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Saturday, September 15, 2007

Whose story is inscribed in your eyes (Translated lyrics of Teen Deviyan)

Whose story is inscribed in your eyes?
If you can decipher it, pray paraphrase.

Like an answer to some wish
'Tis written, but is incomplete
Why shouldn't be my every tale incomplete
I am yet a madman incomplete

If its nothing, why these expressions?
Why are dumbstruck, my all possessions?
To walk with a little help from beautiful
is my daily habit

Here there in the autumns, loafer
My heart is still a loner
I haven't understood your heart a trifle
I have come to know only you.

Hindi Song Title: Likha Hai Teri Aankhon Mein
Hindi Movie/Album Name: TEEN DEVIYAN
Singer(s): KISHORE KUMAR, LATA MANGESHKAR

Lyrics: Majrooh Sultanpuri

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b7bnXpe5Qg

Hindi Lyrics: http://www.hindilyrix.com/songs/get_song_Likha%20Hai%20Teri%20Aankhon%20Mein.html


Khwab ho tum ya koi hakeekat

Are you a dream, or reality,
Who are you, tell me?
You stayed afar for hours
Come, come closer.

The heartbeats heard,
an echo of some feet
And a shadow of tresses
wafted over my heart

I do meet you
at every junction
And you walk away,
leaving unfinished tales.

Again shout after me,
Again call out my name,
And if I fall, catch me
in your arms again.

(The attempt is amateurish, for I spend very little time on working a translation.
I have posted it on Sept 15 morning, and I will continue to polish the lines.
There is a merit in practicing translation, and I wish to translate not just he words, but the whole idiom. This will require more calculated rendering, and before I proceed to the greatest works of the greatest Hindi poets, I am somewhat disrespectfully, practicing on the lyrics of some of the finest songwriters of the country. The only justification I have is that I believe songs have less sanctity than poems, and are less trenched in metaphor and rhetoric. There are countless examples for and against what I just said, and lets leave them for future discussion.

I will value all comments and suggestions about better ways of processing the poems into English. I promise to return and revise the translation, till I am satisfied with the word choices. For now, it is a working translation, and not a fully worked out one).

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