It was at the Vanguard Books office on Davis Road in the early 80s when the idea of translating Bulleh Shah into English emerged. Taufiq Rafat started reciting and explaining Bulleh Shah to Najam Sethi.
After that he would of ten come to the office and produce a crumpled paper from his pocket with the translated lines of the Punjabi classic poet. The translation was so perfect that not a single word or line needed to be changed.
Journalist and publisher Najam Sethi said this at the launch of Bulleh Shah: A Selection, translated by the late Taufiq Rafat at Alhamra Art Centre on Thursday.
Telling `the story behind the story` of translation, Mr Sethi said he had come back from his`adventures` in Balochistan when he with his friend Abbas Rasheed decided to set up the Vanguard Bookstore.
`The name, Vanguard, was selected by Kaleem Omar and we decided to publish great works and translations of Punjab and Urdu writers, including Hashim Shah, Bulleh Shah, Qadiryar and Faiz,` he said, adding that another great project was Punjabi-English dictionary.
However, the bookstore later went into bankruptcy.
Referring to a popular song of the 1970s, `Those were the days, my friend` by Mary Hopkin, Mr Sethi reminisced about the era, saying those were really curious times.
`The PPP emerged, then the dark age of Zia came; there was a lot of censorship and Bulleh Shah, being a rebellious poet, became more relevant as he articulatedthe feelings of many people under the Zia regime,` he said.
He said Rafat would often come to the Vanguard, used to chain-smoke Princeton cigarettes with Khaled and I as that brand of cigarettes was very popular being very cheap.
About his personal affiliation with Rafat, Mr Sethi said: `I didn`t know Rafat before coming to Lahore in the 1970s after spending seven months in jail. I first met him at the house of my friend, Meena. People used to be inquisitive about my story and I used to fend them off and even my wife, till this day, doesn`t know the quarter of the story.
Though Rafat was a total stranger to him, but Sethi shared with him in the first meeting the details of his jail time.
`Everybody was suspicious about everybody else those days but Rafat compelled me to talk aboutit with some simple questions.
Years later, I found his response to my time in jail in his collection, Arrival of the Monsoon. It`s a long poem, titled Solitary, divided into seven sections, describing seven months I spent in jail,` he said.
Punjab poet and intellectual Mushtaq Soofi said there used to be tea, coffee and lots of smoking at the Vanguard in the 1980s. It was a favorite hangout of the liberal and youth from the Left.
Many acquaintances went missing and their whereabouts could not be found.
He said Rafat and Bulleh Shah were quite opposite personalities but they shared their love for the land and its people, adding that both of them used imagery and landscape oftheland.
Soofi said Bulleh Shah was a rebel, he wrote on monism and the unity of God and then expressed his doubts about them.it with some simple questions.
Years later, I found his response to my time in jail in his collection, Arrival of the Monsoon. It`s a long poem, titled Solitary, divided into seven sections, describing seven months I spent in jail,` he said.
Punjab poet and intellectual Mushtaq Soofi said there used to be tea, coffee and lots of smoking at the Vanguard in the 1980s. It was a favorite hangout of the liberal and youth from the Left.
Many acquaintances went missing and their whereabouts could not be found.
He said Rafat and Bulleh Shah were quite opposite personalities but they shared their love for the land and its people, adding that both of them used imagery and landscape oftheland.
Soofi said Bulleh Shah was a rebel, he wrote on monism and the unity of God and then expressed his doubts about them.He said Bulleh Shah was a rejectionist because there was disturbance in his era with Nadir Shah`s attacks from Afghanistan and fall of the Mughal Empire.
`Like Bulleh Shah, Rafat also stood tall among his contemporaries and he was among the few decent men of letters that I have met besides Majeed Amjad and Salimur Rehman,` he said.
About the art of translation, Soofi said translation was much impossible an art as it was possible. The structure of language is universal and the languages of the word differ when it comes to particular nuances and multiple meanings of words, he said, adding that Rafat did a great job because despite having a command over English language, he used simple diction.
Urdu poet and drama and film director Sarmad Sehbai said language was always incidental for apoet. Rafat wanted to capture the vigour and passions of Bulleh Shah which he did but he was not concerned about language.
Bulleh Shah used the colloquial language in an irreverent, defiant tone and that`s what Rafat rendered into English.
English poet and director of International Centre for Pakistani Writing in English of the Kinnaird College Athar Tahir said translation of one work into another language was impossible that`s why Rafat had called his work `rendering.` He talked of the problems that Rafat faced while translating Bulleh Shah in his foreword.
The talk was moderated by Neelam Hussain, the executive director of Simorgh. The speakers read out the kafis of Bulleh Shah and their translation.
Sain Muhammad Ali sang kafis of Bullah Shah.poet. Rafat wanted to capture the vigour and passions of Bulleh Shah which he did but he was not concerned about language.
Bulleh Shah used the colloquial language in an irreverent, defiant tone and that`s what Rafat rendered into English.
English poet and director of International Centre for Pakistani Writing in English of the Kinnaird College Athar Tahir said translation of one work into another language was impossible that`s why Rafat had called his work `rendering.` He talked of the problems that Rafat faced while translating Bulleh Shah in his foreword.
The talk was moderated by Neelam Hussain, the executive director of Simorgh. The speakers read out the kafis of Bulleh Shah and their translation.
Sain Muhammad Ali sang kafis of Bullah Shah.
Curtsey:DAWN.COM, | 5/15/2015 12:00:00 AM |
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