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‘It’s all built on nothing’, a character laments in Yasmina Reza’s play, Life X 3. It might not be wrong to assume that this philosophy pervades other works of this relatively young playwright. Life X 3, also known as Les trois versions de la vie (the original French title) is Reza’s fifth comedy, and has been translated from French to English by Christopher Hampton, remaining true to the original script. The play initially opened to full houses at The National Theatre’s Lyttelton Theatre in London in 2001, which later transferred to the Old Vic, where I had a chance to see the stage production. The latter starred its original cast at the Lyttelton with Mark Rylance as the neurotic Henri, Harriet Walter as his wife, Sonia, Imelda Staunton as the flighty and seemingly superficial Ines, and Oliver Cotton as Ines’ misogynist husband, Hubert.
   The first thing that struck my eye for this particular production is the sparse stage setting and the lighting scheme. A large coffee table, a handful of couches and a lamp are the only props, and the ‘living room’, with no barriers such as walls, appears to blend with everything around it, just as it has been described in the script. Soft lights were implemented to evoke a dreamlike atmosphere. Life X 3 consists of three separate variations of one single evening. Here, life, threaded by the dynamics of human relationships, appears as mysterious and elusive as the dark matter of the cosmos. Henri (an astrophysicist) and Sonia, a married couple, have unexpected visitors in the form of Hubert, Henri’s superior, and reluctant wife, Ines, in tow. Henri has been preoccupied by a thesis he is about to submit on the flatness of galaxy halos, and is desperate to make a good impression on Hubert Finidori. The stage is set for a catastrophe: The guests arrive a day earlier than expected; there is virtually no food in the apartment; Arnaud, Henri and Sonia’s six-year-old, piercingly wails on backstage, and Hubert Finidori, aware of Henri’s insecurities, cruelly declares during the course of the evening that the latter’s thesis has already been covered by someone else.
    In the first version, the playwright is quick to lay bare human vices, frailties, and a raw kind of desperation that enshrouds her characters, who are, in their own separate ways, engaged in a struggle to survive. Hubert flirts with Sonia, constantly berates Ines, who in turn criticizes Sonia’s parenting skills. The child’s clamorous offstage cries serve to set Henri and Sonia further apart rather than bring them together. As the evening progresses, one witnesses an unraveling of farces, of a shedding of pretensions and the frills of decorum as the characters begin to degenerate into rude, foul-mouthed, emotionally ravaged beings. Henri succumbs to his frustrations, Ines borders on hysteria (at one point she yells with dramatic desperation that man’s existence is not futile), while Hubert and Sonia struggle to preserve control and fight the urge to break down. In the second version, previous mistakes are avoided, and Henri appears more in control, but the ending has the same disastrous results. The characters are at odds most of the time as they physically dissipate and remain as far away from one another as possible. In the final version, however, everyone is much more stable and relaxed. In the end, all appear to grow otherworldly and philosophical as they dissolve into a surreal backdrop of glittering stars. (It is hard to say at which point the stars had been implemented on-stage, but the metaphysical implications are clear).
   The character that most engaged the audience was the rather flamboyant actor Mark Rylance, whose portrayal of Henri was well executed. Harriet Walter’s quiet intensity as Sonia, and last but not least, Imelda Staunton’s Ines made this particular production a memorable one.
   Reza is subtle, layering her play with nuances. From the impressionistic stage setting, to the minimalist dialogue, and the implementation of theatrical silences on stage, all result in a play that resonates. Life encompasses multiple possibilities and may take different turns with subtler, if not altogether different outcomes, and in Life X 3, one may muse over what could have been. Dreams and desires appear to hold a higher plane than reality. This is evident in the way Life X 3 has been presented, for though the play is a slice of life as it were, it is also a representation of an interior state of being, with a lingering yearning to attain a kind of absolute realm.
   Reza is one of the most acclaimed and successful dramatists of our time. Born in Paris in 1959, she is the daughter of a Hungarian violinist mother, and a businessman father of Iranian and Spanish ancestry. Reza won international acclaim, including the prestigious Antoinette Perry (Tony) Award in 1998 for her third play, Art – a tongue-in-cheek, satirical piece on human pretensions and follies, resulting from an obsession with modernism. She is also the recipient of the Laurence Olivier Award (1998), and the Moliere Award, amongst numerous others. Apart from several plays, Reza has also written two novels, Hammerklavier and Desolation, a stage adaptation of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, and a significant screenplay. The playwright has been described as a transient, even a mystic. And with good reason, for the fleeting and elusive nature of time and the frailty of the human condition are deeply rendered in Desolation and in plays such as Life X 3.
   Some critics claim that Reza’s characters are more often than not, unsympathetic, and that an element of bitterness enshrouds her works in general. But to be fair, she is simply portraying life as is, or at least, in her perception of things. If one wishes to buy into the belief that all’s well that ends well, or seek some form of happy ending, Reza does not oblige. In Desolation for example, Samuel, the ageing male narrator, is contemptuous of people who are ‘happy’: ‘I, who strive to achieve some modest contentment in the middle of this pleasant flowerbed, I spawned a happy man’ is his rather caustic revelation of his son. (The play wright’s own belief is that one can never be happy, only ‘content’, as per a recent interview.) Her characters are her mouthpieces, set out to break down pretensions and illusory clichés. If they appear bitter as a result, so be it. If they seem unsympathetic, it only makes them more human and therefore, believable. Finally, it must be realized that most successful and poignant works resonate without offering any real resolution.
   Yasmina Reza, the transient, is acutely aware of the fleeting nature of one’s existence, the fragility of human lives and of relationships, of the precariousness of it all. What she attempts in her own way is to simply decipher, to re-create the larger picture.

Gopa Majumdar is well-known to readers for her English translations of Satyajit Ray’s writings. She first started translating his writings in 1987. She was in Dhaka some time ago to conduct a workshop on translation organised by the British Council in Dhaka and to sign her new Ray translation. During the course of this visit, she talked to New Age about her own work in translation as well as the present condition of translation from Bangla into English.
   Ms Majumdar began translating Ray, because, as she said, ‘Satyajit was famous outside Bengal for his movies, but his writings were little known. The works of Tagore and other major Bengali writers are available in English translation. In Hindi as well there are many versions, so people can read them if they want to.’
   The editor of the Hindi magazine Namaste was very interested to get translations of Satyajit’s stories. At that time, Ms Majumdar was working at the British Council in New Delhi. After translating a story for the magazine, she got offers from Penguin to translate Ray’s other works into English. After Satyajit Ray: Twenty Stories,Ms Majumdar went on to translate other writings by Ray, among them The Mystery of the Elephant God, Feluda’s Last Case, The House of Death, The Royal Bengal Mystery, The Mystery of the Pink Pearl, Indigo Stories, The Complete Adventures of Feluda (vols. 1 & 2), The Best of Satyajit Ray.
   About her experience in translating Ray, she said, ‘There are many detailed descriptions in Satyajit’s stories. For example, Ray says, ‘The man crossed his left leg over his right and after a few moments he changed position, crossing the right leg over the left.’ There are many other examples of this kind. Sometimes these detailed descriptions confuse me. Are these descriptions necessary for foreign readers? For a Bengali reader, these descriptions are important and add depth to the storyline or make a situation understandable, but for a foreign reader they may not be significant.’
   Sometimes Ms Majumdar translates the descriptions, sometimes she doesn’t. ‘It is one of the major duties of a translator to think about the interest of a reader while simultaneously thinking about the original work. If the translator can bridge the gap between readers and writers, the translator is successful.’
   Another problem while translating Ray’s works is his use of riddles and puns. ‘I change them in many places because it is quite impossible to translate them properly. Literal translations have no meaning at all. I have in many cases excluded the parts which may not be meaningful for foreign readers. In many cases I have included many English phrases and rhymes.’
   Ms Majumdar thinks that these changes can make the stories enjoyable. ‘Minor changes are allowed in translation. Satyajit himself did this in some of his translation to make the translation readable. It is a translator’s duty to make the works enjoyable while, at the same time, being as honest as possible to the original writing.’
   While asked why, when there are many detective stories in English, people read the stories of Feluda, Ms Majumdar answered, ‘Yes, there are a lot of popular detective stories in world literature, but the simplicity of the plots of the Feluda series, the touches of humour of Lal Mohon Babu, and Tapash’s friendliness and other interesting incidents attract readers.’
   She added, ‘In western detective stories we get action, gangsters and violence. In Feluda’s stories, we get fights but the writer also focuses on the region which the characters are visiting. . . .Though this series is for children, adult readers also get a lot of information. We learnt a lot from Feluda’s stories when we were young. The plots of Feluda are not complex. Satyajit’s magic is in his language.’
   ‘I am still translating Satyajit’s stories. Now translation is my main occupation. So I have also translated other writers.’
   She has not translated Tagore as she says that translating him is ‘very difficult, very difficult.’ She has also translated Golam Murshid’s Ashar Chalane Bhuli and Madhusudan Dutt’s biography, but says that she does not have much time to work on other Bengali writers because she wants to first translate all of Ray’s writings.
   She is not too familiar with works of other Bengali writers. ‘Being in London, I do not have much access to the works of Bangladeshi writers. The writings of West Bengali writers are, also not available in London.
   While she enjoys translating stories, she does not feel the same about poetry. ‘Short stories and novels are easy for me to translate. Poems are difficult.’
   When asked about the criteria she followed in selecting a writer and the writer’s works for translation, she replied that the only criterion she followed was a personal one. Did she like the writer and his works?
   ‘If I understand someone’s writings and feel interested, I take on the work of translation. Also if I think that non-Bengali readers should be informed about the works of that writer.’
   Gopa thinks that foreign readers are interested in Bangla literature but publishers should create opportunities to make translations from Bangla available. ‘Usually, publishers say that books translated from Bangla have few demands. I do not agree with them. I think that if the libraries buy the books and display them in their shelves, readers will become interested in reading them.’
   ‘This argument is not true just for Bangla, but also for literary works in other Indian languages. Publishers say that there is no market. But I think that a large number of South Asians have settled in different parts of the globe. People across the world love reading. We need marketing to inform readers what types of books are available in the market.’ As advice to aspiring translators, Ms Majumdar said that a translator should remember that the translation should be understood by readers in any country. ‘Sometimes we need to put in footnotes, but these footnotes are distracting.’
   About the participants at the translation workshop, she said, ‘The young people who took part in the workshop were very promising. I was happy with them. I told them what I had been told in school, ‘Whatever you do, do not write Banglish.’ That has been a very effective guideline for me. I have tried to write English. I was also not afraid to make some changes in the translation, to make the translation interesting. If readers feel that the English translation is interesting, then they will be interested in the original writing. If readers feel interested to read the original Bangla writings, it will be my success,’ she concluded.
   The day Gopa Majumdar was to leave Dhaka, she fell ill and had to be hospitalised. She is better now, but not completely well. We wish her a speedy recovery.

Few people can study literature and remain linked to it for the remainder of their lives. Abu Taher Mojumder has been an especially dedicated member of this select club. Of course, one could put up the argument that those who choose to teach literature are forever upholding the value of poetry in their lives. The premise is acknowledged, certainly. But what is truer of Mojumder is that in his own way he has gone about contributing to the essence of English literature, a subject that has never lost sight of him, or the other way round. To what degree literature has played a pivotal role in Mojumder’s life can be assessed from the works and research he has produced on such varied topics as Sir William Jones and Aroj Ali Matubbor. That devotion to literature has again been substantiated through the years by his poetical compositions, which Demons and the flag of life is all about.
   Mojumder remains, it is refreshingly plain, a romantic at heart. The journeys he undertook in his exploration of the world of English literature in his days at university have only extended themselves, this time through his own interplay of emotions and words. The Words — and that is what he calls the first poem in this collection — is an echo of lost times, of sentiments left unexpressed:
   What’s the use of unfolding the hearts now / Lost hours are unrecoverable / Unredeemable is the warmth / Of the moon and the stars
   In the very next poem, the spirit of Mojumder’s romanticism comes wrapped in the contours of love between man and woman:
   I told you: “you don’t have to travel so far / to understand my mind . . .”/ . . . Your fingers were indulgent / Your palm was warm / Inviting . . .
   It is the heart that speaks, as it must in any poet, in Abu Taher Mojumder. The spirit of lyricism accompanies him as long as he holds on to the ideals of passion, as in his poetry of romance. That is not something you can spot in such recollections as times spent in the company of classmates. Something of the poetic is lost in My Class-Fellows. Indeed, there arises a subtle feeling that the prosaic is beginning to make inroads through the employment by the poet of such phrases as:
   Hospitals — near and far — / ECGSTT Angiogram Biopsy / Bypass Ballooning Pace Maker
   The quality of Mojumder’s poetry is clearly marred here through his dealing with issues that may be relevant to life as it is lived from day to day but surely has little bearing on poetic philosophy. But Mojumder recovers the spirit, his as well as poetry’s, somewhat in the meaningful Yes. Observe the ease with which he goes into a spilling out of emotions:
   You stained the sky of poetry / With your marvellous qualities . . . / Stained the radiance / Of the sun and the moon / Then darkened the dark night
   Quite a conundrum here, particularly if one were inclined into going for a severe analysis of his thoughts. The term ‘stain’ seemingly contradicts the positivism of the thought and yet remains open to interpretation. Soon, however, a clarity of meaning appears in sight. It is now radiance, of the sun and the moon that is now being stained. Somewhere along the way, the power of beauty has redefined itself.
   The poem Butterfly is Mojumder’s still photography in poetry. There is a focus in his thoughts here. It begins in the circular motions of a butterfly and ends for the poet on a note of near metaphysics:
   A boat overturned / Those eyes I loved / became pearls
   Mojumder’s poetic peregrinations on politics, while throwing up a detailed observation of human nature, lack the ease with which he touches on matters of love and nature in their pristine form. Sometimes, rather to the shock of the reader, the poet stumbles in his references to history. The footnote at the end of the brief poem Andrew Jackson refers to the character as the man who succeeded Abraham Lincoln in the White House. The successor was Andrew Johnson.
   A demon, warts and all, is fundamentally a return to innocence. Students of English literature, especially, will perhaps find echoes of times flown (and yet recoverable) in the poetry.
   
   Demons and the flag of life
   Abu Taher Mojumder
   Ankur Prokashani
   Tk. 70

Words ‘n Pages Top Ten Fiction
   The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
   The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
   The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh
   Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
   Deception Point by Dan Brown
   Are You Afraid of the Dark? by Sidney Sheldon
   The Broker by John Grisham
   The Zahir by Paulo Coelho
   Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
   The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason

Rivers! Rivers of life! Rivers of death! Wide rivers! Dying rivers! Polluted rivers! What is Bangladesh without its rivers? Following last year's Rains Literary Contest, New Age Literature invites poems and short stories in English or in English translation on the theme of ‘Rivers.’ To be eligible for this contest, the piece must not have been published earlier. In case of translations, participants should get the writer's permission with regard to translation and publication. They must also submit a copy of the original piece of writing along with the translation. Participants should enclose a passport-sized photograph of themselves along with a brief bio. To be considered for the competition, entries must be received by October 15, 2005. Results will be announced by the end of October.There will be three prizes in each category. Prize-winning entries will be published in New Age Literature.