![]() ![]() Touching the works of Tagore is not easy, says author, poet and film-maker Gulzar. For instance, how would they understand “panghat” (river bank), so he changed the image. Being an author, he would re-edit his poem then shorten them and change images at places because his vision was for the West, thinking they wouldn’t understand otherwise. I already knew his English translations were not good. What is your opinion of Tagore’s translations of his own poems? These are taken from real life, observations by someone who has indulged with children. To write for children is not easy…And the spontaneity I found in Tagore is marvellous, how can he possibly write so well for and about children. ![]() This was another tragedy which I thought demanded attention. I also realised that another problem we have in the country is that there are no good writers to write solely for children. The urge I can’t explain… unke gaane suno tab, fiction, drama padho tab (whenever I listened to his songs, read his fiction and drama). And I had the urge to translate the book that had fascinated me in my childhood, The Gardener.įinally, after a circle of 60-70 years, I started reading Tagore up to this point when it was boiling inside. ![]() I started my whole turn of life from Tagore, my education in childhood included. Over the years, I could read, speak and write Bangla…I even married a Bengali. I was keen to translate Tagore but couldn’t gather the courage to do so, especially jab aap thoda jante ho, tab badi mushkil hoti hai (especially when you know little of him, it becomes very difficult). I started working on these books in 2010. What inspired you to translate Rabindranath Tagore’s poems for children into Hindi, and when did you start working on them? Catching up with him at the Delhi launch, Gulzar spoke to on how the whole thing came about - and, apparently, it all began with “the first book I stole”. The renowned lyricist and poet has translated 60-odd Bengali poems by Tagore into Hindi that have been published as two books - ‘The Crescent Moon’ and ‘The Gardener’. ![]()
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