A precarious juggling act

“The most difficult part of translation is, I believe, finding the ‘right’ pitch and voice of the original, and to try and match that. I won’t say ‘replicate’; that’s impossible. But there is also the hard graft of familiarising oneself with the history and cultural background of the work. A translator should never be afraid of asking questions. Meanings don’t reside in dictionaries alone, we know.” — Lakshmi Holmström

Why translate?

The next time you reach out for your dog-eared copy of Chekhov, Marquez or Calvino, pause a bit. Are you aware that you are reading a translation? And closer home, your well-thumbed copies of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are probably brilliant renditions. Were it not for translations, half the world’s literary treasures would have been lost to us.

We don’t give this important activity a moment’s thought. And yet, we react strangely when we chance upon the odd translation of contemporary fiction in an Indian language into English: the bristles are up and knives are keenly sharpened. You will always hear a voice tut-tutting, ‘This pales in comparison. You should read the original!’ That’s exactly the point, isn’t it? Translations are meant for people who can’t read the original. That is the object of the whole exercise. People usually translate when a text casts a spell on them, spurring them to share the magic with people who can’t access the original. Often, readers include those who have a strong link with the original language but are unable to read its script.

As with any piece of writing, the translators, above all, wish to immerse readers in the world of the author, going to enormous lengths to ensure that the spirit of the original is retained. They plough on till they find the right note. No one exemplified this more than Lakshmi Holmström, one of the most sensitive translators, who, cutting across genres, found new readers across the world for several Tamil writers. Her well-delineated views and fine examples from her translations will suffice to illustrate what translation really entails. As she put it: “I think that most readers don’t understand what exactly is involved in a translation. They can’t quite grasp the notion that languages differ hugely in lexis as well as syntax; that one language doesn’t ‘move into’ another automatically. Nor do they realise that when you translate a work, whether it is a poem or a long work of fiction, you have to keep in mind the integrity of the whole thing. Words and sentences may be the bricks and mortar but it has a structure as a whole that you are constantly aspiring towards.” Translation is a demanding, precarious juggling act between two languages, and commands all the resources and knowledge that the translator possesses.

Selection of a text

For most translators it is simply the ‘call of the text’. The text resonates so strongly with them that the act of translation is organic. I have known translators turning in immaculate manuscripts without ever being commissioned by a publisher; such is their passion, considering that monetary benefits are close to nil. What makes them choose a particular text? Local situations and contexts certainly lend colour and offer a fresh experience, but a text can be deemed ripe for translation only if it carries a strong whiff of the universal and translators possess an uncanny knack of sniffing this out. They chip away at the text, unravelling it layer by layer and then tack it back together in another language. The success of the translation hinges on both the writer’s and the translator’s relationship with words and literature, which is laid bare in the process. Here is Holmström matching writer Mauni’s lyricism word for word in this numinous description of a temple.

“(…) Within that inner space, where daylight hesitates to enter more than halfway, in that dim twilight, the images stand, taking on radiant life. Were temples sculpted in order to nourish that great happiness at the silent centre of our deepest and most private experience? What truths does that sannidhi wish to communicate, surrounded as it is by the corridor with hanging lights, where, to one’s shocked surprise, there is no difference between the devotees and their shadows? Are all of us merely shadows? My mind threw up these questions, and for a moment my hair stood on end.”

Reading a translation

Readers, open-hearted and magnanimous, are ready to take a plunge. But with a translation, it is not a sanitised, chlorinated pool they find themselves in. It is a gushing stream they will be wading through, fighting against eddies and currents, pierced by jagged rocks now and then. But in the end, surface they will, invigorated and elated. Translators don’t want to feed the illusion that the texts are original pieces of writing in English, flattening out everything to make the reading facile. On the contrary, they are more than happy to keep reminding readers that they are reading a translation. In fact, they would like them to experience the source culture and language; the nuances of the original certainly add an enriching dimension to the English text. A few lines from one of Ambai’s stories will fittingly attest to this: “Of course the plastic box for the gods is quite a small one. But within three days, this matter of Amma’s pujai has expanded, spilling along the wooden plank beneath, accompanied by a brass pot, a plate for the camphor offering, a decorative kolam pattern, incense sticks, sandalwood paste, kumkumam, and flowers. Her jobs in connection with the gods keep on increasing: scrubbing them with tamarind and bathing them; offering them milk and raisins; dressing Amman in different skirts and davanis, and decorating her with sandalwood and kumkumam. The little girl from next door is roped in, because the milk and raisin prasadam needs a recipient (…)”

Challenges in translation

Translating from Indian languages into English is tricky and fraught with challenges. Speaking of Tamil, the grammatical structures of Tamil and English are polar opposites; the sentence order is almost the reverse. Translators, however, adopt their own strategies to capture the essence of the original, and try their level best not only to retain the techniques and style of the author but to also ensure that they read well in English. They make every effort — from reading books to having extended conversations with authors — to soak up the cultural milieu of the text. This evocative translation of writer Na Muthuswamy’s graphic description of a way of life that no longer exists (the measuring of paddy after the rice harvest regulated by a chant sung by a farmhand) shows us that “meanings don’t reside in dictionaries alone”.

“The man whose grain was being measured never needed to watch over the paddy. He listened instead to the accuracy of the chant… Those labourers looked as if they did not feel the weight of those sacks, but rather they mimed those movements in accompaniment to the music. They looked as if by some miracle they had built up their bodily strength just by a simulation… On the days of the paddy count, the entire village was caught up in the melody.”

Like most Indian languages, Tamil abounds in kinship terms for which there are simply no equivalents in English. For instance, the word ‘uncle’ alone has several words, each denoting a different relationship. So most translators retain the terms quite naturally, weaving in unobtrusive interpolations the first time the word appears, as in this example: “My grandmother went outside to fetch some hay for the calf (…) When Paati returned from the haystack, I didn’t want her to see me in hiding (…)” Also it would be ridiculous to use ‘dad’ and ‘mom’, especially in rural settings, since the words have slipped into the common parlance of many urban Indians.

In our Indian society, circumscribed by hierarchy and status, forms of address play an important role. For instance, ‘ayya’ can only be used to address someone higher up the social order, as can be seen from the way the shop-hand, Rowther, addresses the owner in one of Sundara Ramaswamy’s stories: “I will do my best, ayya.”

Our expressions and idioms, nourished by our lores and legends, are unique and fresh. Ironing them out with bland equivalents in English would be a crime. In fact, most translators go out of their way to capture vivid images. The earthy writings of Bama will amply illustrate this: “They claimed she had a lucky hand.” “Keeping young women at home is like keeping a fire going in your belly.”

Local variants of English as a resource

English rolls around merrily on our Indian tongues, happily carrying the baggage of native languages, which often employ the exact reverse word order in a sentence. We use it unselfconsciously in informal situations, especially if the dialogues are chatty and colloquial. The question tags at the end of sentences are unapologetically wrong, yet they lend a strong local flavour, allowing the reader to hear the cadences of the original language. A few forms of address have even passed on to English. Here are some sentences from Dalit writer Bama’s Sangati: “Ei, so do the bridegrooms queue up smartly, one after the other, for your granddaughters, then? “Edi, Muukkamma, aren’t you going home at all, to drink your kanji-ginji?”

Translation: A creative activity

A translation, an avatar of the original, borne out of a creative endeavour, ushers in a new readership for writers and a new horizon for readers. Writings need to travel. And were it not for translators like Holmström, who tirelessly toiled on, regardless of reward or remuneration, poems such as A Sankari’s haunting ‘Living and Dying’, about war-torn Sri Lanka, would have been lost to us forever. I leave you with these poignant lines:

Young man,

all day today

your features

and your just-learnt name

have slowly eaten into me.

That notice of your death

also told me your name

and your town,

told me of your life.

How we must grieve for a life

known only through death!

Subashree Krishnaswamy is the translator of the anthology The Tamil Story: Through the Times, Through the Tides, edited by Dilip Kumar

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