| In
their papers, M Sridhar and Alladi Uma grappled with the problems they faced as
translators between Telugu and English. The validity of foregrounding the
translator’s ideological positions vis-a-vis the source text was one of the issues
raised in their presentations. Chitra Pannikar’s paper on postcolonial reincarnations
of the Buddha was unusual and insightful. Tharakeshwar and M B Vijaya Kumar dealt with the
ways in which hegemonic brahminical discourses of nationalism "translate" dalit
voices interpellating them within mainstream nationalist narratives. An exhaustive and
informative study of the early Indian fiction in English/ translation was provided by
Shubhendu Mund.
The last session was brought to a close with the visually delightful
presentations of Ashley Halpe and K Suneetha Rani, both of which dealt with retellings of
Shakespeare in Sri Lanka and Andhra Pradesh respectively. Halpe enthralled his audience
with his extensive knowledge of Sri Lankan folk art, his theatrical vitality and old-world
charm.
It being election year again, members were hustled into a room one last time on
the third day before they rushed off to catch their trains. Differences in opinion
notwithstanding tensions were amicably resolved and representatives elected.
At the Delhi seminar the focus was on specific Indian language texts translated
into English, particularly those that are now part of the new revised undergraduate
syllabus of Delhi University. Hence Tagore, Manto, Premchand and Basheer were some of the
names that recurred frequently in these analyses. In his paper, Alok Bhalla pointed out
how Manto’s Partition stories, generally devoid of regional or religious markers
acquire sharp communal overtones in Khalid Mohammed’s translation through a shift of
emphasis. Catherine Thankamma compared Basheer’s The Card Sharper’s Daughter
with M Sheriff’s translation through theories of rasa-dhvani.
Meenakshi Mukherjee’s paper entitled "The Early Indian Novel and the
Paradox of English", remarkable for its sheer archival reach, examined the complex
ways in which the English novel, a colonial import, was received, adapted and sometimes
transmuted into the literature of the various Indian languages in the nineteenth century.
In a fiercely polemical presentation, Pratima Agnihotri argued for a translation
theory evolving out of indigenous literary traditions and translation practices. Sukrita
Paul Kumar traced some common elements shared by Indian literature in English and Indian
literature in English translation, and the difficulty of translating cultural
specificities into an alien language. |
Paul St Pierre,
in his study of Gopinath Mohanty’s Paraja in English translation, dwelt on the
issues of addressivity in translation when the audience is both linguistically and
culturally alien from the source text. Christel Devadawson’s "Mera Joota Hai
Japani [Raj Kapoor?]: The Song of the Road [Pather Panchali?] and Amitav
Ghosh" was a violent yoking together of disparate ideas, and symptomatic of the
potential danger that exists in reducing complex cultural phenomena to simplistic,
unidimensional levels.
Sujit Mukherjee’s cogent and thought-provoking keynote traced the history of
translation in India and the changing attitudes to the practice today. He indicted English
teachers and departments of English in India for seeking answers to their own
existentialist dilemmas by creating and perpetuating conditions (namely, problems of
translation and seminars in which these can be discussed ad nauseum) in which their
own survival would be ensured (a sentiment echoed by Gauri Deshpande and Dilip Chitre at
Pune).
Sujit Mukherjee’s criticism impels us, as English teachers, to rethink our
own positions vis-a-vis our trade. As a delegate at the Delhi conference was overheard
saying, "When I joined the University to teach English ten years ago, I consciously
suppressed the fact that I spoke Tamil at home. Today, I take pride in the language and in
my own ability to use it creatively."
Hephzibah
Israel
and Anuradha Ramanujan
The Inside View
The second week of January was a busy one for those members of the Iaclals who
first journeyed to Pune for the annual conference (10–12 Jan), and then proceeded to
Mumbai University for a seminar on "The Inside View: Native Responses to the
Contemporary Indian English Novel" (15–16 Jan; conference coordinator: Dr
Rangrao Bongle).
Discussion on Indian fiction in English is bound to generate oppositional
stances, especially so if the seminar’s stress is on ‘native responses’ and
the ‘inside view’. Problematics of ‘addressivity’ of both writer and
critic arise.
Harish
Trivedi’s keynote address brought contemporary debates on nativism into clearer
focus. Tracing the growth of the Indian nativist school of criticism (interestingly
concomitant with the rise of writing in English), he pointed out that ‘native
response’ does not necessarily imply a ‘nativist response’. Trivedi
asserted that it is now time to rethink the co-relation between ‘native’ and
‘nativism’, and to move forward from the debates of nativist discourse initiated
by Bhalachandra Nemade in the 1980s. |
