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Literary Review
Translation today
A fruitful dialogue
ZIYA US SALAM
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Finally, because of translations, India and Bharat are beginning to talk to and enrich each other.
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Photos: Gopal Sunger, K. Murali Kumar and Vipin Chandran.
Translation as discovery: Marathi writer D.M. Mulay (left), publisher-translator Urvashi Butalia and Malayalam writer M.T. Vasudevan Nair.
“People inhabit either India or Bharat today,” says feted writer K. Satchidanandan. The thought may not be a new one. What is, is the realisation that the two worlds are coming together, at least in the realm of literature. “Translations are providing the bridge between the two,” he notes. “What gets translated gets perpetuated. We empower both the languages, the translated and the translator.”
Regional literature is finding its voice. Gillian Wright, a seasoned translator, agrees, saying people are “rediscovering Bharat through regional writers.”
Authors writing in Indian languages don’t need to lurk in the shadows anymore, brownie points are neither solicited nor needed. Aligning individual merit to an emerging market, they have the money and a readership, thanks to translations. After a painfully long sundown comes the first flush of sunrise. “A quiet renaissance” is how D. M. Mulay, Marathi writer-poet-translator, hails it, adding, “And a thousand flowers bloom.”
On the ascendant
There are 50 Indian languages in which regular publishing is taking place. And newspapers come out in 101 languages! Indeed, writing in Indian languages is on the ascendant, with a boom in Malayalam, Marathi, Bengali, Urdu and even Sanskrit writing. Besides the original works, there is money to be made — and new readers to be found — through translations. And book publishers, market savvy as ever, are entering unexplored territories. Of course, due to globalisation, most are foreign players.
Says Arjun Deo Charan, Rajasthani poet-playwright, “Regional languages are beginning to reach a greater number of people thanks to translations. And writers in these languages have gained because of globalisation. The publishers look at sales alone: for them it is business.” Adds Mulay, “In metros literature is merely a commercial activity. Who is published by whom? Who has got what advance?”
While bemoaning that Rajasthani writers have not gained as much due to translations and a crest in regional writing, Charan points out that languages like Malayalam, Telugu, Bengali and Marathi have had better luck. Despite his reservations about leaving the field open for foreign publishers, he takes it as a positive sign for Indian writing. “The richness of the language increases through translated works. The translator may not always understand the nuances of the languages. It is not easy to express the local sentiment. But it is a challenge; and a dialogue through which both the languages gain.” Charan should know. His dramas have been translated into Hindi, English, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu! Keeping him company are about 700 other Rajasthani writers, who never make it to the English media!
Why has he limited himself to writing in Rajasthani alone? “Mother tongue is the first priority. First, thought comes in that language. And nowadays there are more readers for regional writers. For instance, there are more readers for Bengali, Marathi and Malayalam than English in their respective States. It is the strength of the regional languages that has forced the world to come to our doorstep.”
The point is reiterated by V. Ramnarayan of New Horizon Media, a Chennai-based publishing house that has done wonders in the translation section. “Foreign language literature is translated into Malayalam quite instantly. Often there is a translation the same year. You can feel the crazy passion in the air.” Well-known publisher-translator Urvashi Butalia points out a fine instance of the thriving translation industry, and how it is helping regional works: “Baby Halder’s A Life Less Ordinary, originally a Bengali work, has been translated into 22 languages.” And Butalia herself did an English translation!
Rooted to the soil
What’s more, regional writings remain rooted to the soil, depicting the true India. The setting, characters, problems, everything is Indian, lending a touch of authenticity to their works.
Noted writer-activist Ganesh Devy says, “The notion of central or marginal language is quite screwed. Those who read English consider Rushdie mainstream. But it is the regional or the so-called vernacular authors who represent the real India. My man, or character, lives in a village.”
Chips in Pradnyan Pawar, “There is an unbroken chord with the Indian social system in our writing.”
Just like Mulay. “I represent different sensibilities and, at the same time, a link between micro and macro. I work in Delhi, my mother stays in a village in Kolhapur. The characters of regional writers do not move internationally. They are more local, regional. No larger-than-life canvas. There is humility in characters. The only non-variable in Marathi literature is the caste exploitation, and the challenge today is how to absorb the current trends without losing our identity, soul," says bureaucrat-author Mulay, who has just translated West Asian poetry into Hindi and Urdu!
His argument is seconded by Mehr Afshan Farooqi, who recently came out with The Oxford Anthology of Modern Urdu Literature, “Translation has played an extraordinary role in the development of Urdu prose.” Thanks to translations, names like Sadat Hasan Manto and Ismat Chughtai ring a bell with a generation of readers not conversant with Urdu.
Local initiative
Mulay describes a ground level literary revolution taking place in his region. “Maharashtra is a land of sahitya sammelans with up to a hundred such literary gatherings a year. Most of the sammelans happen because of the local initiative where people spend from their pocket to travel, listen to authors and buy books.”
He points out that the State still has the good old community libraries and book reading sessions where Marathi books are read out to the public. “There are nukkad meetings in villages like Aurwad. And so many rivulets of literature ranging from the Grameen sahitya, Muslim Marathi sahitya to Stree and Dalit.”
But there are issues beyond increasing sales and general readership. Says veteran T. Vasudevan Nair, “There needs to be a greater exchange with and among regional writers.” Wright adds, “It is very important that people writing in Indian languages communicate with each other. People across India are facing the same issues: development, empowerment of women, etc. A Bengali should be able to understand what a Malayali writer does, and vice-versa. Changing India is best represented in regional literature.” She should know. She has translated works into almost all Indian languages except Bhojpuri! Recently, she translated a novel on Moharram.
It is not just current writers that are appearing in English versions. Penguin India, Rupa, OUP and others are bringing out the translated versions of Sanskrit classics. And houses like Zubaan, Katha, New Horizon have carved out their own niches. Says A.N.D. Haksar, who has just translated Kshemendra’s Samaya Matrika as The Courtesan’s Keeper, and whose two translations of Sanskrit classics have gone into a reprint, “The demand for translations is growing. In present times, it is perhaps the best method of transmitting literature across the linguistic divide.” He feels “there is a renewed interest in India, in Indian things and Indian classics.” Incidentally, The Courtesan’s Keeper is the first English translation of the 1,000-year-old, little-known Sanskrit satirical novel by Kashmir’s well-known 11th Century writer.
New lease of life
Says R.K. Tandon, who has translated the works of Bhartrihari and Kalidasa, “It is a good time for translations because the earlier versions have become jaded. There are many earlier works which lacked flow and continuity. Today, people like me and even foreign authors have tried to bring in that flow.” He feels “English is our door to the world” and without translations, regional writers cannot have a global readership.
However, are factors like globalisation and increased literacy the only major contributing factors to the popularity of regional authors? Noted playwright Mahesh Dattani puts things in a different perspective. “English writers make everything very exotic for the local readers. They are often trying to emulate Western authors”. That drives the readers to a language they think in, and identify with.
Ramnarayan, however, cautions against painting all the languages with the same stroke. “These are good times for Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi writing but not Tamil.” Be that as it may. But nobody who reads Indian works in any language is complaining. As Mulay puts it, “It is better to be a vernacular writer today. We know Milton and Shakespeare. We need to know Kalidasa.”
Indeed. India and Bharat are beginning to reconcile.
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