Friday, May 14, 2010

Loona: The telling of it here (Opening Notes)

Loona is so multi-layered and nuanced that I have been wondering for sometime how to organize the material as I begin unfolding this story for myself (and for the few readers following this blog). I have not read the original in Punjabi so I cannot do a direct translation. What I am attempting here is simply a partial re-telling buttressed by a commentary. For a commentator there are many beguiling ways of presenting Loona, so for a while I was confused. But finally I have decided to stick to a direct and linear approach. Loona is written in eight parts – we’ll just take them sequentially one by one. To do anything else would be at the cost of the main story. Also although I have begun today I don’t know at what pace I will continue and over how many months this particular journey will be completed – in the circumstances it is best that the parts follow each other systematically.

For this discussion on Loona I draw upon two principal sources. Segments of the play have been rendered in song by Bhupinder and Mitalee Singh. I will be posting original transcreations of these, along with the audio tracks. For the rest of the commentary I draw upon Dr. B M Bhalla’s English translation of the work. Here and there, I have taken very minor liberties with Dr. Bhalla’s version only to make it more accessible to myself. For instance, in Dr. Bhalla’s version Loona is spelt as Luna. It is only a matter of spelling but Luna is close in spelling to the word ‘lunar’ and conjures up in my mind the vision of an ethereal moon maiden. ‘Loona’ on the other hand, due to its proximity with the Punjabi term for salt, loond, captures better the earthiness and vitality of Shiv's heroine.

1 comment:

  1. hello,
    Greetings!
    Dear Mam, I have been looking for an analysis of Loona for long time and so I found this one by you. Dear Mam, I want to make one request to you. If u have some more analytical material on Loona please share it and also if u have any knowledge regarding the classical legend of Pooran and afore writing by Kadaryar about Pooran kindly share it.
    Thank You

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