Web link on the life and works of Subramania Bharathi.
The home page of the web link on the life and works of Subramania Bharathi. (Right) Rural Industries Minister Pongalur N. Palanisamy (right) inaugurating the web link at Bharathiar University in Coimbatore on Tuesday.“In moonlight Sindhu
With damsels from the Chera land
Singing songs in lovely Telugu
Sportfully we will row our boats”
If you felt the meaning of this verse sounded familiar, but something did not sound right, you are not wrong in your thought. This is the English “transcreation” of the poem “Sindhu nadhiyin isai nilavinile” by poet Subramania Bharathi.But why is this in English? This poem, besides 54 others, has found a place of pride in the new HTML web link on Bharathiar.This web link on Bharathiar’s life and works that could be accessed via the website:
http://www.b-u.ac.in/ of the Bharathiar University was inaugurated by Rural Industries Minister Pongalur N. Palanisamy at Bharathiar University here on Tuesday.
The concerted effort of three people – N. Ramani, Reader, Department of English, PSG College of Arts and Science, K. Chellappan, former Director, State Institute of English, Government of Tamil Nadu, and R. Saravanaselvan, Reader, Department of English and Foreign Languages, Bharathiar University – has yielded rich dividends.The web link opens into a home page “The Essential Bharathi” that gives a brief introduction to what the link is all about. One gets to hear the strains of one of the poems of the poet being sung in the voice of his great grand daughter Chitra Ramakrishnan. You get to read about the life of Bharathi in both the languages. What follows is an index of the poems.
The team selected 55 popular poems of the poet, “transcreated” it (they do not like to use the term “translation”) and placed it alongside the Tamil version. There is also an audio facility that can be utilised to listen to the poems, both in English and Tamil.The voice over is by Dr. Ramani; while the site design was developed by web site provider Osai Chella. “Since the link is of 3.85 GB, it cannot be contained in a compact disc. Interested people can download for free from the university’s website,” says Dr. Saravanaselvan.Dr. Ramani asserts that giving an English version to the works of a great Tamil poet is not easy. “It is a very courageous and challenging act”.G. Thiruvasagam, Vice-Chancellor, says that the web link will be a treasure to the people worldwide – a dedication of the university on the occasion of its silver jubilee.
