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Book Review:
Title: Bridges Across the Nation: The Vitality of Indian Literatures in English Translation. Edited by Dr. P. V. Laxmiprasad and published by Authors Press, Delhi, 2021, pp. 290. ISBN :978-93-91314-46-0
Reviewed by Dr. D. GNANASEKARAN
The Editor, Dr. P. V. Laxmiprasad, spells out
two reasons in his elaborate Preface for having brought out this compilation of
twenty four essays encompassing critical analyses of works translated into
English from regional languages including Assamese, Bengali, Kannada,
Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Tamil and Telugu. One reason is that he wants to
bring Indian regional literatures to a wider readership, and the other reason is
that he wants to address the hitherto unexplored themes in Indian regional
literatures in English translation. By way of justifying the title of this
critical anthology, he further says, “Translation is the natural extension of
anything verbal and valuable we wish to communicate, and it crosses three
bridges – personal, linguistic and cultural. Hence I have titled the anthology
so” (page 6). In his Preface, he has also briefly traced the origin, growth and
development of the art of translation in India, especially the translation boom
accelerated by the colonial rule in India. The Christian Missionaries that had
come into the pre-Independence India gave a spur to this new-found art of
translation which as a most powerful tool paved the way not only for better
understanding among Indian cultures but also for opening the window to foreign
cultures and stores of overseas knowledge.
India
represents a multi-linguistic and also a multi-cultural society. In a way
regional literatures enrich one another and seek to share and synthesize various
thoughts and feelings expressed and experienced by writers of regional
languages in order to create a collective consciousness through either mutual
translations in regional languages in India or translations in English. The
genre of translation thus serves as a bridge that connects all the regional
literatures in India. Nehru holds the view, “By languages we are many, but as a
nation we are one.” This quote epitomizes the spirit of oneness in diversity.
No doubt, translating works from one regional language into another regional
language is the ideal means of promoting the very same spirit of oneness. The
translator is the pivot of the task and so has to be well-versed in bilingual
potentials. His job lies in two languages.
Twenty three scholars have
contributed to this anthology. Basavaraj Naikar has contributed two: one essay deals
with the colonial resistance in the Kannada novel Madi Madidavaru by Basavaraj Kattimani translated as Do or Die. The
other one takes up for analysis the Kannada historical novel Kartarana Kammata by H. Tipperudraswamy
translated as The Maker’s Mint that
documents the socio-religious revolution spearheaded by Basava in the context
of an emerging new egalitarian religion known as Virasaivism in the remote
Karnataka history. Breez Mohan Hazarika analyses the Assamese short stories of
Bhabendra Nath Saikia translated as The
Mistake and Other Stories with reference to the issues affecting the
average Assamese lower-middle-class society. Tamali Neogi critically examines
two Bengali stories of Mahasweta Devi, translated as Breast Giver and Draupadi,
to show how Devi deconstructs old myths and reconstructs myths centred on
subaltern/marginal women. Saikat Kumar Ghosh highlights the caste dominance in
Bengal and its social ill-effects through his examination of the Bengali novel,
Bamuner Meye by Sarat Chandra
Chattopadhyay. S. Malathy’s paper dwells at length on the plurality of native
Tamil women’s voices in the select short stories of Ambai (C. S. Lakshmi) in
the collection translated as In a Forest,
a Deer, asserting their inner liberty in a world of conventional
restraints. Lily Arul Sharmila examines A. K. Ramanujan’s expertise as a
translator in persuading the readers with greater fidelity to the original
through his translation of Tamil Sangam poetry to seek and acknowledge the
multiple wisdoms of a bygone Tamil culture. Geethu Vijayan’s paper analyses the
English translation of a Telugu work The
Parable of Lost Daughter Luke 15:11-32 by a Dalit writer M. M. Vinodhini to
present the view that in the process of modernization, people compulsively
adopt an imitative attitude and have failed to realize themselves and
understand others. Purabi Goswami goes deep into the intricacies of the
translating process with reference to the translation of an Assamese work
titled Daatiparor Manuh by Mamang
Dai. Prasaja V. P. takes up a Malayalam novel by K. R. Meera translated as Hangwoman to prove how one could subvert
gender binary through the language men and women use in their day-to-day life.
R. Karthika Devi in her paper
explores the significance of cultural, philosophical and religious knowledge
for translating two poems of Tamil Bakthi tradition, namely Thiruppavai and Nacciar Thirumozhi by Andal known for her bridal mysticism by which
she longs to marry Lord Krishna. Sajna Raj’s paper is a critical study of
social isolation and seclusion in the Malayalam novel Aadu Jeevitham by Benyamin translated as Goat Days. Shaleen Kumar Singh’s paper deals with the theme of love
in the poetry of Swami Ramatirtha who belongs to the Sufi spiritual tradition
and propagates the philosophy of love and its multidimensional experiences.
Basava Naikar’s translation of Royappa Pattar’s Kannada folk play Sangya-Balya: Betrayal deals with the
elemental passions of love and betrayal as they interweave with the destinies
of ordinary mortals, points out S. John Peter Joseph classifying the play as a
folk tragedy. Sheeba S. Nair makes a comparative study of some select stories
of Rabindranath Tagore and Cho Dharuman translated from Bengali and Tamil
respectively to conclude that with their authentic portrayal, Tagore
represented the elite class whereas Cho Dharuman represented the Dalits. Sumathi
Shivakumar looks at the linguistic and cultural challenges in translating the
Tamil classic Thirukkural, the
immortal document of human life covering all possible perspectives physical,
moral, psychological and philosophical, by indulging in a comparative analysis
of two translations of Thirukkural, one
by G. U. Pope and the other by Rajaji. Irudaya Mary M. critically examines the
Kannada short story translated as “Gauri” within the ambit of Peter Newmark’s
Theory of Translation.
Sandra Sophia in her paper speaks
about the Tamil revolutionary poet, Bharathi’s zeal to establish a society free
from gender bias and holds that to Bharathi, the role of womanhood in the
fabrication and upholding of culture is cardinal. D. Geraldin treats Perumal
Murugan’s Tamil novel translated as Ponnachi
or the Story of a Black Goat as a fabulous beast fable that takes the
reader down the ages to the time when man learned certain qualities from
animals and elements of Nature. A renowned literary work in any Indian regional
language cannot be fully grasped when it is studied in isolation from the great
Indian literary tradition embodying the whole gamut of Indian history and
culture spanning several regional polarities. This is what Durga Sai Kiran Saripalli
ascertains in her study of Raamaa Chandramouli’s Telugu novel translated as Suryuni Needa. Gobinda Sahoo looks at
Gopinath Mohanty’s Odia novel translated as Paraja,
as a socio-anthropological account of the oppressed tribal communities of
Odisha. Sanjib Kumar Sahu examines two
Odia short novels Patadei and Rape by the two women writers Binapani
Mohanty and Sarojini Sahoo respectively, as realistic portrayals of the condition
of women in the contemporary society. Lingaraj Patra analyses a short story
“Rebati” from Odia literature written by Fakir Mohan Senapati to conclude that
it unravels a microcosmic view of gender discrimination in the 19th
century Odisha and serves as a harbinger of women empowerment. Palakurthy
Dinakar says that a translator should be faithful not only to the surface text
but also to the sub-text. With this criterion at the back of his mind, he
studies Raamaa Chandramouli’s collection of Telugu short stories in translation,
Essence of Life and Other Stories to reveal
that the writer is in anguish when he witnesses the depleting levels of human
values in society. The compilation of all these 24 critical essays has been
attractively packaged between aesthetic covers, and the print is
reader-friendly.
