CULTURAL RESONANCE: BENGALI LITERATURE IN MALAYALAM TRANSLATION Dr. Anjana Sankar.S.

Department of English Sree Sankara college Kalady The Indian constitution has scheduled fifteen major languages of the country with eleven Indo-Aryan languages consisting of Sanskrit and its tenfold progeny: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kashmiri, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sindhi and Urdu, and the four Dravidian languages, namely Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telungu. Apart from these fifteen languages, the Sahitya Academy (National Academy of Letters, India) has added five more for its purposes; Maithili, the language of north-east Bihar, which has a rich heritage of Medieval Literature, Rajasthani, the language of Rajasthan, rich in ballads, Dogri, the language of Manipur in Eastern India, and English. Krishna Kripalani (1907-92), the former Secretary of the Sahitya Academy, has observed that one of the most characteristic aspects of modern Indian literature is its multiple character. It has been said that Indian literature is one, though written in many languages a faint echo of the famous Vedic verse: Truth is one though sages call it by various names (277). This perhaps best explains the prevalence and popularity of translations from one regional

2 Indian language to another. The status of these translated works are not limited merely to regional literature but often elevated to the level of national literature. Malayalam has a rich tradition of translations from English and Sanskrit, besides other regional Indian languages. The history of translated works

appearing in Malayalam can be classified into four phases. The first phase consists mainly of works translated from Sanskrit to Malayalam, the second phase comprises of translations from Arabic language while the third phase is marked by translations from European languages. The fourth and final phase is distinguished by translations from other regional languages to Malayalam. On critically examining the numerous translations that appeared approximately between the two centuries dating from seventeen seventy two to nineteen eighty, the greatest number of works are found to be from Sanskrit, numbering five hundred and fifty-four, while translations from English four hundred and fifteen come second. Among the regional Indian languages, the highest number of translations was from Bengali to Malayalam, numbering three hundred and eight. Next in number was from Hindi, which only came up to one hundred and seventy. The widespread popularity of Bengali writings in Malayalam can be attributed to various socio-cultural factors inclusive of literary habits, entertainment and aesthetic tastes, bringing to mind Raymond Williams observation that culture is a way of life. The staple food of both Bengalis and

3 Malayalees are rice and fish, and they are great football fans who exhibit high rates of literacy: the strong and assertive women of both states scale heights reaching top administrative positions within political parties, including the politburo of the communist parties, which has usually been a male bastion. Moreover the huge migrant population working outside both Bengal and Kerala are hardworking once they step outside their homeland. Both states comprise of a mixed society made up of Hindus, Muslims and Christians with similar dressing habits -- the men wearing dhotis and white kurtas, and women dressing in plain, simple cotton saris. The geographic features like the presence of the mountain ranges at one end and the sea on the other, and the paddy fields and thatched straw houses, ponds and rivers seen in the countryside in Kerala and Bengal reinforce the similarity once more. Apart from these geographical and cultural affinities, there are several historical bonds as well. The main figures of the Bengali Renaissance like Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833), the founder of modern Bengali prose as well as the Indian Renaissance in general, led the Reformation Movement. His main target of attack was the Hindu system of idolatry, mythology and culture which prompted him to set up the Brahmo Sabha (later known as Brahmo Samaj), a religious body established to teach and practise the worship of one God, in 1828. The religious reform movements led by him drew attention to the appalling conditions of women in Hindu society and set off a series of progressive reforms including the abolition of Suttee and the self-immolation of widows on the

4 funeral pyres of their husbands, the banning of child marriage and the championing of female education. These social and religious reforms in Bengal exerted a deep and abiding influence upon the Reform movements in Kerala, especially among the members of the upper castes like Brahmins and the Kshatriyas. The Ramakrishna Mission, the Theosophical Society and the Arya Samaj hastened the need for change among the Hindus of Kerala. The services of Swami Agamananda (1896-1961) of the Ramakrishna Advaitha Asramam, Kalady, who drew inspiration from Swami Vivekanandas teachings, are noteworthy. His visit to the Belur Math brought him into direct contact with the Bengali culture, providing him with an impetus to fight against the Brahmin predominance and caste hierarchy among the Hindus of Kerala. In 1936, as a part of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsas Birth Centenary celebration, an ashram was set up by Swami Agamananda in Kalady, the birthplace of Adi Sankaracharya, where he subsequently established Kalady Sanskrit School and a college as well. However in Kerala, the earliest steps for the establishment of western education were taken by the Christian Missionaries in the early nineteenth century. The movement to reform the Hindu society was undertaken by Sri Narayana Guru, the Ezhava Saint and Chattampi Swamikal, a Nair reformist. Both of them revolted against Brahmin ascendancy and championed the rights of Nair and Ezhava communities of Travancore. The great Malayalam poet Kumaran Asan (1875-1958), one among the modern Triumvirates of Malayalam

5 poetry, was a follower and disciple of Sri Narayana Guru. With no Mahakavya to his credit, he won immortal fame as a great poet through his small lyrical poem Veenapoovu. Kumaran Asan, under the advice of his teacher Sree

Narayana Guru, spent a few years in Calcutta, prior to the composition of Veenapoovu. As the capital of the British government in India, Calcutta in those days was permeated with the language and culture of the British, which Asan imbibed during his stay there between 1898 and 1900. Drawing inspiration from the poetry of the British Romantics and Robert Browning, he went on to write one of the best lyrics in Malayalam. The sojourn in Calcutta also provided him with a profound spiritual insight in the form of the doctrines of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekananda which, coupled with the spiritual

grounding received by him from his Guru, finds reflection in the spiritual elements found even in his famous love poems. Moreover Rabindranath Tagore who combined Western secular influence with the traditional Indian culture provided an example for Kumaran Asan. Even today Malayalees proudly remember the visit paid by Rabindranath Tagore to Sivagiri Ashram to meet Sree Narayana Guru and the meeting between the Gurudev of Bengal and the Gurudev of Kerala throws light on the similarity in culture and psychological background of the two states. The reformation movement of Sree Narayana Guru was totally different from the Brahma Samaj, for the latter was influenced by the ideas of western humanism, inspired by the slogan of equality, liberty and fraternity. But

6 Narayana Guru, born into a low caste family, did not have direct access to English language but instead received purely traditional, Sanskrit based education. His doctrine of spirituality and Godliness All are one draws sustenance from the advaitha philosophy that the same spark of divinity shines in all. Being a victim of the caste system Sree Narayana felt an emotional affinity with the people he wanted to uplift. Hence he preached the doctrine Ask not, say not, think not caste, unlike the Brahma Samaj, which chiefly operated among the Brahmins and Kayasthas of Bengal and not the downtrodden castes. The knowledge of Sanskrit and the Upanishads was central to Brahmism from Raja Ram Mohan Roy to Tagore. They adapted Hinduism to the needs of the age by eliminating the superstitious obstacles to progress without giving up the eventual doctrines. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (1820-91), a great Sanskrit scholar with a strong streak of western democratism in him, wrote important works in Bengali, and virtually forced sections of society to accept widow remarriage. This was the first social reform cause to be taken up all over the country and was carried to a successful conclusion. Their repercussions were felt in Kerala too, especially among the Malayala Brahmins among whom the plight of the Namboodiri (Brahmin) women was pathetic; often married to men old enough to be their grand fathers before the attainment of puberty, the young antharjanams (Namboodiri women) became widows even before the consummation of the marriage. The first

7 Namboodiri widow remarriage which shook the orthodoxy took place between the widowed sister of V. T. Bhattathirippad, a great social reformer and the author of several literary works depicting the social evils that existed in the community, and M. R. Raman Bhattathirippad, popularly known as M.R.B. M.R.BS brother Premji, a great actor and writer, also married a widow. The powerful influence wielded by the Bengali Renaissance in these reform movements of Kerala can be seen in V. T. Bhattathirippads Jeevitha Smaranakal, a memoir where he narrates the attempt made by him to educate his illiterate younger sister by sending her to Calcutta. V. T. terms Bengal as the cradle of national progress and cosmopolitan culture, a clear indication of the high esteem in which Bengali literature and culture was viewed in Kerala. Lalithambika Antharjanam (1909-1987) a gifted female writer, who rose from among the ranks of the patriarchal Namboothiri community to become a gifted writer, has set down her indebtedness to Bengali literature, in her autobiography Aatmakathakku Oramukham. Her reading of B. Kalyani Ammas translation of Tagores Home and the World at the impressionable age of fourteen or fifteen, bred a close affinity with the characters of Bimala and Sandip as well as the widowed sister-in-law in the novel. On entering the literary field as a short-story writer, Tagore was my God in literature during the first phase. My introduction to Tagore was through the translations of Sri. Puthezhattu Raman Menon and Kalyani Amma. The other novelists like Bankim Chandra followed later.

8 Moreover the close contact with Sri Ramakrishna Ashram from youth, the inspiration derived from Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekananda also helped in the formation of the literary outlook. Even now my imagination is groping in the shadow of these huge shadows (or rather beacons of light) (Antharjanam 55). Antharjanams first published story Journeys end was based on Seethadevi Shatopadhyayas English translation of Santha Shatopadhyayas Bengali story End of the Journey that appeared in Modern Review. Both the stories depict the tragic plight of child widows in the Brahmin community. Comparisons have been drawn between Ashapoorna Devi, the famous Bengali writer and the first woman to have won the Jnanapith Award, and Lalithambika Antharjanam, in their attempts to portray the plights of the Brahmin women. Ashapoorna Devis trilogy Pratham Pratishruti (1964),

Subarnalatha (1966) and Bakul Katha (1973) were also popular among the Malayali readers through translations. Moreover Bengali classics like Tarashankar Banerjees Aarogya Niketanam and Ganadevata, Bibhuti Bhushan Bandopadhyays Aranyak and Pather Panchali (immortalized by Satyajit Ray into a film by the same title) were all widely read in translations. Novelists like Saratchandra Chatterjee and Dwijendra Lal Roy too were familiar to Malayalee readers through translations. Mani Shankar Banerjee who is popularly known as Shankar, Sabitri Roy, Manoranjan Hazra, Narayan Gangopadhyay, Gajendra Kumar Mitra, Bimal Mitra, Manik Bandopadhyay, Sunil Gangopadhyay,

9 Buddhadeb Guha, Bimal Kar, Mahasweta Devi and Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay are some of the major Bengali writers to be translated into Malayalam. Famous women translators like Neelina Abraham, who taught Bengali in Maharajas College, Ernakulam, and Leela Sarkar who wrote an exclusive BengaliMalayalam dictionary, popularized many Bengali novels into Kerala. The Late M.N. Satyarthi was one of the major translators to master the language of Bengali and to undertake translations of many well-known classics from Bengali to Malayalam. Other famous Bengali translators in Malayalam include Ravi Varma, M. P. Kumaran and more recently, Jayendran and Sunil Nhaliyath. G. Vikraman Nair, a Malayalee journalist who spent the major part of his life in Calcutta, wrote popular books in Bengali and his travelogue, Paschim Digante Pradosh Kale, has been translated into Malayalam. G. Sankarakurup (1901-1978), the famous Malayalam poet who won the Jnanapith award in the year of inception in 1965 for his poem Odakuzhal, exhibits the influence of Rabindranath Tagore in the mystical symbolism of his poetry. He translated Tagores Gitanjali into Malayalam after learning Bengali while earlier K. C. Pillai, a freedom fighter who studied in Viswabharati was perhaps the first to translate Gitanjali into Malayalam. The establishment of Kerala Kalamandalam, a centre to teach Kathakali, Thullal, Mohiniyattam as well as the music and instruments which accompany these art forms, was founded by the great nationalist poet Vallathol Narayana Menon in Cheruthurutti near Thrissur, drawing inspiration from Shantiniketan, as Tagore was a major

10 influence on Vallathol who had also visited Bengal. This centre which has at present become a deemed university, has done much to revive and to preserve the native art forms of Kerala. As the Upanishadic interpreter of an invisible, indivisible universal spirit, Tagore was the anti-thesis of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and his somewhat Anti-Muslim, resurgent Hinduism. Bankim Chandras novel Ananda Math

celebrates the country as the holy mother and this mother cult, more tribal, does not find reflection in Tagores works. The worship of the mother goddess, Kali prevalent in different parts of Kerala, is in a more non-violent form which gets reflected even in modern leftists poets like Kadammanitta Ramakrishnan. Following the period of influence of Tagore, Malayalam literature came under the sway of the communist movement which gained prominence in Bengal as well. In India, Bengal and Kerala remain the two states where communists share power with their allies even today. The growth of the communist The formation of the

movement affected the writers of both the states.

Progressive Writers Association in Lucknow in 1936 saw an active participation of writers and intellectuals in social causes. As an offshoot of this, the Jeeval Sahitya Sanghadana was formed in Kerala. The proletarian hero entered the Malayalam novel in the form of Pappu, a rickshaw puller, in Keshavadevs Odayilninnu and Thakazhis scavenger in Thottiyude Makan. Art did not exist merely for Arts sake but Art existed for Lifes sake in the view of these writers. The Progressive Writers Association (Purogamana Sahitya Sanghadana) was

11 formed on January 29, 1944 as a developed form of the Jeeval Sahitya Sanghadana. In the sphere of theatre, the IPTA (Indian Progressive Theatre Association) was formed in 1943 in order to revitalize folk art and to fill it with revolutionary consciousness. The staging of Bijan Bhattacharyas

Nabanna (The Harvest) in 1944, co-directed by Shambu Mitra and Bijan Bhattacharya, had a tremendous influence on the cultural scene in Bengal. In Kerala too, the influence of the Communist Movement saw the formation of the KPAC (Kerala Peoples Arts Club) which gave a fresh life to the theatre in Kerala. In 1953, Thoppil Bhasis Ningalenne Communistakki (You made me a Communist) was staged as a sharp attack against the feudal set up, and depicted the resurgence of the working class. Despite the banning of the play by the Congress government, a court order was procured and the play was staged after lifting the ban. The grand success of the play won much acclaim for the KPAC and the troupe was chosen to represent the state in the IPTA meeting held in Bombay. The split in the Communist Party shocked Thoppil Bhasi who wrote Innale, Innu, Naale (Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow) to present the dilemma. Like the IPTA which ceased to function as a coherent organization due to the violent conflicts that arose between the political leaders and the artists, fissures appeared in the KPAC as well. Differences of opinion arose between Thoppil Bhasi and the KPAC authorities in 1974 regarding the staging of the play Bharatakshetram as it contained severe criticism against the policies of the

12 communist party. This prompted the dramatist to leave the theatre and migrate to Madras where he made a mark as a script writer in Malayalam cinema. Earlier similar incidents had taken place in Bengal too when the founders of the IPTA like Bijan Bhattacharya, Sambhu Mitra and Ritwik Ghatak found it hard to tolerate the dogmatism or the real politik of a communist revolutionary process. As creative writers, they were deeply concerned with the individual human being to fully support the peopleoriented communists. Bijan

Bhattacharya refused to write doctrinaire plays in which good and evil, capitalism and slavery, freedom and oppression were treated in black and white (Das Gupta 226). Forced to appear in front of a one-man commission, Ritwik Ghatak was charged of being a Trotskyite and expelled from the party. As a film maker, Ritwik Ghatak continued to inspire many film directors in Kerala, especially John Abraham who attended the Film and Television Institute, Pune,and was his student. Due to their deep disillusionment with the Marxist Communist party in Bengal and Kerala, a generation of youths were pushed to the extreme left, especially following the Naxal Bari Movement and this finds reflected in short story writers like M. Sukumaran and U. P. Jayaraj in Kerala. C. V.

Balakrishnan, a later novelist has confessed how he was inspired to write his major work Aayussinte Pustakam,(The Book of Life), while reading the Holy Bible, sitting in front of the altar in the famous St. Pauls Cathedral in Calcutta during the Christmas time. The art and culture of Calcutta have inspired others

13 like C. V. Sreeraman to write Vaasthuhara based on his experience there and it was later adapted by G. Aravindan into a Malayalam movie by the same title. Many widely acclaimed Bengali novels were adapted to be narrated on stage by Sambasivan, a great kathaprasangam artist of Kerala . The profound influence of Bengali movies on Malayalam films is evident as Satyajit Ray provided a role model to many Malayalam directors like Adoor Gopalakrishnan. Cast in the Ray Mould, Gopalakrishnan writes most of his own stories, looks through the lens to check every frame and is in every sense the auteur of his works, in control of all aspects of film-making (Das Gupta 247). Shooting the film on actual location and using natural ambience recorded from the location were techniques shared by both Ray and Adoor. The strong impact of the film society movement is also another aspect shared by both Bengal and Kerala. Many Bengali technicians and artists were involved in the making of Ramu Kariats Chemmeen, a film adaptation of Thakazhis novel which became the first Malayalam film to have won a gold medal at the national level. Hrishikesh Mukherjee its editor and Salil Chowdhary, the music director were both Bengalis. Salilda, as he was popularly known in Kerala, directed the music for numerous Malayalam movies all of which became hits. The great music director in Malayalam cinema, M. S. Baburaj, was the son of a Bengali. The Bengali novel Devadas was made into a film in Malayalam more than thirty

14 years back while a couple of years back, Arogyaniketanam was filmed into a Malayalam movie Jeebon Moshai by the journalist T. N. Gopakumar. The cultural, social and political similarities between Keralites and Bengalis are thus manifold. The synthesis of classical tradition and modern thought, of simplicity in lifestyle and richness in culture and the underlying current of Marxist ideology are all responsible for the still continuing literary and cultural give and take between the two states and its people. The fusion of the two cultures is a never ending story for last year, Shyamaprasads Malayalam film adaptation of Sunil Gangopadhyays Bengali novel Heerak Deepthi entitled Ore Kadal, won many awards while earlier a Bengali adaptation of Sethus famous Malayalam novel Pandavapuram also won many accolades. The richness of the Bengali culture and literature has thus definitely enriched Malayalam language bringing to mind Gopalakrishna Gokhales famous comment that what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow.

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Bibliography Antharjanam, Lalithambika. Aatmakathakkoru Aamugham Thrissur: Current Books, 1979 Balakrishnan, C.V. Aayussinte Pusthakam. Kottayam: D. C. Books, 1994. Bhattathirippad, V.T. V.T.ude Jeevithasmaranakal. Kottayam: National Book Stall, 1983 Das Gupta, Chidananda. Seeing is Believing: Selected Writings on Cinema. New Delhi: Penguin Viking, 2008. Gopan. C. K.P.A.C. yil ninnu Thoppil Bhasilekkulla Dooram. Mathrubhoomi 10Aug. 2008: 12-18. Iyer, Viswanatha N. E. Vivarthana Vicharam. Kerala Bhasha Institute: 1996. Kerala Bhasha Institute. Vivarthanam. Ed. A Group of writers. 1977. Kripalani, Krishna. Modern Literature. Ed. A. L. Basham. The Illustrated Cultural History of India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007. 276-298. Nambissan, P. M. G. Keralas Appreciation of Bengali Literature through Translations. Malayalam Literary Survey. Kerala Sahitya Academy: Thrissur April- June 2007 : 56-69