Kalimpong, Feb. 6: The Indigenous Lepcha Tribal Association is working on translating Rabindranath Tagore?s verses from Gitanjali into the Lepcha language.

Association general secretary L.S. Tamsang said: ?Tagore is one of the masters of Indian literature. We are proud to translate some of the bard?s thoughts in our language.?

The idea, Tamsang said, was struck upon year last year when a publisher from Midnapore sent the association 17 verses from Gitaljali.

?We have finished the translation and will approach the publisher to see if he is interested in publishing the translated work. If he is not interested, we will publish it ourself ? he said.

?Most of the poems deal with nature and they hold a lot of significance to us as we are nature worshippers,? he added.

The translation from the English work was done over nine months by 62-year-old P.T. Lepcha

?The toughest part was to get the exact meaning of what Gurudev had written. I had to read the verses many times before I could translate them,? he said.