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

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

Malayalees are rice and fish, and they are great football fans who exhibit high

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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

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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 Vivekananda’s 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 Paramahamsa’s

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

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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

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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

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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.B’S 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. Bhattathirippad’s 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 Amma’s

translation of Tagore’s 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.

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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).

Antharjanam’s first published story “Journey’s end” was based on Seethadevi

Shatopadhyaya’s English translation of Santha Shatopadhyaya’s 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 Devi’s trilogy Pratham Pratishruti (1964),

Subarnalatha (1966) and Bakul Katha (1973) were also popular among the

Malayali readers through translations. Moreover Bengali classics like

Tarashankar Banerjee’s Aarogya Niketanam and Ganadevata, Bibhuti Bhushan

Bandopadhyay’s 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,

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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 Maharaja’s

College, Ernakulam, and Leela Sarkar who wrote an exclusive Bengali-

Malayalam 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 Tagore’s ‘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

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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 Chandra’s novel Ananda Math

celebrates the country as the holy mother and this mother cult, more tribal, does

not find reflection in Tagore’s 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

movement affected the writers of both the states. The formation of the

Progressive Writer’s 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 Keshavadev’s

Odayilninnu and Thakazhi’s scavenger in Thottiyude Makan. Art did not exist

merely for Art’s sake but Art existed for Life’s sake in the view of these writers.

The Progressive Writer’s Association (Purogamana Sahitya Sanghadana) was

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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 Bhattacharya’s 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 Bhasi’s 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

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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 ‘people’–oriented 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. Paul’s Cathedral in Calcutta

during the Christmas time. The art and culture of Calcutta have inspired others

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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 Kariat’s Chemmeen, a film adaptation of Thakazhi’s 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

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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, Shyamaprasad’s

Malayalam film adaptation of Sunil Gangopadhyay’s Bengali novel Heerak

Deepthi entitled Ore Kadal, won many awards while earlier a Bengali adaptation

of Sethu’s 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 Gokhale’s famous

comment that what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow.

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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.

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Kripalani, Krishna. “Modern Literature.” Ed. A. L. Basham. The Illustrated

Cultural History of India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007.

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