Interviewed!

It's not the first time I've talked to interviewers, journalists, or panels, but it's the first time I've done so and been sent a direct link to the footage by the interviewer. Who, not so incidentally, is the one and only Frederick Noronha, tireless journalist, chronicler of literally all things Goan, and head of Goa 1556, the publisher that put out my translations of O Signo da Ira, Leonor Figueiredo's bio of Sita Valles, and the collected Portuguese poems of Laxmanrao Sardessai.

The video quality's kinda weird—it was fine during the interview—but you can still hear me talk about translation, what remains of the Goan literary corpus, and other stuff. Enjoy!

Vimala Devi translations in the João Roque Literary Journal

Selma Carvalho at the João Roque Literary Journal has published my translations of three of Vimala Devi's poems: "Agora"/"Nowadays", "Se Eu Pudesse Guardar"/"If I Could Keep", and "Tua Boca Faminta"/"Your Starving Mouth". You can read them here. The poems all come from Devi's first poetry collection, Súria, published in 1962. I've translated it in full with Vimala's blessing, but haven't found a publisher for yet, infelizmente.

I'm very grateful for this opportunity, and I hope everyone enjoys the poems, as well as all the other great writing in the journal. Since its inception four years ago, it's been a beacon of writing by Goans and about Goa, so it's well worth your time.

Abraço,
D.A.S.

The Corpse lives.

It should be pretty evident, dear readers, that your humble Corpse has been bereft of things to say for the past couple-three months. The 千字文 / Thousand Character Classic project is as dead in the water as 李白 Li Po. When I can browbeat myself into writing heavy metal reviews, they're earmarked for Enslain magazine, though I haven't exactly been cranking those out, either.

Since I last posted, much of my time has been spent translating an 18th-century letter of complaint written by nuns of the Convent of Santa Monica in Goa. "Letter" is not really the word for a rambling and often repetitive document of 40-odd handwritten pages, mind you, but it's been a fascinating process, mainly due to the fact that working with the excellent dude who roped me into it has been fun, educational, and promising in terms of future collaboration. I've learned to read old Portuguese handwriting, delved into the lives of Catholic nuns (who were not there because their cruel parents decided to dump them at the convent door, as is so often believed), and I'm helping to make available to the world a document written by, and about, women at a time when women's voices were only fleetingly heard.

More recently, I've started translating Leonor Figueiredo's biography of Sita Valles, the Angolan communist executed after the grim events of May 27, 1977. Valles' parents were from Goa, which is why I first heard of her. Figueiredo's written a good book, and I think making it available in English will prove useful. I'll discuss this project, as well as the Santa Monica convent one, in further detail at a later date.

That's it for now, alas. I've gotta eat dinner and get to Portuguese class. Later this week, perhaps, I'll find some time to write some more. Later, folks.

Laxmanrao Sardessai: "18 de Junho"

The 18th of June is Goa Revolution Day, which has been celebrated since 1980. It marks the day in 1946 that the movement for independence from Portugal came into its own. Public meetings, such as the one addressed by Ram Manohar Lohia and Julião Menezes on 18 June 1946, were illegal under colonial rule, and therefore suppressed. For the next 15 years the Portuguese authorities faced a rising tide of resistance to their rule, in forms ranging from peaceful satyagraha and the formation of anti-colonial political parties to direct action carried out by the Azad Gomantak Dal. In December 1961, the Indian military finished what others had started and launched Operation Vijay, which swept into Goa and, in three days, put an end to 450 years of Portuguese rule. Goa was annexed to India, along with Damão and Diu, the even smaller remnants of the Portuguese Estado da Índia.

The Goan writer Laxmanrao Sardessai was jailed twice by the Portuguese for his involvement in the Goan independence movement. In the early 1960s, the newly-minted union territory of Goa faced the prospect of being merged into the neighboring state of Maharashtra, which Sardessai vehemently opposed and agitated against. While the following poem commemorates the historic actions of 1946, it was published during the period in which Sardessai wrote poems in Portuguese (as opposed to short stories in Marathi, which made up the overwhelming bulk of his literary output) as part of his campaign against merger. These poems were published in the Portuguese-language newspapers A Vida and O Heraldo, the latter of which continues today, having switched to publishing in English in 1983.

Enjoy, folks, and here's to the continuing struggle against colonialism in all its forms!

D.A.S.

"18 de Junho"

Laxmanrao Sardessai

publicado no jornal A Vida, 18 Junho 1966

Porque será, ó 18 de Junho,

Que estás tão desolado?

Será porque vês

Extinguir-se, lentamente,

A chama que te animara

Há vinte anos

E o sonho que teus sequazes

Sonharam

Duma Goa livre e bela?

Será porque tanto sangue

Que teus heróis verteram,

Foi em vão

E só lhes trouxe

Miséria e lágrimas

E nova escravidão?

Será porque medrou nesta terra

O mal e esvaiu-se o bem

E os vermes tripudiam

Sobre a carcassa?

E estertores retumbam

Nos lares?

E terroriza a queda

Dos valores morais?

Será porque corações inocentes

Choram a maldade dos potentados?

Será porque os ídolos de barro

Sorriem para escárneo

Dos bons e pacatos

E os criminosos se arvoram em juizes

E os justos se tornam cobardes?

Não chores, não, ó 18 de Junho,

Tu inspiraste um povo inteiro

A sofrer e morrer

Por um ideal!

Do teu seio sairá, em breve,

Outro 18, belo e radiante,

Que verá teus sonhos

Tomar vulto e brilhar

Como minaretes dourados

Nos céus azuis desta terra,

Hoje calcada,

Ó dia glorioso

Somos teus filhos.

Filhos de Revolução

E tu és nosso pai

Pai de heróis,

Que sabem sofrer por um ideal.

***

"18th of June"

Laxmanrao Sardessai

Published in the newspaper A Vida, 18 June 1966

Why is it, oh 18th of June,

That you are so forlorn?

Is it because you see

The flame that animated you

Twenty years ago

Being slowly extinguished

Along with the dream that your followers

Dreamed

Of a Goa free and beautiful?

Is it because so much of the blood

Your heroes shed

Was in vain

And only brought them

Misery and tears

And a new slavery?

Is it because evil has thrived in this land

And good has evaporated

And the worms rejoice

Over its carcass?

And death-rattles resound

In the homes?

And the decay of moral values

Terrifies you?

Is it because innocent hearts

Weep at the wickedness of the rulers?

Is it because clay idols

Smile in mockery

Of the good and peaceful

And criminals pretend to be judges

And the just become cowards?

No, do not weep, oh 18th of June,

You inspired an entire people

To suffer and die

For an ideal!

From your breast will soon come

Another 18th, beautiful and radiant,

That will see your dreams

Take shape and shine

Like golden minarets

In the blue skies of this land,

Today downtrodden

Oh glorious day

We are your children.

Children of the Revolution

And you are our father

Father of heroes,

Who know how to suffer for an ideal.

Feliz Dia de Portugal, de Camões, e das Comunidades Portuguesas!/Tradução do poema "Só Gosto" de Vimala Devi

Aqui no Texas o Dia de Portugal, de Camões, e das Comunidades Portuguesas está quase no fim. Por isso, ofereço-lhes uma tradução de um poema da escritora portuguesa Vimala Devi (o pseudónimo de Teresa da Piedade de Baptista Almeida), que nasceu em Goa e escreveu com Manuel de Seabra a obra-prima dos estudos da língua portuguesa no antigo Índia Portuguesa: A Literatura Indo-Portuguesa. Posso dizer que ela era uma das vozes mais fortes da literatura goesa na segunda metade do século XX. Agora ela vive em Espanha, onde escreve em espanhol, catalão, e esperanto.

Nunca traduzi um poema tão curto. É, num sentido, mais difícil do que um verso mais longo.

Adeus, amigos!
D.A.S.

***

"Só Gosto"
Vimala Devi


Do Céu, com estrelas.
Da Terra, sem gente.

-----

"I Only Like"
Vimala Devi


The sky with stars.
The earth without people.

Laxmanrao Sardessai: "Avante, Goeses, Avante!"

On the 19th of December, 1961, Indian troops accepted the surrender of the oldest European colonies in the subcontinent, which had belonged to Portugal for the past 450 years. The Estado da Índia, comprised at the time of Damão, Diu, and Goa, wisely opted to put up little fight, despite direct orders to the contrary from the metropolitan government. In 1967 Goa rejected merger with the neighboring state of Maharashtra, and in 1987 Daman (as it's spelled in English) and Diu became a union territory, while Goa became a full-fledged state.

19 December is traditionally celebrated as Goa Liberation Day, though, as one might expect, "liberation" can be a contentious term. To recognize the occasion, rather than offer an ill-formed opinion, I've translated a 1966 poem by Laxmanrao Sardessai. In addition to writing hundreds of stories in Konkani and Marathi, Sardessai had poems published in Portuguese-language newspapers after Liberation. While not all of his poems were political, those that were were decidedly anti-merger, such as that which follows. My translation is a somewhat hasty one, but I hope that it'll do for the time being.

Como sempre, agradeço-lhe, caro leitor.

D.A.S.


P.S. The definitive end of the Portuguese empire also came on the 19th of December, albeit 38 years later: Macau, Portugal's last overseas possession, was returned to China on this date in 1999.


-----

Avante, Goeses, Avante!
Laxmanrao Sardessai
1966

Avante, goeses, avante!
Que está próxima a batalha
Que decidirá a vossa sorte.
Estão do vosso lado
A Verdade e a Justiça,
A Honra e a Dignidade
E, doutro lado,
A ambição do mando,
A cupidez nojenta,
Indignidades sem conta,
A mentira e a doblez,
A traição e a maquinação.
É a luta entre dois princípios,
O princípio do bem
E o princípio do mal.
Depende de vós a vitória
Dessa batalha imposta
Ao vosso povo pacato
Em nome da Democracia
Que entre nós está moribunda.
Na sua nudez a pergunta é esta:
Que quereis?
Viver na vossa terra
Ou lançar-vos ao mar?
A que miséria a Democracia
Vos lançou, santo Deus!?
Viver ou morrer?
Morrer é, de certo, diluir-se
Um povo na mole heterogénia doutro.
Vós, através da longa história,
Prezastes a honra e a dignidade.
Proclama ao mundo
Que sois um povo distinto.
A vossa língua e os vossos costumes
O vosso temperamento
E a vossa cultura,
A vossa humanidade,
E o vosso intelecto
Não são para serem
Apagados ou suprimidos
Da face da terra.
Não! Não!
Cabe-vos, goeses,
Repelir a afronta,
Esquecer, por amor
Dos vossos avoengos,
Vossas rixas e ódios
E as vaidades que vos minam,
Provar que os goeses têm um único partido,
Partido duma Goa una e livre,
Arrojai aos ventos
As diferenças que vos dividem,
Que mesquinhas ambições alimentais
Quando o povo é arrastado para o abismo!
Em que miseráveis partidos
Vos entretendes
Quando o inimigo procura
Calcar-vos, reduzir-vos à poeira,
Que criminosa negligência a vossa,
Quando as fileiras do inimigo
Se cerram
Para os fins da peleja.
Amigos! Sacudi, sem demora,
A letargia e a modorra!
Abraçai os ignorantes e os pobres.
Preparai-os com sacrifícios
Para a luta.
Levei a cada casa
A mensagem da guerra –
Guerra contra as ambições do mando – !
Sacrificai tudo!
Para salvar a terra,
Terra de vossos pais
E de vossos filhos.
Terra que está
Em iminente perigo
Por culpa dos vossos.
Avante, goeses, avante
E a vitória será vossa!


***


Onward, Goans, Onward!
Laxmanrao Sardessai
1966

Onward, Goans, onward!
For near is the battle
That will decide your fate.
On your side are
Truth and Justice,
Honor and Dignity
And, on the other side,
The ambition of power,
Vile cupidity,
Countless indignities,
Lies and duplicity,
Treachery and machination.
It is the fight between two principles,
The principle of good
And the principle of evil.
Victory depends upon you
In that battle, imposed
On your peaceful people
In the name of the Democracy
Which among us is dying.
Put nakedly, the question is this:
What do you want?
To live on your own land
Or be cast into the sea?
Into what misery has Democracy
Cast you, dear God!?
To live or die?
To die is, certainly, to dilute
One people in the heterogenous mass of the other.
You, throughout your long history,
Have valued honor and dignity.
Proclaim to the world
That you are a distinct people.
Your language and your customs
Your temperament
And your culture,
Your humanity,
And your intellect
Will not be
Erased or removed
From the face of the earth.
No! No!
It is up to you, Goans,
To turn away from insults,
To forget, for the love
Of your ancestors,
Your brawls and hates
And the vanities that undermine you,
To prove that Goans have a single body,
The body of a Goa unified and free,
Throw to the wind
The differences that divide you,
The petty ambitions you feed
While the people are dragged toward the abyss!
With miserable parties
You entertain yourselves
While the enemy seeks
To trample you, reduce you to dust,
Such criminal neglect of yours,
While the ranks of the enemy
Close in
To make battle.
Friends! Shake off, without delay,
Your lethargy and drowsiness!
Embrace the unlearned and the poor.
Prepare them with sacrifices
For the fight.
Take to every home
The message of war –
War against the ambitions of power – !
Sacrifice everything!
To save the land,
The land of your fathers
and of your children.
Land that is
In imminent danger
By your own fault.
Onward, Goans, onward
And victory will be yours!

The Mystery Grows Clearer: some notes on Laxmanrao Sardessai

 I don't believe I've discussed it here, but a few months ago I received an email from Dr. Paul Melo e Castro, the man responsible for the Archive of Goan Writing in Portuguese, from which you may recall I chose a poem almost at random and translated it into English. As it turns out, Dr. Melo e Castro found my translation of Laxmanrao Sardessai's "O Mistério Aclara-se" good enough to invite me to translate several more of Sardessai's poems for a future issue of Muse India. Said issue will be dedicated to Indian writing in Portuguese that's been translated into English. I'm excited to make a contribution.

Over the past three and a half months I've been reading and translating the bulk of Laxmanrao Sardessai's published poetic output, which consists of under a hundred poems, I think, written and published between 1962 and 1966. To my knowledge Sardessai did not write poetry in anything but Portuguese, but he wrote hundreds of stories in Marathi and Konkani, which makes his relatively brief foray into a língua portuguesa all the more interesting. Given that Goa was facing a 1967 referendum on maintaining its independence as a territorial unit vs. integration with the neighboring, and much larger, state of Maharashtra- a fate Sardessai opposed- it makes sense that he would employ Portuguese, as well as the languages in which his writing was better-known, to sway a wider audience into voting against integration. Once the referendum ended with Goa remaining independent of Maharashtra, there was no more need for Sardessai to write in Portuguese. (For publication, anyway; he may have continued writing privately in the language.)

In addition to the Muse India translations, I hope to have news of a related project sometime in the next month or two, but for now I'm keeping my lip buttoned, lest I jinx it. That said, in the course of my readings Dr. Melo e Castro was kind enough to send me the photos he took of Sardessai's poems as they first appeared in the Portuguese-language Goan newspaper A Vida. Not only has this allowed me to fix typos and such, but it's allowed me a brief glimpse into life in Lusophone Goa in the 1960s. (When was the last time you saw a poem in a newspaper?*).

Below is the original text of "O Mistério Aclara-se", published on 15 April 1966. The sharp-eyed among you may note that it contains different punctuation than the version I used in my translation, which will necessarily result in revisiting my initial effort.

Muito obrigado to Dr. Paul Melo e Castro for putting in the work in Goa's archives and sharing his findings with the wider world. Lengthening Shadows, his two-volume collection of Goan short stories translated from Portuguese to English, will soon be available from Goa 1556, and I wholeheartedly suggest you check it out. There is another project of his in the works, but I'll discuss that at a later time.

Hope all is well, dudes. Take it easy.

D.A.S.

*I can think of an example, actually, and one I saw as recently as this past summer, at that. Like A Vida above, it too is a Lusophone paper published in a territory where the use of Portuguese faces an uncertain future. I refer to Plataforma Macau 澳門平台, a bilingual weekly I enjoyed reading over coffee at Caravela in the afternoons.

Laxmanrao Sardessai: "O Mistério Aclara-se" / "The Mystery Grows Clear"

As promised/threatened, here is the translation of another Portuguese-language poem. This one comes from the Goan author Laxmanrao Sardessai (1904-1986), who wrote short stories and essays in Marathi and Konkani, as well as poetry in Portuguese. More of his poems can be found at the Archive of Goan Writing in Portuguese.

My criteria for choosing Laxmanrao Sardessai over another poet were effectively nonexistent, almost random, and the next time I translate a Goan poem it may well be from another writer. This may be the first time this poem has appeared in English; if so, I hope I've done Sardessai's work justice. Any and all blame for poor translation should, as always, be apportioned solely to yours truly.

Obrigado, caro leitor.

---

"O Mistério Aclara-se"

O mistério aclara-se
E ai vejo definido o meu ideal,
No céu, no mar e na terra
Vejo a mesma mão,
Invisível e misteriosa,
Modelar o destino da humanidade.
No azul do oceano
No verde da terra
A mesma graça vejo
Estender-se na sua simplicidade
E o mistério aclara-se,
E aclara-se o meu espírito,
Confuso perante a difusão
De cores e linhas,
De formas e matéria
E suas infinitas intrincâncias.
Evapora-se a ilusão
E desponta no horizonte,
Vasto e claro,
O sol uno e brilhante,
A dirigir os meus passos
Para a divina realidade!

***

"The Mystery Grows Clear"

The mystery grows clear
And there I see defined my ideal,
In the sky, in the sea and in the earth
I see the same hand
Invisible and mysterious,
Shape humanity's destiny.
In the blue of the ocean
In the green of the earth
I see the same grace
Extend itself in its simplicity
And the mystery grows clear,
And my spirit grows clear,
Confused by the diffusion
Of colors and lines,
Of forms and matter
and their infinite intricacies.
The illusion evaporates
And emerges on the horizon,
Vast and clear,
The sun one and bright,
Directing my steps
Toward the divine reality!