“Each judge shortlists his/her choice of books. The common ones on the list along with the other entries are then discussed among the jury members to arrive at a consensus to decide which ones stay in run for the final award. The same process is adopted to zero in on the winner too,” says Arunava Sinha, a member of the panel of judges that will decide The Hindu Prize 2014, to be announced during The Hindu Lit for Life in Chennai in January. This simple and lucid deconstruction of a dense process is hardly surprising, considering Arunava is in the business of making the unfamiliar familiar.
A well-known translator of classic and contemporary Bangla books into English, Arunava has brought out 29 books with five more in the pipeline –– not a mean task. To top it, he has won the Crossword translation award twice –– for Sankar’s “Chowringhee” (2007) and Anita Agnihotri’s “Seventeen” (2011)
During a dinner at the Blooms Coffee Shop at Eros Hotel, Arunava explains his process of translation. “I am led by the text and follow the words, sentences and phrases in the original subject to the stipulation that the translation has to be smooth, keeping as close as possible to the original text and the intent of the original text,” he says. He highlights this by stating that if a passage or text in the original is ambiguous, the translation should mirror the ambiguity.
The translator’s guiding mantra is to leave out nothing and add nothing, though there are times when he adds something for the benefit of the unfamiliar reader. He cites an example from “When The Time is Right”, the English rendition of Buddhadeva Bose’s “Tithidore”. “In the third section the author devoted 200 pages to a Bengali wedding describing the pre and post-wedding rituals and of course the food. To guide the reader who may not be familiar with the culture I added a couple of words as explanation,” says Arunava and emphasises that “translation is straightforward rendition from one language to another.”
In 1992, the writer Sankar asked him to do a “bridged translation” of “Chowringhee” and this was published by Penguin in 2007. Next year came “The Middleman”, also by Sankar, and “My Kind of Girl” by Buddhadeva Bose. “I was heading for a mid-life crisis at that period and the three translated works came as a lucky break to convince me that this vocation was worth pursuing. I then stepped up this to an almost industrial scale.” In fact after having put in 28 years in the media, he quit last month and is now doing consultancy for Harper Collins on all things digital.
Refreshed with watermelon juice, Arunava delves deeper into the process. “It is not very complicated. I read the original text armed with the dictionary and thesaurus and translate the sentences. I am usually fast and in rhythm I do 3000 words a day. Once the first draft is ready I keep away the original and treat the English version as a book and iron out the rough edges and ensure that it is not clunky. If time permits I take a break and re-look after giving a gap, though this is not possible always. The final draft is sent to the editor who returns it with certain comments and changes. I do see the final version on the PDF format.”
Arunava feels that rendering translation on the first read is a good technique and, having adopted it for a couple of books, calls it a “wonderful experience”.
“I am not able to do it for all the books as in most cases I have to pitch a book to publisher after reading it,” he confides, adding “Gregory Rabassa used this method for ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.”
Allowing ourselves a break, we devote attention to dinner. Preferring a light meal, he has ordered a tuna baguette sandwich with ham, tomato and cucumber in it and potato fries on the side. At the outset he confesses that he does not know how to cook. “I am planning to take a sabbatical and learn, nothing specific but bits and pieces. Also I would like to experiment.” Cooking is a greater art than writing, he quips, “Writing being self-indulgent you can ignore if others do not like your work but in case of cooking it is always for happy eaters.”
Fond of Japanese, French, Italian and Bangladeshi cuisine, Arunava says “I can eat mutton biryani everyday. I find it the ultimate panacea for all ills. It cheers you when unhappy or unwell.” He always tries to eat local fare whenever travelling and enjoys tunda kababs, galauti and kakoris.
One is not able to overcome the temptation of asking Arunava which work he found toughest to translate. “Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s ‘Durgeshnandini’, which is fast paced and racy, was challenging because of Sanskritised Bangla and the vocabulary. I avoided words which a reader would not understand and used long and well constructed sentences without being archaic.” The translation of Buddhadeb’s books, however, comes naturally and quickly to him because of its “writing and rhythm”, he says.
Arunava believes that translated works should be positioned by publishers simply as books and not as translations.
In fact he is of the view that the name of the translator should not appear on the jacket thereby giving primacy to the original work. “It creates a barrier,” he says. Though not a paying proposition, he feels that translation is a joy in itself and that people enjoy reading it is an important gratification.
To round off the interaction I ask him to order dessert, but he denies the offer. “I am a translator of Bangla books but not fond of cuisine of that region,” he says in jest.
