U. R. Ananthamurthy
Bhava
Author's Note
Bhava, like many of my other narratives, is a tale, although in its overall intention it is unlike any previous work of mine. Translating a tale in which an author aspires to the organic coherence and denseness of a poem in the language of its genesis makes one nervous and uncertain, for it doesn't possess the easily shared exterior of conventional realistic fiction. I feel fortunate that a poet translated the work with me, for I found her sensitive to the intended nuances in the original text.
We went about our work in this fashion. I would do a literal translation of the original into English, often word for word, keeping intact even the sentence structures peculiar to my Kannada. Then I would talk about the form and meaning and subtleties of the passage. Judith Kroll would record my free renderings and then prepare from her notes and tapes an English version for my perusal.
As a teacher of English, for many years I used English for discursive purposes. But my creative efforts were always in Kannada. This switching between two languages constantly had been a stressful experience. It was only when I collaborated on this translation that to some extent I ventured to use English for creative purposes. In the process, I learnt a great deal about what it is for the author of an original work in one language to collaborate with another writer and to see that work reborn in another language.
The process of translating Bhava was also a chastening experience. I had taken for granted that my Kannada had adequately mediated what I wanted to convey. When I worked to convey the same experience in another language I became aware of the imprecisions, adjectival excesses, and so on, in the original. Therefore, while trying to put my original work into English, I have made some changes in it.
The writing of Bhava was a new experience, for I found myself probing into regions hitherto unexplored by me. I had to do this tentatively, giving up a privileged point of view.
I hope what I did in the Kannada will be conveyed to my English readers as well, through the efforts of a writer in English who showed remarkable patience and attention to detail in this undertaking.
New Delhi
1997
Translator's Note
‘Bhava,’ derived from the Sanskrit root bhu, ‘to be,’ means both ‘being’ and ‘becoming,’ each containing the seed of the other. These two interwoven meanings frame Anantha Murthy's tale. Additional meanings—‘turning into,’ ‘life,’ ‘worldly existence,’ ‘the worl,’ ‘continuity of becoming (with Buddhists)’ (i.e., rebirth) — also inform the story.
The Afterword could as well be read as an Introduction, particularly by those who do not mind, or may enjoy, a substantial preview of the plot (in this case, it involves what appears to be a murder). I have made a number of comparisons with Anantha Murthy's best-known work, Samskara, because of intriguing thematic overlapping, and because it offers an excellent example of the social consciousness and iconoclasm which has marked his earlier novels, from which Bhava is a departure. The Afterword may also be of interest in suggesting resonances of the new direction taken by Bhava.
A note about notes. My intention was to make Bhava accessible without weighting it like a textbook. So the ‘Selected Glossary’ is fairly selective. I have not given definitions for a number of words (‘guru,’ ‘mantra,’ ‘darshan’) that may be familiar to many non-Indian readers, or whose general sense can readily be inferred; or for some words (such as those designating foods, holidays, festivals, deities) whose category is clear, and which in their particulars have only an incidental bearing on the story. A gloss is provided when knowing more about a word (‘kuttavalakki,’ ‘Shri Chakra’) amplifies an area of meaning in the story; or when omitting a gloss (as for ‘Emden Boat’) might leave a puzzling gap. In saying all this, I reveal a preference for leaving certain words in the Indian languages, at least some of the time, rather than translating every occurrence into English — particularly when a limited translation might impart a noticeable cultural charge or connotation (‘rosary’ for mala; ‘renunciation’ for vairagya).
Several remarks Anantha Murthy made in the course of translating this work have been interpolated into the Afterword. (‘Anantha Murthy has commented …,’ for example, indicates such usage.)
My own knowledge of Kannada is slight, though three years of formal Sanskrit study have been a considerable help, since many of the significant words in Bhava are Sanskrit. But this translation could not, obviously, have been done by me alone. That my collaborator was the author is my punya.
In part, I took courage and encouragement from the collaboration between Edward C. Dimock, Jr. and the poet Denise Levertov (In Praise of Krishna: Songs from the Bengali), and that between Shri Purohit Swami and W.B. Yeats (Ten Principal Upanishads).
I am grateful to several of my friends in Shimla: I had useful discussions with Prof. T.N. Dhar, who also read a draft of the Afterword and made small suggestions that yielded big results; my neighbours Shyama Sharma and Anita Chauhan gave me food and affectionate friendship.
M.S. Satinyu, who has encouraged me in all my Kannada-English translation projects, read an early draft of Bhava and made helpful remarks.
The India International Centre in New Delhi provided a hospitable atmosphere in which some of this work was done.
Grateful thanks are due to the Center for Asian Studies at The University of Texas at Austin for funds that enabled Anantha Murthy to come to Austin and work for a time on this project; additional funding was provided by the university's Texas Center for Writers.
Shimla
July 1997
BOOK ONE
1
Bhava: … becoming, turning into … being, state of being … worldly existence …
When Vishwanatha Shastri's eyes fell on the amulet around the neck of the man sitting opposite, he felt as if a demon had entered him. Had a sign suddenly been revealed to him? The man wearing the amulet was sitting, legs folded, in an easy posture, delicately picking sprouts from a steel box. One by one, he would place the sprouts between his slightly open lips and move his chin as if he were eating ambrosia. Shastri also observed two other men sitting on the torn cushions of the first-class compartment. But the man wearing the amulet sat as if unaware of anyone else, his eyes looking out on thorny bushes, crows crying thirstily, and buffaloes dozing in the scant shade of their own making.
Clearly the man opposite Shastri had taken the vow of Ayyappa — he was wearing a black kurta, a black dhoti, a small black towel over his shoulder; and against these black clothes the amulet around his neck compelled attention.
Shastri occupied the window seat. He had a scraggly white beard, since he shaved only once a month, and he wore a green-bordered white cloth shawl wrapped around his upper body, as well as a dhoti with a matching border. He looked to be about seventy. The other two men wore pants and shirts. Only Shastri and the Ayyappa pilgrim, because of their traditional dress, appeared remarkable in the first-class compartment.
It was afternoon. The two men dressed in pants and shirts had got their food from the station. One man in jeans, a meat-eater, did not want to discomfort either the Ayyappa devotee in his black clothes, or Shastri (who wore tulsi leaves in his top-knot), so he had climbed to the upper berth and, bent double, stealthily sucked at the bones. The other man who wore pants — but had kumkum on his forehead — was mixing rice with sambar, kneading it into a ball, popping it into his mouth, and chewing noisily.