12. Another Note on Literary Translation - IV Poignantly Penned Femininity

Abstract

Women’s Movements are myriad and the more recent Feminist Movement is an offshoot of
Women’s Liberation fighting for liberation and equality. These movements not always go to the
root of the problems of women-kind at the basic living of women as fair sex with pain and
problems starting with the biological aspects.
Telugu women have come out with a bang hitting the nail on the head in the following seven
poems. They laid bare the horrors of the condition of women dealing with the fair but painfully
seething weaker fair sex. The solutions are simple and what is imaginatively demanded is a little
kindness and humane understanding. The poems below are not part of a strong movement for
fair sex rights. It is a plangent threnody pleading for sympathetic, hearty empathy. The
translations of all the seven poems were published first in my book Voices on the Wing in 2000.
Later they were included in my book in Telugu, Anuvada Darshini (published in 2005), which
came to be used as an aid for teachers teaching literary translation in the graduate courses in
Andhra Pradesh. The voices of the seven poets are not the same. The vehemence and the voice
level vary. The heights of the expressive feeling are different and the practising translator needs
to get into the hearts and souls of the speakers of these poems.
These seven poems by women are not expressive of any belligerence or ideas of rebellion or
revolution. The speakers express their ire, and vent their mental and physical suffering, both
unnecessary and thoughtless.
Translating these poems is not easy. The psyche of womenfolk and the limitations of the body
with its delicacies are dealt with sensitivity and scathing truthfulness by the speakers of the
poems. Mandarapu Hymavathi talks about the act of the male who is some times utterly
insensitive to the fine qualities of the woman whom he wedded. Loveless act is pain. Coition
needs to be soft, sweet and satisfying but in the poem it is not so for the woman since the act of
the man is loveless and self-serving. For the practising translator it is highly challenging if he
does not have any understanding or appreciation for the feelings of the woman.