Hanging Gardens of Translation

A few days ago, our young student Saeed Akhtar brought along an elderly, spirited friend. His hair was wild and sparse, his face clean-shaven, his skin rough like a butcher’s but glowing. His eyes brimmed with tranquility. The gentleman had come from Moscow. He had seen the golden days of the Soviet Union, spent a decade—no, more than a decade—in the Urdu section of Moscow Radio. Now, in his twilight years, he had come to live in Pakistan.

Seeing him, I was reminded of characters from Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Turgenev: Andrei Andreyevich, Alexei, Shukolov, Sasha, Masha, and who knows what else. Of course, I may not have pronounced these names correctly, but what’s in a name? After all, we can’t possibly know all the names Russians have—family names, clan names, names among friends, names among enemies.

Imagine the uniqueness of a nation’s literature that can produce such depth. I believe no civilized writer in the world remains unfamiliar with Russian literature—scratch that, forget the word “civilized.” Even without that qualifier, it holds true.

Despite all its fame, Russian literature does not reveal all its secrets. Many stories remain enigmatic. But what a blessing it is: “پر یہ کیا کم ہے کہ مجھ سے وہ پری پیکر کھلا” (Is it not enough that the fairy-like beauty revealed itself to me?).

Look at my audacity—despite my age, I couldn’t resist teasing him. I bombarded him with questions: Do those tall lime trees still shimmer in Moscow and Petersburg? The ones Nancy Simpson wrote about: “These woods belong to me, / Every maple and oak. / How many women do you know / Who own a forest?”

And then there’s the moon gliding through the lime branches, dignified gatherings of boys outside churches, beautiful but melancholic girls, weekend evenings, ballroom dances, suburban estates, kitchen windows opening into blooming gardens, the whistling of samovars, the taste of royal gardens, untimely mornings, restless evenings…

I kept rambling until he had to stop me. Slowly, with a smile, he looked at Saeed, took a sip of tea, and said to me: “Brother, you’ve seen Russia quite well. The Russia you speak of is the one preserved in the novels of Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Gorky, Chekhov, Turgenev, and Dostoevsky. Only one thing remains—you stepping onto the lush green airport of Moscow. End of story.”

Think about it: If not for the fast wheels of translation, how would a boy sitting in a semi-rural town of Potohar ever wander through the icy gardens of Yakutia? Translation is what shows man the seven-colored realm and lets him taste the salt of new lands.

If you ponder it, translation is a longing to see the unseen. The tale of Hatim Tai and Munir Shami is well-known. In it, the first question Hassan Bano asks is crucial: “ایک بار دیکھا ہے دوسری دفعہ کی ہوس ہے” (Having seen once, the desire to see again arises). What is this thing that, once seen, creates an insatiable craving to see again? Stories are texts so layered with meaning that confining them to a single interpretation is unjust. But we must understand that in the princess’s question, “hous” (desire) carries multiple meanings—among them, the desire to explore and witness.

Repeated seeing points not to greed but to the fact that what is being observed does not fully reveal itself, or its wonder remains inexhaustible. As Bedil says: “چو چشم چشمہ خورشید حیرتی داریم / تو ای مژه ز چہ خس‌ پوش‌ کرده‌ ای ما را” (Like the eye, the sun’s reflection holds wonder— / So why, O eyelash, do you veil us with dust?).

In our circles, critiques of translation often revolve around it “not fully opening up” or being “impoverished compared to our culture.” Maybe the translator erred, but readers must also dare to engage with new things. Some texts are difficult even in their original language—transplanting them into another is doubling the difficulty. Take Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway—a celebrated novel, but Woolf’s language is no easy feat. Her style is unfamiliar, and just as you begin to grasp something, she pivots, launching into Latin, Greek, or Roman debates, as if to say: “The point is elusive in its world of expression.” I’ve explored many aids to understand Woolf and found that even among the English, her comprehenders are rare. Understanding Jane Austen and grappling with Virginia Woolf are two entirely different mental exercises. One can be read with a teacup in hand, breezing through gentle prose; the other demands: “Engage your intellect, chew the cud of thought—only then will the pearl of meaning reveal itself.” Woolf herself wrote in her preface: “If the novel doesn’t make sense, don’t complain—read it two or four times, and it will.” In our part of the world, even Kant’s philosophy is seldom studied with such diligence, let alone Woolf’s novels.

Connected to this is the matter of translation style. A desire for simple, flowing, ornate Urdu can be fatal for translation. While the current generation’s Urdu languishes in obscurity, even our elders fell prey to this misconception. Earlier, I mentioned Russian literature. The most esteemed translations of Russian literature were done by Dar-ul-Isha’at Moscow, the Soviet Union’s premier publishing house. They disseminated Russian literature globally, and brilliantly. Urdu translators like Zaheer Ansari, Khadija Azim, and other top-tier writers were involved. Their contributions are unparalleled—may they dwell in paradise. But a major blunder occurred, as Naiyer Masud also pointed out: the translations were rendered in Ganga-Jamuni polished Urdu. Take Zaheer Ansari—he wrote in clean Urdu, born in Saharanpur, lived in UP, later moved to Moscow. He translated several works of Dostoevsky, Chekhov, and Turgenev and wrote monographs on them. Since his Urdu was refined, he translated Dostoevsky (Turgenev and Chekhov fared relatively better) in the same polished style. Now, it feels as if some elder from Ashraf Subohi or Naseer Nazir Firaq’s lineage is dabbling in literature.

Naiyer Masud also noted something thought-provoking: If a great writer deliberately keeps his style slightly dense and sluggish, translating it into sparkling, flowing, idiomatic Urdu might be tantamount to killing it. For example, consider this line from The Brothers Karamazov: “Learn to love the stench of your own dishonesty… the inevitable result of fear, falsehood, and love-filled loathing.” Reflect on the thought here. I’ve taken this line from the late Shahid Hamid’s translation. Hamid was known for his independent approach and keen awareness of subtleties. Had another writer, enamored with polished Urdu, translated it, the result would’ve been the opposite. I once gave this English line to a friend fluent in chaste Urdu and asked him to translate it. He stared at it for two minutes, then said: “Brother! Learn to curse your own hypocrisy—the natural outcome of deceit and affectionate hatred.”

It’s not that our friend deliberately mistranslated or was incompetent. The point is: If a translator doesn’t grasp Dostoevsky’s style, mere linguistic skill won’t save him—no matter how hard he tries to simplify the content. Some writers simply don’t fit into the mold of straightforward translation. Dostoevsky, for instance, sought to express human and subhuman emotions through tangled, even chaotic, descriptors. He learned this technique from Gustave Flaubert and added his own hues to it. This method, which doesn’t sound easy or fluid, is even harder in practice.

Why single out Zaheer Ansari? Even our greatest writers have done this. Intizar Hussain is indispensable to Urdu fiction. He also translated extensively, reshaping translations with his unique style. But in his translated works, does the original author get a chance to shine, or is it overshadowed by Intizar Sahib’s voice? That’s the question. Perhaps this happens to anyone who, while sincere, also wants the world to echo their own tune. This desire isn’t inherently bad. Rashid Ahmed Siddiqui, they say, would declare upon meeting a good man: “He must be from Aligarh.” If the man indeed was, Siddiqui would swell with pride; if not, he’d lament: “Such a fine man—why isn’t he from Aligarh?” As if goodness lacked one final ingredient.

Intizar Hussain translated Chekhov’s novella The Steppe as Ghaas ke Medaan Mein (In the Grasslands). It’s an incredibly fluid translation, feeling like his own work—which is both its strength and, perhaps, its flaw (I say this cautiously). The novella begins with a description of a carriage—listen: “It was July. Early in the morning, in the dark, a springless tum-tum—a relic from before Noah’s flood, capable of rattling one’s bones—emerged from the town of ‘N,’ the headquarters of ‘Z’ district. Creaking and clattering, it hit the outward road. Only poor priests and petty traders ride these in Russia now. So this tum-tum clattered on, its wheels going choon-chark choon-chark, the bucket tied behind joining the chorus. These sounds, along with the torn upholstery and tattered rags hanging out, conspired to gossip that the tum-tum was from Adam’s era and its joints were on the verge of collapse.”

Who wouldn’t fall in love with such Urdu? But tell me truthfully—where does it feel like this is describing people from Moscow or Petersburg’s outskirts, isolated from the world? To me, this tum-tum seems to be passing through Delhi’s Chandni Chowk or Lucknow’s Aish Bagh.

This entire mess stems from the notion of clean and polished Urdu. It’s fortunate that global writers who built their literature on language were translated much later by those incapable of writing Delhi’s Urdu. Otherwise, in the name of good Urdu, their works would’ve been further mangled. Kafka, Camus, Kundera, Borges, and Marquez come to mind.

Among those who understand the soul of literary translation in Urdu, three translators are essential reading: Aziz Ahmad, Hasan Askari, and Umar Memon. I’m not adding Naiyer Masud here because he translated less in quantity, but what he did is unparalleled. Kafka’s stories have been translated by many. A few years ago, I compared three translators’ versions (no need to name them) page by page. The truth is, Naiyer Masud is the only Urdu translator who captured Kafka’s essence. Listen to this anecdote from the renowned novelist Anis Ashfaq: “One day, I saw him sitting with his head in his hands over an open register. I asked if he was okay. He said, ‘I’ve been stuck on this sentence since yesterday, but the difficulty won’t resolve.’ I asked which sentence. He read: ‘Kill me or you are a murderer.’ These were Kafka’s last words to his doctor. After hearing it, he closed the register and changed the subject. Three days later, I returned to find him calmly smoking over the same register. Seeing me, he said, ‘The problem’s solved. The translation’s done—exactly as I wanted.’ Then he read: ‘Kill me, or my blood will be on your hands.’”

Now think—many translations of this line were possible, but each would’ve carried some ambiguity or flaw. For example:

1. “Kill me, or you’ll be a murderer.”
2. “Murder me, or you’ll be deemed a killer.”
3. “Finish me, or you’ll be my executioner.”

Many such variations exist, but none match the eloquence and precision of Naiyer Masud’s.

These days, the world laments ChatGPT, claiming it translates a poem in two seconds. In such times, who will spend three days on a single sentence? But remember: this machine claims to match the human brain’s current, conventional capacity—not its uncharted depths. Genuine literature is born beyond the limits of thought. Can ChatGPT capture man’s madness, his disordered, disruptive states? No. At best, it arranges normal things coherently. Great literature or art brushes against the dangerous edges of insanity before returning.

The fear of this machine is like the ozone layer’s depletion or the world’s water vanishing. Sincere scientists agonized over both, day and night. Later, the ozone layer healed itself. Vast reserves of fresh water were discovered beneath the Pacific’s ice. The matter resolved. Humanity has weathered history’s toughest eras—no invention has altered man’s core. Humans are hardier than their own creations. Trust in this: “میں ورنہ وہی خلوتی راز نہاں ہوں” (I remain that hidden secret of solitude).

After this digression, let’s return to translation’s nuances. Naiyer Masud was our subject. To witness translation’s delicacies, read Maraslat—the collection of letters between Naiyer Masud and Umar Memon. Memon lived in America his whole life, hailed from an academic family, and had Arabic and Persian at his fingertips. Naiyer Masud, too, had his own stature and intellectual distinctions. The two would debate single English words across four or five letters. In one, Naiyer humbly writes: “Someone asked me to translate a three-word sentence. I’ve tried hard, but it won’t come. The sentence: ‘It happened tomorrow.’”

Of course, any hack could’ve translated it casually, but doing justice is another matter. How much we must learn from these elders—not just knowledge, but also patience and humility.

Umar Memon produced translations of magical beauty. Though he translated over two dozen works, his renditions of Kundera’s novels stand out to me. Kundera’s narratives, with their philosophical infusions and absent interlocutors, are inherently difficult—let alone the linguistic play. Memon wrote in prefaces: “This translation was rough; I’ve kept it rough. I haven’t simplified it. Let the reader stretch a little.” He also admitted: “I left a translation aside once, revisited it ten years later, and rewrote it entirely.” Such patience is rare.

Regarding translation, I adore Memon’s three volumes on fiction craft. They’re indispensable. Take Borges’ interviews—one example: Borges discusses words as if they were edible, their flavors melting in the mouth. “کیوں نہ باتیں چبا چبا کے کروں / ہم سخن بات ہے نبات نہیں” (Why shouldn’t I chew my words? / Speech is a plant, not mere talk).

In one paragraph, Borges marvels at the beauty of “neverness”: “‘Neverness’ is utterly charming—it exudes a strange despair, no? No other language has such a word, not even English. You could say ‘impossibility,’ but it’s lifeless, pale, bland compared to ‘neverness.’ The Saxon suffix ‘-ness’—‘neverness.’ Keats used ‘nothingness’: ‘Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.’ But ‘nothingness’ feels weaker than ‘neverness.’ Spanish has ‘nederia.’ Many similar words exist, but none capture ‘neverness.’ If you’re a poet, you must use it. For such a word to languish in dictionaries is tragic. I think it’s never been used. Maybe some theologian did. Jonathan Edwards would’ve relished it, or Sir Thomas Browne—Shakespeare, certainly, given his love for words.”

This brilliance stems from exposure to new languages and translation. Reading Borges dries up even a scholar’s throat.

All interviews in these volumes are gems, especially Tahar Ben Jelloun’s discourse on Arabic translations—invaluable. For brevity, I’ll trust readers to explore them.

Earlier, I mentioned Hasan Askari. His name is pivotal—removing it from Urdu translators would leave a void. Askari did much, but I believe his translations are his most enduring legacy. Who isn’t familiar with The Red and the Black, Moby Dick, or Madame Bovary? He translated under pseudonyms too. Years ago, I came across translations by a certain Syeda Nasim Hamdani—two Balzac novels (The Deserted Dark House and Old Goriot) and some D.H. Lawrence stories. All three translations were masterful. I searched for the translator and discovered—once again—God spoke from behind the veil. Tahseen Firaqi revealed that “Nasim Hamdani” was Hasan Askari. These translations are so stellar that publishing them pseudonymously took courage. Who but Askari would dare?

Sadly, The Deserted Dark House was poorly retranslated by a prominent journalist under another name, without acknowledgment. The preface gives the impression he’s the first to discover Balzac. What bold thievery!

Askari’s pseudonymous tendencies remind me of Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet, where he adopts multiple names and professions, arguing that one name and one vocation cannot suffice for a lifetime. A friend once told me about reading Askari’s Moby Dick: He kept the English and Urdu pages side by side, only to tear the English pages away in frustration. The Urdu surpassed the original—and this when the source text was English! Note also that Askari took little pride in this translation, as Urdu had no prior works on whaling or the white whale. When Muzaffar Ali Syed translated D.H. Lawrence’s essay on Moby Dick, he wrote in the preface: “Master Hasan Askari’s translations have a unique grandeur. But here, the nautical details were so complex that even he found Urdu’s scope limiting. So, wherever the essay quotes the novel, I’ve retranslated those excerpts.” Syed’s honesty deserves applause.

Consider: If Askari’s English translations are this remarkable, how sublime must his French translations be—the ones even the French admired? Madame Bovary speaks for itself—a translation that captures even the glint of grass blades under a character’s shiny boots.

The point is: To understand translation, one must devour all of Askari’s translated novels.

In our time, the elder translator Saleem Rahman’s works also demand mention. His mastery of world literature is beyond my praise. Novels and stories aside, I’m enchanted by two of his books: his translation of Homer’s Odyssey and his work on Greek literature. Despite the strangeness of Greek names and myths, his translation slips into the mind like raw silk. This isn’t just linguistic mastery—it’s the translator’s profound engagement with the text. Complete awareness of the text elevates translation to a spiritual act. Alas, my words fall short here.

So far, I’ve discussed fiction translation, as most educated folk agree this is fiction’s century. Fair enough.

Poetry translation seems even trickier because, beyond theme and surface meaning, two additional complexities arise: mood and meaning-creation.

Mood is what the Persian master poet Mirza Mazhar Jan-e-Janaan referred to when he said: “شعر خوب ، معنی ندارد” (The verse is beautiful—it has no meaning). That is: “Though it says something, it says nothing.”

In my view, translating mood is nearly impossible—better to avoid translating such poetry. Ghalib’s lofty thought is renowned and relatively easier to translate than, say, Mir. Zaheer Ansari once wrote something about Ghalib that could anger the uninformed—though he substantiated his claim. His essay, published in the 60s, argues: “Compared to Mir, Ghalib isn’t even a poet of language.” He analyzed both poets’ use of conjunctions, noting Mir’s mastery over small words like ke, to, par—how he could craft meaning from these alone.

Consider: Ghalib’s “Naqsh-e-Faryadi” (The Complaining Portrait), despite its complexity, can perhaps be translated—with some reliance on universal symbols. But how would you translate Mir’s: “گلی میں اس کی گیا سو گیا نہ بولا پھر / میں میرؔ میرؔ کر اس کو بہت پکار رہا” (I passed by her alley but didn’t speak— / I just kept calling, ‘Mir, Mir!’)? What would “Mir Mir kar” (calling ‘Mir, Mir’) translate to? At best, a weak jest.

There’s a famous anecdote about the English translation of Bedil’s renowned hymn. This is the ghazal whose opening couplet (“Aaina bar khaak zad san’a-e-yakta”) inspired Ghalib’s “Naqsh-e-Faryadi.” For now, let’s focus on the second couplet: “در ہای فردوس وا بود امروز / از بی دماغی گفتیم فردا” (The doors of paradise were open today— / Out of heedlessness, we said, ‘Tomorrow’). Our English-speaking critics translated it as: “The doors of paradise were open last night, / God asked me to come in, I said I wasn’t in the mood.” Astaghfirullah! What is “heedlessness”—how does one convey its essence? Our translator shrugged with “I wasn’t in the mood” and moved on. This error reflects not just incompetence but also ignorance of cultural nuance.

Let me cite two of Iqbal’s couplets. The famous one: “میر عرب کو آئی ٹھنڈی ہوا جہاں سے / میرا وطن وہی ہے میرا وطن وہی ہے” (The cool breeze that reached the Arab’s land— / My homeland is that, my homeland is that). This couplet reveals the poet’s origin—a land where water isn’t scarce, where even dew’s scant moisture suffices. Once, I read an epic verse where, seeing his beloved’s crumbling grave, the poet wished to bathe it in clouds. In Arab heat, dew can’t survive—hence the shift to clouds. Idioms embody culture.

Translation is necessary because it transports us from our familiar world to new vistas. Kundera wrote that he changed his living quarters every six months because he disliked viewing the sky from the same window. This reminds me of Pablo Neruda’s poem “The Sky.” Its translation by Prof. Abdul Qayyum in “Mere Munh Se Bolo” (Speak Through My Mouth) stunned me. One line: “The sky lies dead with its mouth open.” Picture the sky’s vast, jaw-like dome—how terrifying to call it dead. The color of the sky and a corpse’s pallor share a grim harmony.

Another poem from the same book (quoting from memory): “Your mother and mine washed clothes at the same ghat— / Now they’re together on the blue of the sky. / See, you and I must meet by the river’s edge.” These lines startle. What world is this—new and jolting? One where even the sky differs from ours. Ahmad Mushtaq’s verse comes to mind: “سب پھول دروازوں میں تھے سب رنگ آوازوں میں تھے / اک شہر دیکھا تھا کبھی اس شہر کی کیا بات تھی” (All flowers were at the doors, all colors in the voices— / I once saw a city—what a city it was!).

Many poetic examples arise, but “Qiyas kun ze gulistan-e-man bahaar-e-ma” (Judge my spring by my garden’s standard) advises against excess. Let me instead offer two Arabic examples.

In childhood, my uncle fancied teaching me Arabic. Books were gathered, efforts pooled, time found—yet Arabic eluded me. But some useful tidbits stuck, like the wolf-and-goat fable. The wolf traps the goat for prey; she escapes, but as she flees, blood drips from her neck onto her legs. The wolf calls after her—listen to the words: “یا صاحبت الخفین الاحمرین” (O wearer of the red slippers, stop!). This children’s tale still makes me shudder. Language is God’s gift—be thankful you’re Haiwan-e-Natiq (the speaking animal). Alas, the latter half of this term is vanishing; only animal remains.

The second example is Maqamat-e-Hariri. Two years ago, I translated Maqamat, published by Idara-e-Saqafat-e-Islamia. While immersed in this nerve-wracking task, I realized the book is astonishingly dense with wood-related idioms: saddle-wood, pack-saddle, palm-trunk pith, cattle-driving sticks, mulberry twigs soaked in oil and left in open desert to make combs, staff-wood and its polish, banana roots, etc. I felt plunged into a world teeming with wood varieties. (Recall Chekhov’s “The Darling.”) Clearly, this is culture’s handiwork. A people who spend days and nights in deserts with wild beasts must weaponize wood.

Without translation, cultural exchange would halt, leaving us at a loss—“Al-khusran fi al-zaman” (The loss is in the age).

Translation justifies our existence. Meaning and imaginative horizons expand through it. As the verse goes: “میں نے لفظ ہجر دیکھا تھا لغت میں بارہا / وہ مگر اس لفظ کو کیا کیا معانی دے گیا” (I saw the word ‘separation’ in the dictionary many times— / But what meanings he gave to that word!).

Note: This article is translated from the original Urdu version of Dr. Arsalan’s piece published in The Spine Times Urdu.