Book Review – Pluto, Gulzar

Just imagine this – you are blindfolded and led into a flower garden with so many exotic flowers of varied colors and shapes. The whole garden is a sight of absolute beauty. But, you are blindfolded and left to rely on your guide to realize the beauty of the garden. Now, your experience of this garden is limited to the capability of your guide to put in words what is in front of you both. If the guide happens to be a person of elevated taste, a keen sense of aesthetics and capable of efficient communication, you are lucky to relish the garden. On the other hand, if the guide is a sloppy communicator, all that you can get to know about the garden is some mundane description.

The same thing happened to me as I ventured into the world of Hindi poetry of Gulzar. This Gulzar – meaning ‘Flower Garden’ – deserves to be termed one of the best Hindi poets of all time. He even deserves to be called as one of the best poets of all time in the entire world, but I am not a capable judge in such matters. Now, my first experience of Hindi poetry happened to be the work of Gulzar, translated into English by Pavan K.Varma, a capable writer himself. With my knowing only a smattering of Hindi then, I had to fully rely on Pavan Varma to bring out the beauty of Gulzar’s poetry in its full glory and Pavan Varma did oblige me in excellent fashion. 

Later I went on to read more of Gulzar’s works, some translated by Pavan Varma, some others by Rina Singh, before finally managing to read the poems directly in the language in which they were written (Hindi), thus removing the blindfold from my eyes and getting a direct experience of the ‘garden’. Pavan Varma did an excellent job, and Rina Singh too did pull her weight to an appreciable extent. Having gone through all such translations, I found this translation by Nirupama Dutt to be a little disappointing. If you are a person who realizes the crucial role a translator plays – not just translating the words from one language to another, but ensuring their spirit stays the same – you will understand what I am trying to convey.

The poems all remain beautiful and full of Gulzar’s magic without doubt. The ability of this poetic genius to weave poems out of seemingly mundane, boring events of the day-to-day life is astonishing. He has this gift of portraying even the most banal of things in the most beautiful way – be it a single dry leaf rolling in the dirt, a tree swaying in the breeze, or the plight of those unfortunate souls who spend their entire lives on footpaths. The joy of love, the pangs of separation, the pathos of betrayal, the bliss of parenthood, respect for nature, concern for the environment – his themes form a very vast repertoire.

However, many of the poems in this book lack the usual vigor and magic of Gulzar and I can blame only the translator for the same. Some of the poems give you a sense of déjà vu and you would end up realizing your having already read those poems in other translations. And when you compare the translations, you would find that this translation lacks that magical dust to make these letters sparkle in front of your eyes.

But, the translation is not entirely bad. Nirupama Dutt has done her best in capturing the essence and beauty in many of the poems. May be I am a little biased, having already read the translations by Pavan Varma, which to me seemed to convey the beauty in those poems more clearly. A good treat to the fans of poetry, Gulzar’s especially, though not the very best of translations!