CHENNAI: Ambedkarites all over the world have long since found inspiration in the man’s reformist message — educate, agitate, organise. But, when the Tamizh-speaking folk were introduced to its body double of kattravai, pattravai, it took on a new life as a revolutionary anthem. For here, there was plenty to be gained in translation. Literature across the world has benefitted much from this seemingly simple endeavour of knowledge transfer. In this corner of the world, the translation wing of publications big and small have come a long way in being able to look at this work as a vital — and bottomline enhancing — element of business; giving us R Chudamani’s short stories in English, Bama’s musings in Malayalam and Gabriel García Márquez in Tamizh. And there’s plenty more in the making, assure writers and publishers currently in the system.
Perumal Murugan had two translations — Estuary (Kazhimugam) and Four Strokes of Luck — published in the past one year. And he’s looking forward to more in the coming months. “Penguin (Random House) has been releasing translations of my old novels one after the other. In that line, the translation of the novel Kanganam is getting ready as Resolve.
It’s likely to be released at the end of the year. I consider this to be one of my most important works,” he begins, pointing out that translation has played a huge role in furthering his work and taking it to a global audience. “My work was first translated in 2004 — Koolamadari was turned into Seasons of the Palm. The same year, it was shortlisted for the Kiriyama Prize (an international literary award for stories of the Pacific Rim and South Asia). This increased my readership beyond people in Tamil Nadu and Tamizh-speaking people. This, in turn, introduced me to a whole network of publishers and fellow writers. It also helped me widen my perspective,” he recounts, pointing out the kind of change a single work of translation can bring about.
The gift of translation
It was with translations like these that subaltern works of homegrown talents like Bama and Sukirtharani made it to universities around the world as prescribed ready materials and the subject of doctoral theses. “Karukku was written in 1991. Till 2000, it was only talked about in the literary circles here in Tamil Nadu. It was then that the book was translated into English by Oxford University Press; Lakshmi Holmstrom did the translation that was commissioned by editor Mini Krishnan. It, then, won the Crossword Book Award. After that, its reach spread to the rest of the country and across the world. Besides making it to universities, it was likened to the works of Afro-American writers. This success motivated translations in many regional languages. Till today, Oxford has been doing reprints of Karukku,” Bama narrates, adding that none of this could have come to pass without the gift of translation.
Mini Krishnan, in the past three decades, has spearheaded some of the most successful translation projects in the country — finding hitherto unheard voices, bringing subaltern, Dalit literature to the fore, and saving many invaluable works from the brink of extinction. Ask her how far she thinks the industry has come from the days of poor funding and aversion to risks, she has plenty to say. “I don’t think anyone else received the blank-cheque support I did from the MR AR Educational Society, Madras — `50 lakh for 50 novels was a tremendous amount of fuel in 1992. It took eight years to produce 37 volumes from Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Gujarati, Oriya, Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi and Marathi before I was more or less obliged to leave Macmillan India Ltd and transfer the project to Oxford University Press. I would say that operating without outside funding, and in an English language market that has till very recently been traditionally hostile to translations, Indian publishers have done what they can in a precarious profession — publishing literary works. What they are not doing (to the detriment of the industry) is taking risks with less visible writers and languages,” she suggests.
Looking for talent
While there is a definite dearth of good translators, the problem may be far more pervasive than we think, offers Soundaran Natarajan, managing trustee of Vidiyal Pathipagam that has been in the field of translation (into Tamizh) since the 80s. “The original writings in Tamizh, especially compared to western languages like Spanish or French, are a lot less; even though we have a huge body of experience among our people. So, we have to look outside for their experience, bring it in Tamizh and see if that can stimulate more introspection and kindle more original work. So, we tried to introduce some of the best literature (from Marathi, Telugu, Malayalam and western languages) into Tamizh,” he surmises. However, he admits that the pool of talented translators — and editors too — is shrinking every day. “If you pick up any English book and read the preface, they will thank the editors. The editor makes a lot of difference in the writing. But, in Tamizh, it is not there. The writer will not like much editing; even the translators won’t like it,” he notes.
This lacuna also stems from the presumption that anyone can translate, the same way anyone can write. But, there’s a lot more to it — especially translations — than what people care to acknowledge, says Sukirtharani. “The assumption is that you only need to know the language to translate. But, it needs a lot more investment. The translator is a writer too and has to put in as much effort — if not more — as the original writer. For me, it is just about writing my thoughts; for a translator, it is about taking in what the original author has to say and then making it their own. People like that are quite rare,” she says.
Bama points out that she has been very lucky in that department. Her translators can be good examples of what it takes to do well in this line of work. “A functional translation would make the work lifeless. It is important for the translator to have interest and familiarity with the characters, geography, culture and lifestyle of the people in the book. Otherwise, they should do all it takes to acquire this knowledge. Appo dhan athu jeeevan ullathaga irukum,” she offers.
The process isn’t easy for editors either, pitches Mini. It takes an enormous amount of trust to assign projects, she says. “Patience and dogged engagement with the chosen book, a refusal to give up even when the terrain looks impossible/untranslatable, resisting the temptation to cut corners or gloss over when a wall of dialect or customs looms up on the way… These are the elements that make a good translator. I hesitate to say “great”, but Jayasree Kalathil’s translation of Harish’s Meesha (Moustache) approaches that description. I don’t know how she did it! I called and wrote to her many times as I read the book,” she recalls.
Academic approval
In face of such growing demand, how do we keep up with the supply of good, well-trained translators? Perhaps, the introduction of courses such as Translation Studies could help. Mini certainly thinks so. “That academia has recognised Translation as an area worth introducing is itself a very great shift and holds out hope. Our multilingual colleges and universities are perfectly poised to devise programmes of intra- and inter- lingual studies to stop the loss of language skills in a rapidly globalising ethos. So far our university system has done next to nothing to upgrade language skills — a treasure house under our noses, so to speak. Anyone who has conducted even a workshop (leave alone a whole course) on translated texts will tell you how enthusiastic and energised the classroom atmosphere becomes when students recognise their own experiences and are electrified by writers in their languages,” she elaborates.
However, Soundaran isn’t all that hopeful. “People who are going there are not going to get into literature translations; they become translators for embassies and foreign dignitaries. What we need is equal importance to literature as science and technology. We need to bring new syllabus into the classroom. My friend’s son who did his schooling in the US was asked to write three different endings for a book in class 9. He has to go through the whole book, understand the concept and come up with alternative endings. This is not being done in our schools here (especially in Tamizh),” he explains. Sukirtharani too points to language proficiency as a major factor in bringing out good translations.
For the industry as such, Mini thinks government funding could go a long way to further things along. Support from the government in designing and funding systematic programmes of into and out of Indian language translations. Tamil Nadu Textbook & Educational Services Corporation has undertaken one such project on a massive scale. That is at the publishing level. Equally, we need to recognise that language and linguistic resources are national strengths. Children cannot be rushed through language study and hurried into classes on (for instance) Science, before they grasp a language properly whether it is the mother tongue, a second language native to the region, or English. Competence in language skills is vital to a nation’s growth, both emotional and economic,” she concludes.