stuartnz
Senior Member
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2008
- Member Type
- Other
- Native Language
- English
- Home Country
- New Zealand
- Current Location
- New Zealand
I have a question about a translation. A favourite qawwali of mine starts like this:
है अगर दुश्मन ज़माना ग़म नहीं
कोई आये कोई जाये हम किसी से कम नहीं
hai agar dushman zamaanaa gham nahiin
koii aaye koii jaaye hum kisii ke kam nahiin
I received the above lines in a daily sher email I subscribe to. The sender translated the above as:
"No pains, even if the world is an enemy
They may come and go, but I am less than nobody"
It's the last phrase that I'm trying to reword. The singer is saying that he is not a lesser person than anyone, that he is (at least) the equal of anyone. So how could the technically correct but ambiguous and potentially misleading "I am less than nobody" be reworded in a compact way that gets the idea across without excessive verbiage?
है अगर दुश्मन ज़माना ग़म नहीं
कोई आये कोई जाये हम किसी से कम नहीं
hai agar dushman zamaanaa gham nahiin
koii aaye koii jaaye hum kisii ke kam nahiin
I received the above lines in a daily sher email I subscribe to. The sender translated the above as:
"No pains, even if the world is an enemy
They may come and go, but I am less than nobody"
It's the last phrase that I'm trying to reword. The singer is saying that he is not a lesser person than anyone, that he is (at least) the equal of anyone. So how could the technically correct but ambiguous and potentially misleading "I am less than nobody" be reworded in a compact way that gets the idea across without excessive verbiage?
Last edited: