Tamil to English translation, BETA
ஒரு வண்ணத்துப் பூச்சி எந்தன் வழி தேடி வந்தது
அதன் வண்ணங்கள் மட்டும் இங்கு விரலோடு உள்ளது
Ammani feels Chenthil’s translation of the above lines are not adequate/crisp enough. Let me give it a shot…
A butterfly once came my way,
Alas, only traces of colours on my fingers stay.
The next few lines of this song are pretty good too: I touched fire. Traded (opened a store) on a deserted island. Built a house of sand
Such acts of brilliant futility.
(If you liked this, you might want to read some of my other translations: (Bharathi’s poems) 1, 2, 3)
RSS/XML
September 19th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
Ah. Nice. Retained the meaning and managed to rhyme
Wondering if we can capture “en vazhi thedi” better…
A butterfly came searching for me (came flitting towards me?),
leaving wisps of colors lingering on my fingers…(mere wisps of colors stay back on my fingers?)
September 20th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
By some quirk, I am not able to comment in my own blog. Your attempt is the best so far, will post it on my blog when the blogger gods are happy.
September 21st, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Good one, this. I’d actually like it more without ‘alas.’ The wistfulness is best left unopened.
Also, the present tense in the second line which is quite significant, is lost a bit. But then…
January 30th, 2008 at 11:41 am
I want tamil to english translation soft ware Or Books
January 3rd, 2010 at 11:30 pm
[...] translation: 1,2,3,4 and 5) Posted by Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan on March 21st, 2008 | Filed in Random Writings [...]
January 4th, 2010 at 2:21 am
[...] translations: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6] Posted by Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan on January 4th, 2010 | Filed in [...]
February 24th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
Stumbled on to your blog searching for something.
My translation on this would look something as
A butterfly came searching, on my path
Only its colors, my fingers here hath
I also notice you have some of Bharathi’s poems as well. Good translations above and on some of the Bharathi ones. I intend to translate sometime Suttum vizhi chudar thaan and Kaani Nilam vaendum. Skipping them here now to avoid being influenced. Will come back once I translate and hone them.
I did try a few short translations. They are at
http://thoughtrickles.blogspot.com/search/label/Subramanya%20Bharathi
They aren’t metric equivalents, but very close to the meaning.