Our poetry team published new work from G.B. Prabhat – "Individuality", a translated poem from his original Tamil.
G. B. Prabhat is a bilingual writer who writes in English and Tamil. His debut collection of Tamil poems, “Engiruntho Vanthavai” (Of Unknown Origin), was published in October 2020 by Cre-A, a leading Tamil publisher. Prabhat’s first English novel, "Chains," was published in 2000 to critical acclaim. Prabhat's English short stories and other work have appeared in Asia Literary Review, The Hindu, The Indian Express, Liquid Imagination, Fiction On The Web and Unlikely Stories. Some stories have been translated into Telugu, Hindi and Punjabi. Prabhat lives in Chennai, India.
One of our poetry editors Grant Burkhardt recently talked with Prabhat about the poem, writing in English and Tamil, and his work as a whole.
Grant Burkhardt: I really loved this poem, the simplicity and quiet of it. How did “Individuality” come to be?
G. B. Prabhat: Honestly, I am not sure. Let me explain. “Individuality” is my translation into English of my original Tamil poem appearing in my debut collection. My experience with writing Tamil poems has been wholly different from my writing in English. I carefully choose the subjects of my English writing. I refine my English writing over months and years. My Tamil poems came as a surprise to me. The poems are epiphanic wholes (I know this may sound a bit pompous, but I don’t know how else to express it), striking me like thunderbolts mostly during my sleep. I don’t choose the subject or form of my Tamil poems; they choose me. Therefore, my debut collection of Tamil poems is entitled, “Engirundho Vandhavai”, meaning “of unknown origin”. The Upanishads, which I have been dealing with for many years, mock our self-importance as delusive and as a barrier to the realization of the ultimate truth. This precept may have had something to do with “Individuality”.
Grant Burkhardt: When you translate your own work, do you discover different details and different meanings for certain phrases or passages - different from the original Tamil?
G. B. Prabhat: Tamil provides unique constructs rich in paronomasia that permit multiple meanings to emerge with a telling economy of words. I have been generously exploiting these idiosyncrasies of Tamil in my original Tamil poems. But such idiosyncrasies are difficult to emulate in English. So, often, instead of discovering new meanings in my English translations of my Tamil poems, I am left with the sense of dubiety of a translator: whether he or she has fully conveyed the fluidity of the original.
Grant Burkhardt: I’m touched by the dichotomy of scale and lens in this poem - from large to small, from grand to specific. How do you think about scope and scale in this poem and in your wider work?
G. B. Prabhat: Physics urges us to examine, bereft of our size, the micro (quantum mechanics) and the macro (space and relativity) to discover the truth of the universe. The meaning of our existence is embedded in both the big and the small. We are victims of our size and hence much of our incomprehension, frustrations and miseries. Since many of my poems deal with the human condition in relation to the universe, scope and scale form defining elements.
Grant Burkhardt: Which other poets and writers do you pull inspiration from?
G. B. Prabhat: I attempt a syncretism of profound Indian thought - for example, Upanishadic precepts - and two subjects seldom dealt with in Indian poetry, particularly, Tamil poetry: Western philosophy and science. The contrapuntal Indian and Western viewpoints have created for me a fertile ground of infinite poetic possibilities. Sometimes the twain meld, sometimes they don’t and at other times, they produce a synthesis.
The list I draw inspiration from is very huge. It includes Wordsworth, Brownings (husband and wife), Keats, Tagore, Kipling, Tennyson, Tamil poets Bharathiyar and Thiruvalluvar, and Sangam age Tamil poets. The list also includes scientists like Schroedinger, Heisenberg, Einstein, Crick, Watson and philosophers Adi Sankara, Thirumoolar, Sartre, Wittgenstein, Hegel and Kant. Specifically, the Upanishads fascinate me endlessly for defining exalted standards for contemplation.
G. B. Prabhat
G. B. Prabhat is a bilingual writer who writes in English and Tamil. His debut collection of Tamil poems, “Engiruntho Vanthavai” (Of Unknown Origin), was published in October 2020 by Cre-A, a leading Tamil publisher. Prabhat’s first English novel, "Chains," was published in 2000 to critical acclaim. "Eimona," his second novel published in 2006, is a dystopian story set in modern India that has been compared with "Brave New World" and "1984". His third novel, "Early Indications," is the story of five children christened 'the Five geniuses' by their doting first school teacher. Prabhat's English short stories and other work have appeared in Asia Literary Review, The Hindu, The Indian Express, Liquid Imagination, Fiction On The Web and Unlikely Stories. Some stories have been translated into Telugu, Hindi and Punjabi. Prabhat lives in Chennai, India.
Grant Burkhardt
Grant is a poet and writer with work featured in or forthcoming in the Great Lakes Review, Nightingale & Sparrow, Icarus, and others. His poem - 'The Thing About People Knowing You Cook' - is a 2023 Sundress Publications 'Best of the Net' nominee. He’s also one of the Umbrella's poetry editors and non-fiction editors.
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