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Literary Review
Breaking new ground
PARTIAL translations of the 19th-century Malayalam novel Saraswativijayam by Kunhambu, and the Telegu play "Kanyasulkam" by Gurajada Venkata Appa Rao, translated respectively by Dilip Menon, C.Vijaysree and T.Vijay Kumar, appeared in The Hindu in Meenakshi Mukherjee's column "Past-Continuous". When The Book Review Literary Trust (TBRT) suggested that it could help publish the complete works, Professor Mukherjee was delighted. The two books are in TBRT's Past-Continuous Series, with Ms. Mukherjee as General Editor. On the Threshold, the poems of the 14th-century Marathi Dalit Bhakti poet Chokamela, translated by Rohini Mokashi-Punekar, did not figure in The Hindu's column but is a part of the TBRT's effort to break new ground.
Kunhambu's Saraswativijayam is a stark linear murder mystery. An arrogant Brahmin landlord causes the death of his slave for singing in his presence. Is he caught and punished? How? It takes years to unravel but the story moves along briskly. The writer cheerfully jumps over decades, keeping a firm hold of the narrative thread. Christianity emerges as a chief actor, emancipating characters from their caste and gender prisons, and also from hatred. I do not agree with Dilip Menon that the writer has not explicated the ideological aspects of Christianity for two of its most important tenets — Jesus's commandment that we must love one another and his teaching that we are all equal before God — dictate the Christian character's actions. (This sounds boringly vague but any more detail will spoil the mystery). Kunhambu, a lower caste Tiyya, "is clear that the readers of his novel should go out and change the world, not merely read about it". Yet the novel is not a tub-thumping tract but rich in suggestion, a record of how people felt and behaved. In his brief speech at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Dilip Menon mentioned how difficult it had been to translate the deceptively simple Malayalam into equally simple English that would not come out flat and ditch-water dull. He has succeeded admirably.
Gurajada Venkata Appa Rao's "Kanyasulkam" was first staged in1892, and published in 1897. In between there were several performances. The play grew in popularity and size, with characters being added on all the time. It continues to be popular, and was even filmed, with NTR in the lead role. It has been translated into several Indian languages, as well as into English but this is the first complete translation. Also reformist in intention, the play is concerned chiefly with bride price but takes into its consistently witty sweep child marriage, widow remarriage, and the "nautch" question. Its liveliness does not flag for a moment. It is to be serialised on television, a matter of satisfaction. The play is so much like a TV serial that it seems the best way to project it.
Chokamela's poems are ragged and moving, qualities the translator has retained from the original Marathi, abjuring an "Englished" verse for this rough magic. Ms. Mokashi-Punekar has translated selected verses. Choka, a Mahar, was "outside the fourfold varnavyavastha, and yet he sang of love. "The mystery is that it is possible to love that which despises you, to embrace the whole world in a spirit of understanding that passes understanding itself".
Translations of Indian works into English have burgeoned recently. Ranging from excellent to very indifferent, they have tended to concentrate on contemporary writing. Some, like Macmillan, have a page limit, restricting themsleves to long short stories, or truncated novels. The bulk of these are translations of prose works.
We welcome all the good work that has been done, but it has tended to eclipse other genres and periods, to the point almost of extinction. India's climate and the fact that we do not seriously preserve old documents cause paper to crumble and disappear, attacked by termites and the elements. TBRT's preservative effort has covered more generic and historical ground than others have done recently, and we assume that they will continue to do so. For, as Professor Mukherjee points out in her Introduction, The Hindu's "Past-Continuous" column carried extracts "from novels, plays, essays, travelogues, editorials, even letters".
The Book Review Literary Trust found that historians constantly bemoaned the imminent and permanent disappearance of valuable tracts, and decided to do something about this. Its project to make available "important tracts and treatises from the ancient and medieval periods, with special emphasis on Sanskrit, Urdu and Persian texts to facilitate research" has finally begun to take shape. The slightly solemn air of scholarly enterprise needn't frighten readers. The translations are good, with their literary qualities in tact; forewords and afterwords have fulfilled the scholarly mission.
Among the seminars TBRT organised was "Anuvad — Linking Literatures", which brought writers, translators, reviewers and publishers together in an exciting exchange of views. Writers commented on the translations, translators shared their joys and frustrations with original and target languages, and the vexed business of whether to gloss, footnote, italicise, or anglicise untranslatable words came in for much discussion. C.S. Lakshmi (Ambai) said firmly that they should be left as they were, for non-English words were not translated in American and British novels. But translations of Indian literatures into English are not necessarily for American and English readers. We who depend on them for getting to know the literature of other parts of India would rather there weren't untranslated lumps of opacity in the text. TBRT has on the whole ensured lucidity in this matter, although, as is to be expected on this matter, there is no uniform pattern that has been followed.
Should reviewers know the original and the target languages or not? Not knowing both languages can be hazardous now when fidelity to the original is appreciated. On the other hand, translations are meant for those who do not know the original language, and they will judge a book by its readability, as I have done. Initially, I found the novel the liveliest and most readable of the three books. This is not an indictment of the other two but simply that I first read all three books in manuscript. The play was minus its cast of characters, and the poems were in wild array. In the printed versions, both give the novel a fair run for its money.
Saraswativijayam, Kunhambu, translated from Malayalam by Dilip Menon; Kanyasulkam, Gurajada Venkata Appa Rao, translated from Telugu by C.Vijayasree and T.Vijaya Rao (both in the new Past-Continuous Series, general editor, Meenakshi Mukherjee); On the Threshold: Songs of Chokamela, translated from Marathi by Rohini Mokashi-Punekar; all published by The Book Review Literary Trust, 2002.
SHOBHANA BHATTACHARJI
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