Print Pick

This month at indiaplaza.com

I, Lalla

Translated by Ranjith Hoskote

Penguin Classics

450.00

In a volume of translation like this - the poems of Lalla - one looks for many things: a contexting of the writer’s voice, creative ‘accuracy’ in the translation itself, some signs of how the translator was affected by the original work and its writer, a reference to earlier translations with an indication of where the translator places his work in this body. Ranjit Hoskote’s twenty-year obsession with Lalla and her work has resulted in a volume that’s totally engaging. The translation is poetic, expectedly bypassing stuffy notions of what that is, or what sort of English can replicate Indic mystical utterance. The well-informed introduction covers significant questions regarding Lalla’s work: who she was, how she composed, what she composed, what might have influenced the way she saw, lived and wrote; whether she had exclusively Hindu or Muslim influences, the significance of such classifications in the religious, literary an political history of Kashmir, whether her ‘way’ was that of bhakti or jnana; the resonances of Kashmiri Shaivism in her poetry; the role of tantra etc. Mention must also be made of the acknowledgements pages: they’re a delight to read, the course of the translator’s pursuit of Lalla working as a sort of bonus for the reader!

Bhagavad Gita

Translated by Mani Rao

Penguin

250

Mani Rao’s translation of the Gita is definitely interesting; Rao negotiates enough room to stretch and move in the semantic and sonic labyrinths of the Gita and still keep a hold on – for the large part- a poetic quality to the translated verses, perhaps because as she says in the introduction, she was looking at the Gita as a song. Rao’s being a student of religious studies could’ve made this difficult, but thankfully, it didn’t make her forget that the translated text is to be read by unarmed readers ( the scholarly Eknath Easwaran’s translated Gita verses, for example, are so dull, they stay closed to all readers not armed with the desire to get a ‘lesson’ from it).

Rao uses graphic weighting to tackle the load of the original Sanskrit verses through a playful-serious use of type and layout , making the page as interesting to see as to read, but, - as it often is with type – it’s difficult to prevent a repetitive and gimmicky note form creeping in at times.

Sometimes I found myself looking around for more, when the translation’s compressions robbed the lines of a pleasing grandness in the original. I was mystified by the omission of the line that shows Sanjaya replying to Dhritharashtra in the opening dialogue, because not only is Sanjaya reporting to the blind king the goings on at the battle field, but also the Gita begins and ends with the reader’s attention being drawn to Sanjaya speaking( with the familiar lines ‘ Sanjaya uvaca’) and he appears in no less than 40 verses to Arjuna’s 85 and Krishna’s 574. Little lapses like this don’t matter though, because Rao’s translation has much else to be celebrated and dwelt over.

No Alphabet in Sight

Edited and Introduced by K.Satyanarayana &Susie Tharu

Penguin

599.00

An assorted collection of Dalit writings from south India, this first volume put together by Susie Tharu and K Satyanarayana has Tamil and Malayalam. The collection’s not just the usual mish mash of fiction and/or poetry but has interviews, essays and interesting writer biographies that put the writers and writings in perspective for first-time readers. In a collection like this, it is also interesting to see how the reader begins to form a picture of the translators’ relationship to the texts translated in addition to getting a sense of the topography of the writing itself. Some of the most absorbing pieces in this collection are without doubt the non-fiction writing, which in the ordinary course, it’s difficult for non-Tamizh or Malayalam readers to get a hold of. Definitely a book worth owning

Women and the Weight Loss Tamasha

Rujuta Diwekar

Westland

200.00

Apparently the first one was better. I must confess I was fascinated by this book, the charts and the personal stories about various women types and their negotiations with food and weight are only as fascinating as Diwekar’s attempts at finding an interesting format to present her material. Seems like a useful book, but, as I heard, the first one’s the one to get.

Kala Krishnan Ramesh

‘Saundaryalahari’, 375, 100 Foot Road

H.A.L II Stage, Indiranagar

Bangalore-560008