If literature is considered mimetic, it is just as important to consider its refractive quality which introspects and comments on the present reality. One such book is the eminent Urdu writer Joginder Paul’s “Nadeed” that subtly engages with the dynamic relationship between inside and outside, sight and insight, looking and seeing. With no binary characters or linear plot line, the novel weaves itself with metaphors – predominantly that of sight. His book written in Urdu has garnered critical appreciation as well as a mass readership. The book went on to be translated into Hindi by Paul’s wife, Krishna Paul and was recently translated into English by noted poet and his daughter Sukrita Paul Kumar and academic Hina Nandrajog. The monthly series of discussions on New Urdu Writings initiated by Hindustani Awaaz, founded by Rakhshanda Jalil and Oxford Bookstore together focused on “Blind”, the English translation of “Nadeed” this month.
The 24th event in this series saw a lively discussion on the complications of translation, personal insights into Joginder Paul’s life, living as refugees of the Partition and growing up with an irrepressible yearning for home.
Noted poet, academician and critic Sukrita Paul Kumar explained that the reason for the book’s translation to Hindi and English highlights its contemporary relevance and merits a wider audience. “It is a dense book but quite readable as well,” she said .
For Hina Nandrajog, Principal of Vivekananda College, Delhi University, what struck her the most was the tactile style of the novel. The usual visual experience of the book is displaced by a sensory experience. She asserted: “He retains a sense of seeing and not seeing. The fingers become the eyes in the novel.” The English translation commenced as a result of the interaction between Ngugi Wa Thing’O – the acclaimed novelist and critical theorist of post colonial literature, and Sukrita, who received a grant for him in order to pursue the project.
As moderator, Rakhshanda started off the debate by quoting an epithet often used to describe Paul in his obituaries: “The gentlest storyteller of the Partition”. When asked if his gentleness was a literary tool or characteristic device, Sukrita described her father as a man who was both gentle and harsh. Harsh to his wife and children in terms of constantly uprooting a stable life in search of “home” in the aftermath of the Partition, he was compassionate and empathetic to the external world. She went on to explain that after visiting a home for the blind in Machakos, Kenya, he was struck by their “dark, unreflecting eyes on their dark bodies and how the darkness of the world was reflected in that image” (This happened during the 1950s when rampant racism ensured that there were separate homes for the blind people of different races). He strove to understand the world from their perspective – a world without sight and thus began writing the novel in the early 1980s where sight operated as the primary locus of the narrative.
Passages from both the Hindi and English translations were read aloud in order to introduce the audience to the thematic similarities and differences in the translations. Both the translators agreed that the translation was extremely complicated, especially keeping in mind that all writers have particular idiosyncrasies which must be conserved as much as possible. Sukrita went on to elaborate, “The translation was further complicated because of the several conversations throughout the book. We did not want to compromise on the original content too much. That was the challenge – how do you carry across the idiom, style and tone in a different language?” And because dialogues are the hardest to translate, since the conversational tone often sums up a cultural syntax, the English translation has been left with a complete absence of quotes.
