The Translations of Indian Regional Writings
Dr. A. S. Gangane
“Translating
is one of the most difficult activities in the cosmos.”
I.
A. Richards
The other day
as I was reading a translated fiction Vasaveswaram by a Tamil writer, Krithika,
immediately, never before, a few questions stirred my mind. What is the
position of translation today? Why are Indian regional novels being translated
into English on a large scale? Are translations better than Indian writings in
English? In what context? Is translation an act of commitment?
Alan Duff
states “translation develops three qualities essential to all language
learning: accuracy, clarity and flexibility. It trains the learner to search (flexibility)
for the most appropriate words (accuracy) to convey what is meant (clarity).”1
However, each
literary text in many ways is a translation. It has its own authenticity and
intertextuality. It is a reconstruction of the regional text in another language,
however, some of its characteristics are different from those of the original.
Even in such a situation, translation has been sufficient to transform the
experience of the original text. It is significantly aware of the primary
desire that is to derive aesthetic awareness and pleasure as well as to
investigate and identify with the human experience projected through
translation. A translator looks forward to record parallel expressions but not
exact equivalents – for all times. Moreover, translation is not just a transfer
of meaning but a transfer of experience with throb and vitality.
The Indian
poets like Kalidas, Tulsidas, Kamban and Chaitanya were great writers. It was
the drastic impact of the west that makes one despise translation as a secondary
creation. The translation, to a great extent, was treated as a little inferior
to creative writing in English. Though the translations pull one into the
sensitive and serious study of each word used by the translator to weave an
experience, the translated text did not bear the names of the translators on
the translation. However, now-a-days, in India, the scenario has been slowly
and steadily changing but unfortunately we have not yet accomplished full
control over this prejudice. Sahitya Academy has been continuously working in
the province of translation of the Indian regional fiction as well as the
Indian literary works. The translators associated with the Macmillan’s, ‘the
National Book Trust, the OUP and the Orient Longmans’ have been making worth while
efforts on these lines. The efforts of these publishers have attained
considerable success for the translation began to receive better attention in
this regard. The most significant thing about translation is that it has
brought exquisite fiction, poetry and drama to the readers in India and in this
way, it has been bringing various languages, many communities and multiple
cultures together.
Isn’t it a
fact that Indian writing in English, to some extent, cannot fully cater to the
needs of the readers in India and satisfy them? Besides, there is constantly growing awareness about the literary
meaning of writings in the regional languages that depict Indian life with
profound depth, vitality and variety.
Indian life, being reflected in regional fiction seems more authentic
and genuine when one meditates in the context of regional identity, ethos and
cultural identity of rural India.
Substantially speaking, since the new urban generation with rural
background is being deprived of their languages and nature literature, it
genuinely desires to read translated rural literature for it records and
reflects their rural life of the region for which they have deeply rooted
affinity and acquaintance. Naturally, they would like to read the rural
literature available in English.
Anyway,
translation studies have been becoming a crux in the province of literary
activity. I may be wrong but I prefer
translated fiction to fiction in Indian writing in English because the regional
writers have sensitively and keenly dived deep into cultural ethos and
religious fervour. Consequently, the translators endeavour to depict exactness,
intensity, depth and dimensions of the original ‘feel’ expressed in the
original creation. Thus, they have been
to a great extent, successful in their endeavour. In this connection, on the contrary, it is an independent
debatable and the most controversial point whether the fiction in Indian
writing in English has truly projected an authentic and genuine picture of
village life, cultural ethos and religious atmosphere or many times it has
given just a mere picture of rural ethos and native tradition. And it is from this point of view that
translation is popularly and widely being recognised as a cultural activity.
Translation
of a literary creation with cultural ethos is a challenging task for the
translator. But he is bound to stick up
to it and has to indulge in the translingual activity, which requires and
demands a very sensitive cognition of the target language with all its cultural
baggage. Many times he has to adapt
specific contexts of the source text to suit his purpose.
I am not
stretching a matter too far when I say that the Indian fiction in English is no
more appreciated as being superior to the translation. In this connection, the terms –
transcreation, transculturation, transmutation and transfusion are widely used
to suggest the creative aspects of translations. There are many literary creations where even the author feels
that a translation is superior to the original, as it is in the case with
Indira Goswamy who has translated her own regional novel into English. Indira Gowswami’s The Saga of South Kamrup
is authentic and is far better in capturing and in captivating the reality of rural
ethos than her original fiction written in the Assamese dialect.
As far as
fidelity of the translations to the target language is taken into account, it
has been the crucial facet of resistance.
In this respect, the translation of Godan in Hindi, Gandevata in
Bengali, Sanskara in Kannada and the Fitzeralk version of Rubaiyat by Omar
Khayyam are the typical examples where the translations have become more
popular than the originals.
As a matter
of fact to comprehend the balance of a translated text and the original, the
act of translation demands commitment, loyalty, labour and fidelity to both,
form and context. K. Satchidanandan in
this context says “Commitment is a matter of choice and not of compulsion. I will also add that commitment is a matter
of reading more than that of writing.
The writer simply writes expressing his vision of man, society and
universe; it is upto the reader to read him/her in whatever way (s) he likes” 2
In this
context, a translator should have mastery of the native as well as the target
language, ability to share and feel original work’s feeling, a common cultural
and linguistic heritage, an innate turning with the emotional fervour of the
original text, deep insight into the semantic depths and nuances of words in
the original language, and their English equivalents – acceptable diction,
ability to catch the flow of emotion and the beauty and felicity of expression,
- for if the translator has instinctive romantic genius it would generate a
little complexity to catch the emotional flow of the tragic events; here
aesthetic perception could not harmonize considerably with the demands of the
tragic story. A translator should have
the ability to achieve relative accuracy of the emotional content along with
its literary flavour and true identity of mental and physical make-up of the
characters to release proportionate emotion.
What U. R.
Anantha Murthy has stated in the context of the writer is valid for the
translator for he breathes life into a translated text. He said :
“In the
context of locating an appropriate idiom, the writer may have to abuse
language, play with it, mould it or even create it to be able to articulat the
uniqueness of the experience. This
involves a process of constant learning through practice. What makes one confident of handling the creative
expression of an experience is a persistent grappling with the nitty-gritty of
rejection and selection of words phrases and
structures of sentences ”3
Though it is
difficult to say the last word in the matter of translation, of course the
original writer’s translation is a good recreation as compared to the other
translator for intensity and depth of the original experience rests lively with
the original writer and not with the other translator. Therefore, what is crucial in translation is
the degree of approximation, which the translator experiences, with the core of
the original work. And if the
translator has shared a common cultural and linguistic heritage, his rendering
in the target language helps him to achieve Indian sensibility to project life
in harmony with natural urge. Any way
the translation is a source for the promotion of language learning and it is
the only medium and process of conveying message across linguistic and cultural
barriers.
References
1. Alan Duff, Translation, OUP, 1989, p.7
2. Indian Literature, ed. H. S. Shiva Prakash, Sahitya
Academy, New Delhi, Vol.204, July-Aug 2001 p.5
3. Indian Literature, ed. H. S. Shiva Prakash, Sahitya
Academy, New Delhi, Vol.179 May- June 1997 p.176-177