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

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

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

Chronicle of An Hour and A Half

 

A fictional village in Kerala, an illicit affair where the man (Burhan) is 15 years younger than the woman (Reyhana), salacious village gossip that stokes wild action and raw emotion on WhatsApp, a crowd that turns into a frenzied mob intent on punishing and setting the ‘wrong’ right - this roughly summarizes Saharu Nusaiba Kannanari’s Chronicle of an Hour and a Half; not just a chronicle of mass hysteria and mob lynching but a searing account of the world/times we live in - one that defies Newton's Third Law - where first the reaction is decided upon and readied and then the action is fabricated/blown out of proportion to match the reaction, a world that avenges something that never happened, a world where imagined hurt (more often than real hurt) rules emotions, seeks solace and demands action from/on the Internet, a world full of self-righteous sinners.

Before you dismiss this work as a bleak portrayal of our world in the name of glorifying reality, let me tell you that the author sheds light on many aspects of our life through his sizeable array of characters. Very few portray women and their problems with a clarity as sharp and fierce as the author. Reyhana terms her husband as an uxorious leech at the start, and the ‘why’ sinks in, in the final chapter. Nabeesumma, Burhan's mother can be hailed as a powerful woman for all she endures over years since her marriage but the author meekly points out that calling such women strong is only as farcical as hailing people stepping out to work a day after floods or terrorist attacks ravage a city as resilient, because do they even have a ‘choice’?

If the author openly shows what plagues women in our society, he shows the problems men face in a quiet, understated fashion. In a book that liberally gives space to Chinnan and Ashraf who ‘see’ problematic things, even to their wives and kids, the author doesn't leave a single chapter in Burhan’s name, the man who is mangled to death by the mob. This deliberate omission of voice spells clearly how gender stereotypes and social conventions not just affect women but men too. While Burhan faces an acute punishment, Reyhana suffers chronically, her honour besmirched for life for the same trouble they idly walked into. Now when both women and men suffer in different ways, the debate on whose suffering is ‘greater’ only seems pointless. Through Shahid and his conversations with his father, the author lends space to men who sacrificed a decent married life for toiling away in the Gulf countries and the widely accepted definition of ‘masculinity’. Through Najeeb Maash, the writer airs views, easily tagged as blasphemous in parts of the world. Through Funny, his son, he shows how mobile phones can aid, if not bowel movement, moral depravity. For all the love that North Kerala harbours for communism, Che Guevara and Argentinian & Brazilian soccer, a clear Latin American influence can be felt in the writing - it’s raw, graphic and reeks of violence.

I read this ‘much praised’ book a week back even though I got a copy of it right after its release. I loved discussing it with Bhavna with whom both planned and impromptu buddy reads have been special and fun. Taking time to pick the book, I thought, will rid me of a hyper critical eye. With a fair exposure to literature from Kerala, about 80 pages in, the vast array of characters, an illicit affair at the heart of the plot, men objectifying women, it all felt formulaic even though the writing and atmosphere build-up were top notch. But as I progressed, I quietly concluded that the book deserves all the praise and attention heaped on it, I was left with no other option.