Vikrant Pande, who read the original version of “Shala” in Marathi and saw the movie based on it by the same name (winner of the Silver Lotus at the 59th National Film Awards in the Best Feature Film in Marathi category), says, “I liked the innocence of the main protagonist falling in love and its depiction which was delicate and truly special considering that in the ’70s it was not common for boys and girls to interact.” He describes Bokil’s writing style as “different from others in the sense that it is conversational, lucid, simple yet evocative.”
He confides that while translating into English, “portraying the innocence while maintaining the feel of that era was challenging,” and adds, “I grew up in a semi-urban and semi-rural place and it helped me to understand the feelings of the characters. Devoid of this it would have been difficult for me to do it. I ensured that the language was that of a school boy devoid of the flourish of the grown up. Hence I did not use difficult words and tried to keep the description simple.” Apart from this, he found retaining the brevity, pithiness and subtlety of the original Marathi expressions testing.
Vikrant points out that the arduous task of translation entails “getting under the skin of the author as he or she has written the original text instinctively, whereas the translator’s task –– a deliberate one –– is to ensure that the translation looks natural.” In the case of “Shala”, he had the advantage of talking to Bokil which helped and resulted in improvement. “It helps to speak to the author, but it is not always possible.”
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Sharing his methodology, Vikrant says after reading the original and other works of the author to familiarise himself with the writing style, he “stays as loyal as possible to the original text” while translating. Thereafter, he checks whether the translation conveys the meaning to the reader. “I check if the translation reads like the original text for the English language reader,” he explains. Later the draft is submitted to editors for inputs and checking.
This graduate from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, and now Vice-Chancellor of TeamLease Skills University, Baroda, gravitated to translation as he felt that children who are not reading the classic Marathi works will develop an interest in the originals.