“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 :)
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