuart Dowden becomes ‘Start Dowdon’, unbridled is ‘unbundle’ and the titles of some the plays are dished out with little attention to spelling or grammar. Thus: Two gentlemen of Verona, The comedy of errors, Twelveth night, King Lier and King Jhou (King John?).
The doings of Printer’s devil not withstanding, Madan Gopal Padha has done a yoeman’s service to the cause of Dogri. As Prof Lalit Magotra puts it aptly, Dogri without a translation of Shakespeare’s plays was like a bride without ornaments. Padha ji’s translation work has added a valuable jewel to Dogri’s treasure.
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