Friday, September 22, 2006

A Glistening Drop Of Dew

Bohu din dhore, bohu krosh dure,
bohu byay kori, bohu desh ghure,
Dekhite giyachhi parbotmala, dekhite giyachhi sindhu,
Dekha hoy nai chokkhu meliya,
Ghar hote shudhu dui pa feliya,
Ekti dhaner shisher upore ekti shishir bindu.

(Trans: I traveled miles, for many a year,
I spent a lot in lands afar,
I’ve gone to see the mountains, the oceans I’ve been to view.
But I haven’t seen with these eyes
Just two steps from my home lies
On a sheaf of paddy grain, a glistening drop of dew.)
Joyful arrives at a very Zen-like conclusion about the city of Hyderabad, and on the way, quotes a beautiful Tagore poem. He also has a little gem of information in his commentspace about this poem and Satyajit Ray.

Doesn't that poem remind you of the atmosphere from Led Zeppelin III?

17 comments:

GhostOfTomJoad said...

Hmm, I'm not a Bengali but shall we discuss the translation anyway?

"bohu byay kori, bohu desh ghure"

From the way this sounds, it should mean "Married many times, travelled to many countries"

:-)

km said...

byay = vyah?

Maybe Tagore *did* have groupies?

Tabula Rasa said...

byay in bong = vyay in hindi / sanskrit
= expense / waste(?) in english.

ghost's headed for a visual pun, since the bong for wedding is pronounced biye.

GhostOfTomJoad said...

People, "vyah" is the Punju term for marriage. I haven't a clue what "Vyay" might mean.

But TR is right...I read 'byay' as I thought it ought to be pronounced - biye. Which means marriage. Which, in turn, goes to show that little knowledge can be a funny thing!

km said...

Whew. A little linguistic storm passes. Thanks for the clarification, TR. "Vyay" is expense in Hindi ("vyarth" is waste.)

And sadly, that means no groupies for Tagore!

Anonymous said...

Hehe!! You guys have a great sense of humour.. :)

and a very good poem, that. thanks.

km said...

Alok, I've not been able to comment on your blog at all...short of hacking into Blogger Beta, which I most assuredly cannot do, is there an easier way to comment on your posts?

Joy Forever said...

@GhostOfTomJoad: 'Byay' is the Bengali version of Hindi 'vyay', which means expenditure. So "bohu byay kori, bohu desh ghure" literally means "I spent a lot while travelling to many countries".
I am a Bengali and that translation was done by me, so if 'byay' meant marriage, I would have written it that way. :)

Alok said...

hey, you can use the "other" option when adding the comment. that way you don't have to log in. these guys said they were going to fix it but...

Alok said...

I see, now i can log in to your blog. that means they are working on it.

km said...

Thanks, Alok.

Joy: thanks again for posting that poem.

GhostOfTomJoad said...

JoyForever: Like I said earlier, I know that 'biye' means marriage and when I came across the word 'byay' I thought that is how 'biye' is written.

Apologies, no offence meant. And, thanks! :-)

Joy Forever said...

@GhostOfTomJoad: None taken! :-)

Anonymous said...

Nice translation. May I link to this?

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