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interview

An Interview with Hasan Raja's Translator

by Ziaul Karim
***Edward Yazijian was born in 1955 in New York. His interest in folklore and music was perceived at a very tender age. He plays guitar and violin and also knows how to play a handful of other musical instrument. In 1974 he left home and began a journey throughout Asia which lasted ten years and took him to Japan, Hong Kong, Bangkok, India and finally Bangladesh. He learned Bangla while in West Bengal and there began an affair with language and the culture. The recently published 100 Songs of Hasan Raja is the labour of his intense love for the Bengali language and culture. Interviewed by Ziaul Karim***
Q: How did you learn Bangla?
A: I have always been interested in Bangla literature from the time I was may be twenty-year-old. 1 went to India. Calcutta precisely, and learned Bengali Language. At first I was interested in Padabali kirtan. I liked it and I still like it.
Q: Was it through Vaisnab padabali that you had had the taste of the language?
A: Right. In fact it was the padabali the first thing that I ever really read.
Q: What was that in padabali that drew you to it?
A: I just thought the language of padabali itself, the way things were written was really beautiful. There was a lot of alliteration in mediaeval Bengali poetry. Just the way the words sounded, a lot of times I did not understand it though I could read it. I did not know what the words meant yet. But the sound of it to me was just like beautiful music. I also lived for a while in Nabadeep where a lot of padabali kirtan is performed still. After hearing it 1 liked it even more. I have been a musician since I was very young. So. music was in my blood. It appealed to me basically it was very musical, very poetic and the Images when I finally learned the meaning of the songs appeared to me even more interesting. The sentiment that came from the songs were Just beautiful.
Q: How did you come to know Hasan
Raja?
A: I was introduced to Hasan Raja much later. To be very precise only recently. I'm not Just interested in Hasan Raja. I'm interested in any kind of. I guess you could call, mystic poetry or songs of Bangladesh. But 1 first heard of Hasan Raja from a professor who teaches history at Dhaka University. She is Dr. Sonia Amin. She came to our school Syracuse University in New York to show a film about Begum Rokeya. We were invited at a dinner where I had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Sonia. Later I
wrote to her that I was interested to coming to Bangladesh for the last semester of my school and asked her for suggestion of people I could, you know who might be Interesting to me that I could come here and study their songs or poetry. And she suggested Hasan Raja. I really knew nothing about him. And I never even heard of him before I came in Dhaka in January 1999. When I read his songs they were .to me, very Intense and I was very Intrigued by him because he Is a very complex person. By most people s opinion he was illiterate, he may be could sign his own name that's about it. He dictated all of his songs to his servants. He was a Jaminder, a very wealthy man. But he lived very simply towards the end of life. When you read about him you get a very complex picture: some people say he was cruel, he was very hedonistic. Even his own sister wrote a song about him saying how cruel he was. how he stole money from orphans and old people and did not care about anybody. And then you get the other side of Hasan Raja which was very compassionate-- gave away land to poor people, was very kind to animals. Then you find out towards the end of his life he changed completely. Then he wrote those beautiful songs. That is how I go my interest in him. But very little is available about his life.Q: Do you any exposure to modern Bengali poetry?
A: Very little. I have always been interested more in the time period between the fifteenth and the nineteenth century. I think I'm very lacking in reading modern poetry. Of course. I have read some Rablndrananth and some Nazrul. But I have always come back to maddha yug( the mediaeval era).
Q: Why do you like mediaeval poetry over modern literature?
A: That Is difficult question to answer. I think I Just like it. I don't know how to explain it otherwise.
Q: Is it because you do not find contemporary life Interesting?
A: I think any thinking person has always from time Immemorial been unhappy with the way things are. I don't think there is anything new to modern life. If you read something like say the Chandlmangal b y Kablkankan you will find he was very unhappy with the way things were. That is how things change for the better. If we are happy with the way things are then nothing will change. I do not believe in the good old days. It is garbage, quite frankly. 1 think there has always been dissatisfaction with the way things are In the world. And it Is good thing.
Q: What were the challenges you have faced while translating Hasan
Raja into English?
A: It is really impossible to translate sentiments from one language into another. You can only give sort of a rough idea. I do not pretend to be able to really give a perfect translation of anything from Bengali to English. There are words in Bengali that Just do not have any parallel in English and viM-versa. Rabindranath Tagore did a lot of his own translation of his works. Geetanjali for instance. When I read the Bengali it is beautiful, but quite frankly when I read the English it is not Just the same. It does not resonate for me the same way.