A lab for language, poetry & ideas
Kannada · Hindi · English
Kannada & Hindi poetry carried
into English.
by a Polymer Engineer who couldn’t stop wondering what survives translation.
A growing archive of my English translations — verse, prose and commentary, always shown beside the original padya, gadya and bhashya.
The Lab
Experiment register
- 01Translating Bendre & other Kannada poetry47 works
- 02Deciphering Manku Timmana Kagga in English396 Kaggas
- 03The 108-character Gita experiment3 Adhyayas
- 04What happens to a Vachana in translation30 Vachanas
- 05Carrying Kannada prose across into English3 works
- 06Notes & reflections, set down as they come16 blogs
- 07How does a culturally rooted emotion transcend languages2 works
Selection of the day
Kagga 108
D. V. Gundappa · from the Kannada original
jaDavEnu? jIvavEm? Chaitanya nidrisiru veDeyella jaDalOka kallu kaDDi kasa
In this Universe among the multiple symbiotic relationships that exist, there is one between the living beings & non-living objects
A non-living object is not something that does not have any energy; it is just that the energy is dormant at that point of time
The same lifeless object becomes a living one when this energy within gets woken up
A seed when kept in an earthen jar for years would be treated as a lifeless object since it doesn't change its shape or form; but the moment it is sowed in soil & comes in contact with water, germinates & becomes a plant in the matter of a few days...the dormant energy in the same lifeless object gets activated the moment it comes in contact with the nutrients in soil & water...thereby transforming into a living plant
Fresh from The Lab
See what’s new →The Poetry Lab is a living website. New poetry, translations, reflections and experiments are added regularly.
Notes on method
Why does a polymer engineer run a poetry lab?
Because I’ve always been fascinated by what happens when something moves from one medium to another.
In engineering, we study transformation. In translation, we do something strangely similar.
Every translation here is an experiment: a hypothesis about what poetry can become in another language.
Some experiments fail. Others reveal something the original could not say on its own.
Catalogue of the collection
01Poetry— modern voices
02Manku Timmana Kagga— 945 verses on life's absurdity
03Bhagavad Gita— one adhyaya at a time
04Vachanas— 12th-century plain speech
05Prose— longer reading
06Blogs— notes as they come
07The OG Voices— the people behind the lines
I am Krishna Joshi — a Polymer Engineer by trade, a barefoot runner, and a reader of Kannada literature and Indian history.
More about me and this site →