Dear friends ... here is my English translation of B. M. Basheer's Kannada poem AMMANA KOLALU ಅಮ್ಮನ ಕೊಳಲು ... sometime during last year, I had bought a set of Kannada poetry books and Mr Basheer's 'Amma Hachchida Ole' ಅಮ್ಮ ಹಚ್ಚಿದಒಲೆ was one of them ... I was immediately struck with the four lines that appear on the cover ... I had also shared that on my wall here ... I had always wanted to try my hand at translating one of his poems and I tried ...
AMMA’S FLUTE
The other day I had
attended a flute concert ...
I saw his effort at creating
music out of his breath
I remembered my mother
Sitting in front of the earthen
stove in the kitchen
She would put an iron pipe,
similar to the bamboo pipe,
to her lips and blow into it
A tune would emerge
Leaning against her back
I would savour the tune
Like a sleeping serpent
suddenly unfurling its hood,
the damp firewood
on hearing the tune
would set itself ablaze
To the remembered
music of my mother
who blew into the iron flute
and lit the fire in my heart,
this musician’s flute is
damp firewood
*****
2 comments:
Very nice translation! However, a beautiful flute music can ignite various emotions in the listener. It is not damp firewood. The context has to be different, though. When Amma comes in, everybody else is pushed aside.
Very true. Amma beat flute every time 😄😀😃
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