Translation Notes
It is difficult to overstate Sukumar Ray’s hold over the Bengali imagination. Elsewhere in the world he is perhaps less famous than his film-maker son, Satyajit. Not so in Bengal, where millions of children still grow up on his poetry. Some have described Ray as a writer of “nonsense literature.” As I see it, there is a tremendous amount of sense lurking in his work. Ray was a critic, and his tool was absurdism. Through the careful distortion of mores and language, he held up a mirror to the supposedly sane world. The critic Amit Chaudhuri writes, “His compound words and compound creatures form an outrageous allegory. The penchant and predeliction Victorian England had for fabulous creatures, as a code to record its contact with the Orient in the age of colonialism, is appropriated by Ray to delineate a comic history of the Bengal Rennaissance.”
Many translators have taken on Ray over the years—yet more evidence of the timelessness of his work. Take the first poem in this series. Khichudi has been retranslated into English at least five different times, including by Satyajit. The poem is included in Sukanta Chaudhuri’s Select Nonsense of Sukumar Ray, published by Oxford in 1987; also in Iftekharuddin Choudhury’s self-published volume, which came out in 2022. It is illuminating to study the choices made in each translation. In my own attempt, I have adhered to two guiding principles: first, to honor the approachability of Ray’s originals, which were written for children and are devoid of big words; second, to capture the rhythm of Ray’s language while also preserving his spunk.
To these ends I have deviated from the literal at times. For instance, the original “Bombagarher Raja” includes references to kolshee, a traditional brass pitcher, and altaa, a red lac-based dye traditionally painted on the feet of married women; in my translation, I have replaced kolshee and altaa with brass and glitter respectively. In “Bhoy Peyo Naa,” the narrator-monster offers aador, loosely translated as platonic physical affection, to the poem’s addressee; in my translation, I have chosen to go with “wine dine pamper.” Overall, I have endeavoured to create works that can stand on their own, offering surprise and delight to readers who have not met the originals.
—Pathikrit
Duck meets porcupine (grammar we heed not),
See, there’s Porcu-duck! Say why, we know not.
Stork tells turtle, ‘Sir-ee, what a hoot!
Our Stortle statue is gloriously good!’
Parrot-faced gecko’s seized by the shivers—
There goes his bug diet, time for green peppers!
Who knows what ghost possessed poor goat,
He’s mounted centipede, they’ve joined at the throat.
Giraffe’s lost her will to roam the dry earth—
She soars part-dragonfly despite her girth.
Cow fears the sickness coming for her, too,
To the shameless rooster tailing her: ‘Go away! Shoo!’
As for the Whalephant, life’s harder than ever,
Ocean calls half the day, jungle the other.
And lion, we’ll add, has upset the gamblers,
He’s sprouted a deer-head, beware the antlers!
Who can splain why the Raja Of Bombagarh
Decks his palace with framed chunks of fruit leather?
Why the Rani by day wears cushions on her head?
Why her brother drives nails into fresh-baked bread?
Why the citizens like to somersault come winter?
Why the night owls brush their knees with glitter?
Why the wise men swaddle their torsos in shawls?
Why the monks affix postage to their bald skulls?
Why the clocks each evening are dipped in ghee?
Why the royal bed’s draped in sandpaper sheets?
Why the Raja in court will hyena-howl and clap,
While the minister plays brass on His Highness’s lap?
Why broken bottles hang from the great lion-throne?
Why the Rajmata crickets with a pumpkin, alone?
Why the king’s uncle swoons in a garland of hookahs?
Who’ll splain Bombagarh to noobs that look us?
Fear me not, fear me not! I’d never murder you—
Frankly, in a wrestling match, I’d never conquer you.
This mind of mine’s tender-soft, no anger runs in my bones.
Gobble you up? Gulp you down? No sir-ee, that’s not my tone!
These horns atop my head might spook, but buddy, I can promise this—
I’m sick at heart, a horrid ache! My terror horns are out of bizz.
Welcome then, to my lair! Stay awhile, a day or four—
I’ll wine dine pamper you, dawn to dusk forever more.
This cudgel’s rather rude, sure. That why you’re feeling shy?
Fear not, it’s light as air—totally safe, I do not lie.
What say you? Not convinced? Shall I seize those legs of yours?
Pounce upon your sorry back? That’ll teach you, wretched bore!
Come at once, the missus waits! Our brood of nine doting studs—
We’ll feast upon your lily flesh, nip your fears in the bud.
Translator | Pathikrit
Pathikrit grew up in Kolkata. His work has appeared in the Wire, the New York Times, the Johannesburg Review Of Books, and elsewhere. He holds degrees in geology, biology, and human-computer interaction, and he is currently working toward an MFA in fiction at the New Writers Project in Austin, Texas.
Author | Sukumar Ray
SUKUMAR RAY (1887–1923) is off for recycling The Bangla Wrangla has paid his bills, Closed shop, spent his last shilling Dirty tango’d a verb and conjugated at will And just before he left, implored the wit: 'The cat did it, don’t neglect to arrest it.'
