New York Nagaram: A Liberal Translation

There is a simple joy in translation, akin to a craftsman’s. Instead of the pain of creation is the precision of re-creation, and what a recreation it turns out to be!

The terrain is familiar and safe because it has already been mapped out and for someone like me who owes no special allegiance to the source material, it can be re-imagined to various degrees to please oneself. So as long as one is not aiming at an official translation you have the best of both the worlds: you use someone else's terrain but for your own literary pleasures. Isn’t it like having an affair with another’s wife, sans the complications!

In the above said manner I had set out to translate the recent hit 'New York Nagaram...' in which AR Rahman performs the alchemy of turning a lyric of uneven quality (lyricist: Vaali) into a cool song that I am sure is the anthem for many a young onsite guy's longings, fantasized and real.

Here is the output.

“As the city recedes into sleep loneliness takes over,
Snow spreads, from the seas winds alight to stroll the shores.
Amidst glass panels am I, lonely and pointless
Having dinner in the company of candle sticks.

No more conversations that double up as lullaby
Or kisses alongside morning coffee.
No more you to taste dust in my eye
Or straighten the wrinkles of my psyche.

You over there and me here:
Blessed by the loneliness, minutes drag as years.
Blue over there and bleak sky here:
Why is it upon us to illumine this metaphor?

In my diary is your name penned myriad times.
And lo, streams of ants array behind the honeyed lines.
Though the winter has chilled earth even,
This moment scorches like an Indian summer.

Come home, oh alchemist’s magic!
Won’t you turn this red ember into ice…”

I would like to thank the following site for the lyrics:
http://arrahmaniac.blogspot.com/2006/08/thanimai-thanimaiyo.html”

(C) MaheshC.