Kochi :

Keralites are familiar with the arrival of Portuguese sailor Vasco Da Gama in India in the 15th century and history of trade relations between both countries. But so far they missed out on the Malayalam version of an epic Portuguese poem, Os Lusiadas, depicting the hardships and travails faced by Gama and his crew during their voyage to India.

Keralites can now access the translation of the epic poem in their mother tongue thanks to C J Davees, a lecturer in Thrissur. “The Malayalam version, Epic of Lusiadas’, launched in Kochi few days ago, will also shed light on African and Indian life in the 15th century. During the voyage, Gama had touched Africa and had taken a person from Malindi as his guide.

“The poem explains all these minute details,” said Jerald D’souza, secretary of Indo-Portuguese Cultural Centre, Cochin. The epic written by Luis Vaz de Cameons in Portuguese narrates the difficulties faced by Gama and his team during the 10 month voyage.

The poem, written in Homeric style has 10 chapters. The seventh and eighth chapters speaks about his arrival in Kozhikode. The poem was first published in 1572.

“Camoens had visited India after the arrival of Gama in Kappad. He interacted with people and sought help of Alvaro Velho, who wrote a diary during his voyage with Gama to India. In the poem Gama has been presented as a hero. We can witness the influence of Greek mythology in the poem, which is like Odyssey and Iliad of Homer,” Gerald said.

The original poem was written in 8,869 lines in Ottava Rima that has rhyming stanzas of 10 syllables in each line.

“The rhyme scheme used in the poem was ABABABCC,” Davees said.

“I translated the poem in prose form as I knew there may not be readers for the poem. I took five years to translate the poem word by word. The translated book is around 400 pages long,” he said.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Kochi / T C Sreemol  / TNN / August 12th, 2016