Friday, October 4, 2024

The Go-Between and Other Stories

 

The go-between and other stories by Ghanshyam Desai, translated from Gujarati by Aban Mukharji and Tulsi Vatsal is a collection of 21 stories taken from the author's collections - Tolu and Bandh Barna, spanning years 1964-2005. 

In most stories, the men lead frustrated lives, they are unable to take a firm stand and blame themselves for being cowardly. Some suspect their wives, their envy and suspicion gnaw at their insides and push them to either murderous thoughts or suicidal. Stories ‘Revenge’, ‘Yet Again’ , ‘Between Two Breaths’ and ‘God's Good Man’ are some stories based on this subject. The element of irony is pronounced in stories ‘Home of One's Own’ and ‘Our Beloved has Come ..’. Violence has a prominent place in many stories here, the first story ‘Plugging the Leak’ portrays domestic violence from which a woman has no escape. In ‘The Chameleon’ and ‘The Crow’, the writing unleashes violence potently, not directly but by using metaphor. 

Most stories end in a finite set of possibilities, popping a what-if question. Emotions of opposite kinds collide, a faint smile plays on lips even when the eyes are wet with tears, a man wishes to scream after losing his beloved wife but his young children stifle his screams and sobs and force him to laugh out loud. Somehow, this reminded me of how we are told to add a tiny pinch of salt to sweet dishes and a little sprinkle of sugar to any salty/spicy dish while cooking.

Most characters are trapped in their past, in memories/ dreaming about happy times, while their present is dreadful and the future bleak. The spectrum of emotions covered is largely dark and negative which intrigued me, made me to learn more about the author. But not much is known about him except that he was a modernist, experimental short story writer, the editor of Navneet Samarpan magazine and his children’s story collection received the Gujarati Sahitya Akademi Award. The translation allowed a smooth reading experience. Enjoyed reading this collection.

Monday, September 30, 2024

A Post for the International Translation Day

 


“How is the translation?”, is a question we are routinely asked when we finish a work of translated literature. Books translated into English from non-Indian languages enjoy a sort of ‘diplomatic immunity’ from this scrutiny that books translated from Indian languages cannot escape. This oft-asked question made me want to do a small exercise in reading a book in the original (in the Indian language it is written in) and comparing it with its English translation. I am equipped to do this only in Hindi, a language I can read, write and speak well. 

Though Tamil is my mother tongue, my choice of languages during school days robbed me off an opportunity to learn how to read/write in it. Malayalam is another language that I can speak well but cannot read/write. When I read an English translation from any of these 3 languages, if the book speaks back to me in my head in the source language, I am content. Author Jahnavi Barua mentions this as a yardstick to assess the translation quality in her introduction to the book Taniya by Arupa Patangia Kalita, tr from Assamese by Meenaxi Barkotoki. With an overflowing list of books waiting to be read and inertia from not having read a sizeable text in Hindi for more than a decade, I stayed away from this exercise I intended to do. But when my son's school lessons gave me a little chance, I readily grabbed it. 

I read Mahadevi Varma’s Mera Parivaar, tr from Hindi by Ruth Vanita two years back and a chapter on Neelu, the dog features in my son's Hindi textbook. I found the translation wholesome and extremely faithful to the original text, barring only a minor instance where the translator has taken creative liberty to add an extra line. 

Local terms or imprint of a dialect cannot be efficiently or flawlessly transposed into English, yet undeterred by skepticism/criticism that's inevitably attached with the process of translation, the efforts of translators to build sustainable bridges between languages deserves accolades. May we have more literature from across the world available in translation, may the names of translators feature prominently on book covers. Happy reading! 

Some thoughts on #internationaltranslationday :)



Books Read in Sep 2024

 


Books read in September 2024

1. Termush by Sven Holm, translated from Danish by Sylvia Clayton

2. Chinese Whiskers by Pallavi Aiyar

3. A Bouquet of Dead Flowers : stories by Swadesh Deepak, translated from Hindi by Pratik Kanjilal, Nirupama Dutt, Sukant Deepak and Jerry Pinto

4. Iconic Trees of India by S Natesh, illustrated by Sagar Bhowmick

Saturday, August 31, 2024

Books read in August 2024

 


August was a very bad month on personal (health) front but I am glad that books worked as a source of solace and distraction in really tough times. Below are the titles I read during the month - 

1. Won't You Stay, Radhika? by Usha Priyamvada, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell.

2. Hellfire by Leesa Gazi translated from Bengali by Shabnam Nadiya

3. Not a River by Selva Almada, translated from Spanish by Annie McDermott

4. Reunion by Fred Uhlman

5. A Melody in Mysore by Shruthi Rao

6. Glass Bottom by Sonali Prasad

7. The Blight and seven short stories by Bitan Chakraborty, translated from Bengali by Malathi Mukherjee

Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Books Read in July 2024

 


Books I read in July 2024 

1. A Person is a Prayer by Ammar Kalia

2. Dukhi Dadiba and the Irony of Fate by Dadi Edulji Taraporewala, translated from Gujarati by Tulsi Vatsal and Aban Mukherji
 
3. The Eighteenth Parallel by Ashokamitran, translated from Tamil by Gomathi Narayanan

4. Chess Story by Stefan Zweig, translated from German by Joel Rotenberg
 
5.What does Israel fear from Palestine? by Raja Shehadeh

6. Chronicle of an Hour and a Half by Saharu Nusaiba Kannanari

7. Vaadivaasal by CS Chellappa, translated from Tamil by N Kalyan Raman

8. Global (a graphic novel) by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin , illustrated by Giovanni Rigano