Tulu literature scaled new heights with the seventh English translated work of two scholars, K. Chinnappa Gowda and late B. Surendra Rao, being released on Wednesday.
With this, 2,100 pages of different forms of Tulu literature, translated by the two scholars, are now available for reading in the universal language. The two scholars translated them constantly from 2017. Incidentally Mr. Rao, a critic, a writer and a former Professor of History at Mangalore University, passed away in December 2019, after completing the translation of the latest work titled Heartbeats, released in the Mangalagangotri campus of Mangaluru University on the day. The ‘Prasaranga’ (publication wing) of the university has published their seventh work. The earlier works have been published by different publishers.
Speaking after releasing the seventh work in the series, scholar and a former Vice-Chancellor of Hampi Kannada University and also Karnataka State Open University B.A. Vivek Rai said that more than 2,000 pages of Tulu literature being translated into English has brought a national recognition to Tulu literature.
Mr. Gowda and late Mr. Rao translating the works constantly in four years like a mission was not a small achievement, Mr. Rai said.
Heartbeats comprises the translation of 50 modern Tulu short stories in 544 pages. In addition to five short stories selected from the first phase of development in the 1930s, the translators have also selected 17 stories by 13 women and stories by four Muslim writers whose tales are important to understanding the cultural uniqueness that exists among the people speaking Tulu and Beary.
Mr. Gowda, a former Vice-Chancellor of Karnataka Folklore University, said that the shortest story in the Heartbeats is two-and-half pages and the longest is in 24 pages.
He said that the choice of short stories made in the seventh work was governed by their own aesthetic dictates. The stories have complex responses to the ideas of change - some radical, some guarded. “We have merely taken them as the heartbeats of our society, as so many responses to living,” Mr. Gowda said.
P.S. Yadapadithaya,Vice-Chancellor, Mangalore University, and K. Abhay Kumar, Director, Prasaranga, spoke.
Earlier, the two scholars had translated 114 modern Tulu poems, Ladle in a Golden Bowl (2017), A Tale of a Landlord’s Household - a modern Tulu novel ‘Mittabail Yamunakka’ by late D.K. Chowta (2017), an anthology of 60 Tulu folktales, The Rainboy (2018), and an anthology of 22 Tulu work-songs and 53 dance-songs, When the Moonlight is very Hot (2018). Later, they translated the first Tulu novel, Sati Kamale, by late S.U. Paniyadi (2018) and translated a short story in Tulu by late Polali Sheenappa Hegde as Tale of Narayana the Impostor (2019).
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