> 1. किसी ऐसे काल = such a period of time (that events given by the context
> might have taken place)
> 2. उस समय भारत के उस भू-भाग की क्या स्थिति हो गई होगी = (Think of) what the
> condition of that region of Indian land might have been ( भू-भाग = piece,
> portion, part or division of land)
> जहाँ-जहाँ से गंगा बहकर जाती होगी। = through which (region) Ganga might
> have been flowing.
> 3. अथवा = या = or, perhaps always in Hindi. The term is of Sanskrit origin
> and there it sometimes has additional meanings also.
> 4. ...अवरोधों को हटाया होगा। = (he) might have had removed the blockages
> (in plural).
> 5. कि उस क्षेत्र का जल हिमालय की दूसरी ओर न बह जाए = that the water of that
> region would stop flowing to the other side of the Himalayas. और वे सारी
> धाराएं मिलकर धीरे-धीरे एक बड़ी नदी बनाएं = and that by meeting together, all
> those streams/rivulets gradually form a big river.
> 6. लिटा दिया = लिटाया (there could be a very subtle difference between the
> two!) = It is the past tense of लिटा देना = लिटाना = to help (someone) lie
> down, to make (someone) lie down. (लिटना perhaps does not exist.) लिटा
> देना would literally mean 'to make (one) assume a physical posture of lying
> down'
> -- योगेन्द्र
> 2008/7/2 Rachel H. <rm...@hotmail.com>:
>> As I continue to read Narendra Kohli's हम सब का घर, I have a few more
>> questions and observations:-)
>> 1. I found the phrase किसी ऐसे काल in the following sentence, and am
>> pretty sure it translates to "times like these", which is an interesting
>> phrase for learners (assuming I am correct!):
>> मुझे लगता है कि यह कथा भी हमें इस देश के किसी ऐसे काल की घटना का समाचार
>> देती है…
>> 2. I think misunderstanding भू-भाग in the following sentence is
>> completely messing me up, but I can't come up with a satisfactory
>> translation. Perhaps I am not getting the grammatical structure correctly
>> at the end. The Father is talking about the general state of affairs for
>> the Ganges River:
>> तुम सोचो कि उस समय भारत के उस भू-भाग की क्या स्थिति हो गई होगी, जहाँ-जहाँ
>> से गंगा बहकर जाती होगी।
>> If I break the sentence into 4 parts I get:
>> Think about ...
>> ...what the position of India's rulers must have been at the time, (I
>> think the dictionary says भू-भाग means "land-ruler, king", could it mean
>> "government"/"leadership" here?)...
>> ...wherever the Ganges regularly flows. (I'm missing exactly how the verb
>> tense should be translated here, too...my understanding of -ती होगी endings
>> is that it translates to "presumably"...so here "wherever the Ganges
>> presumably flows"...or could it also mean "regularly flows"?)
>> I think that by "that time" he means Puranic times, based on the earlier
>> explanation that the story he is about to tell is from the Puranas.
>> 3. This is kind of a simple question: does अथवा always mean "or"?
>> 4. I think there's a decent chance I got the following sentence correct,
>> but I was wondering if you could please comment on my translation:
>> तब भगीरथ ने उस क्षेत्र में पहुँचकर, जहाँ गंगा का उदगम है, अथवा जहाँ से
>> ग।गा जल ग्रहण करती है, अवरोधों को हटाया होगा।
>> I said "Then having arrived in the area where the Ganges' source was, or
>> where the Ganges got its water, Bhagirath would have had to remove the
>> blockage."
>> 5. OK, so I am running into some very difficult sentences again, after
>> several pages that were relatively problem-free. This next one is very
>> long. I've thought about it very hard, and ended up with not an exact
>> translation, but what I think is the translation in proper/flowing English.
>> But I am wondering if I missed a nuance or two. And there's भू-भाग again,
>> but this time the approach I took last time won't work. So I would very
>> much appreciate your reactions to my attempt:
>> बहुत संभव है कि तब के इंजीनियरों ने कुछ इस प्रकार खुदाई भी की हो कि उस
>> क्षेत्र का जल हिमालय की दूसरी ओर न बह जाए और वे सारी धाराएं मिलकर धीरे-धीरे
>> एक बड़ी नदी बनाएं, जिसका नाम गंगा है, ताकि हिमालय से लेकर aबगाल की खाड़ी तक का
>> भू-भाग फिर से जी सके।
>> "It is very possible that the engineers of that time might even have done
>> some special digging, that the water didn't flow from the Himilayas and
>> gathering the whole mass together they very slowly made a big river, whose
>> name was the Ganges, so that from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal the
>> land could once again come alive."
>> 6. Lastly, I came across a verb, लिटा दिया, that wasn't in the
>> dictionary, but from context I know what it means. I thought I'd mention it
>> in case any other learners come across it and it isn't so clear what it
>> means...लिटना must mean "to cause something to lie down".
>> पिताजी ने उन्हें कंधों से पकड़कर लिटा दिया और ऊपर से चदरों भी ओढ़ा दीं।
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