WHY TRANSLATION STUDIES?

I will be teaching translation studies to the postgraduate students of English this year and the question I asked myself was- why should an Indian student of literature study translation? The answers I came up with are as follows: We study translation because

1) Translation makes literary studies possible today. Translation is the most widespread mode of accessing the key literary and theoretical texts from all over the world. Foucault, Neruda, Camus, Plato, Aristotle, Tagore, Marquez, Kafka, Simone de Beauvoir, Bhamaha, Anandvardhana, Roland Barthes, Ghalib, Nietzsche, Saratchandra, Freud, Rumi, Marx, Habermas, Mahasweta Devi, Kalidas and Gramsci are available to the students only in and because of translation. Looking at these texts as translation can help dispel the illusion (or pretense) of an unmediated, transparent and unproblematic transmission of such texts across cultures and time. Hence, even if students do not take translation studies as their primary area of research, studying translation will provide an additional critical handle on the research projects and provide useful insights into research involving translated texts.

2) For the student of English in India, reading is translating. Reading of literary texts from other cultures like English or American for instance is an intercultural and inter-contextual process. An Indian teenager who has never been to a Prom or not experienced the lifestyle of a typical American teenager does not read or watch Twilight saga in the same way as an American teenager does. An Indian youngster who dances for nine nights during Navaratri celebrating ‘Divine Feminine’ reads Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code differently from his Western counterpart. An Indian student who has no idea what ‘curtsey’ is, reads Pride and Prejudice in a different way from her British counterpart. Serious study of literature and art is impossible without taking into account the differences between the source culture’s system of values and attitudes that produced these texts and the recipient culture’s system of values, which shape the reader’s outlook towards life. Oh, yes, the vampires-Pishachas- belong to a very low caste and are usually ‘meat eating’ types, so while you might be infatuated with them for a while, it is difficult for you to get married to one of them.

3) We are translated people living in a translated culture. Much of the cultural phenomenon in which we are immersed- TV shows, films, fashion, music, cuisine, literature, language, arts incorporates assimilated elements from other cultures. These processes of global traffic of cultural forms have become incredibly accelerated in the age of globalization.  TV ‘Reality’ shows, which have become extremely popular today, use the formats and promotional strategies similar to those in the US, and a lot of film and popular music is ‘inspired’ and ‘remixed’. These processes are not always unilinear (from the US to non-US) - consider the great escalation of Hindi films made for ‘overseas’ audience (Robertson calls this process ‘glocalization’). The idioms of languages that we speak today and hear today in media often sound ‘translated’, and hybrid. This ‘code remixing’ is central to our cultural lives today. The Shastras say that we are what we eat. Therefore, if we eat Chinese in the evening and continental pizzas during the day, our souls are invariably going to be hybrid. Literary translation is part of the larger processes of ‘remixing’ and hybridization of cultures. Hence studying the poetics and politics of translation will help us to understand these numerous processes and modalities of intercultural traffic. Globalization is translation and translation is globalization.

4) Translation as a profession and vocation is an excellent career option. While reading Keats or Yeats or studying Judith Butler or Dalit literature may not help you to earn your bread and butter unless you decide to become a professor or teacher, the study of translation theory and practice can help you become proficient in translation. When the Government of India considers Humanities and Higher Education as ‘burden’ instead of investment and reduces the granted vacancies, there are very few chances of permanent and secure employment. On the other hand, there is a rising demand for good quality translators and interpreters.  You can study foreign languages and start your own business. You can also work in the areas like film or TV industry where dubbing is essential or in the areas like legal and corporate communication. Besides, there is exciting work being done in the field of machine /computer translation and artificial translation.

5) You can be a literary translator. Like me. You can make literary texts from one language available in another language. It may not pay like technical translators. However, it is a creative act. It is an art that is at par with ‘original’ creative activity in terms of fulfillment, and in fact, more challenging and times more exciting the ‘original’ writing. It reinforces and enhances your own creativity. I remember how when I was doing my BA in the nineties, some of the passages in Macbeth moved me so much that I translated them into Hindi. As a poet who wrote in English and Marathi, and who is born and brought up in Gujarat and teaching English literature,  my choice to translate Narsinh Mehta into English for my doctoral research in the late nineties was the part of my personal quest for cultural identity. It was expression of my love for Gujarati language and literature. Narsinh has made me spiritually richer and happier human being, if not ‘better’ and he has become one of my closest friends. When I chose to thirty Marathi poets of my generation into English, it was again a manifestation of my own personal quest for my roots as a Marathi poet. Translation for me is the act of love. The fulfillment and joy of rendering my favorite work into another language is the act of sharing my life and passion with others.  At the same time, when you make literature in other language available for readers, you are in your own way contributing to that culture by extending the possibilities of the target language and culture.

People who complain of the ‘loss’ in translation or its impossibility usually have a very limited view of the process. These people are usually people who can read both translation and the original, and translations are not intended for such people. For someone who cannot read Hindi, any translation, however bad, of Kabir or Muktibodh is always a gain, because no translation is ‘complete’ any more than the so-called ‘original’ is complete. Jorge Luis Borges said that the original should be faithful to translation, and I agree.

Watch my lecture on contemporary translation studies with Dr. Vishal Bhadani

 Read my blog on using Semiotics of Culture as a Theoretical Framework for studying Indian literatures and cultures.

Of Anonymity Crisis and Hendiadys

We, as the part of the Dept of English, under the DRS SAP-I programme had organized lectures and a workshop on 18 and 19 Sept 2009 to conclude a series of colloquia dealing with the theme of Identity which we had organized over the past six month. We had Prof Aniket Jaaware from University of Pune and Prof Nivedita Menon from JNU New Delhi. Students were quite enthusiastic about the whole thing and I too learned a couple of things from this very productive workshop.

I was fascinated with Prof Jaaware's guest lecture ` Language and Duplicity in Hamlet' which though was not part of the theme of the workshop was extremely insightful and lucid. Prof Jaaware shifted the focus away from the traditional approaches to Hamlet which have largely focused on his ` delay' in murdering his uncle to the use of language in the play. Prof pointed out that this was one of the most verbose plays and there was just too much language and people simply talked too much.

One of the preoccupations in the play as Aniket rightly pointed out was the verbal duplicity and linguistic manipulation of discourse. He drew attention to how Hamlet manipulates words of Polonius and Claudius by twisting them in different ways. Aniket noted that the idea of duplicity would also include `dualness' and talked about how there was often an extra character - for instance `Rosencrantz and Guildenstern' and `Voltemand and Cornelius ' . Aniket also talked about an essay by a noted Shakespearean scholar GT White which focuses on a figure of speech called `Hendiadys' in Hamlet. The figure expresses a single idea using two nouns instead of a noun and its modifier e.g. `He drinks from the cup and gold'. Aniket also noted that the whole idea of delay is only in the mind of Hamlet himself and the critics. No other character is concerned with this problem in the play, not even the Ghost. Hence, the center of duplicity is the figure of Hamlet himself.

Aniket's other lecture was very interesting too. It addressed the question of Identity and the notion of difference. He focussed specifically on the problematic relationship between identity and anonymity with reference to the urban armed resistance. Though armed resistance is about assertion of identity, in the urban context, it uses anonymity in a strategic ways. He said that the fictive identity ( fake identity cards, ration cards, fake driving licenses etc) are to treated very seriously and to be considered almost ` authentic' as the armed guerrillas in the cities cannot afford to be caught for ` improper parking'. Hence the politics of armed resistance in the cities uses a very different kind of identity politics where the `real' identity is often concealed and the fake one is treated as if its authentic.

Prof Menon spoke about the politics and predicament of feminism in contemporary India. Her presentations were extremely lucid and thought provoking. I had not acquainted myself with some of the key ideas of the third wave feminism. My reading of feminism was restricted to the French theorists. After Dr Deeptha's presentation in one of the earlier colloquia and after Prof Nivedita's discussion, I am definitely interested in this area.

Yours truly discussed Aniket Jaawre's essay ` Eating the Dalit and Eating with the Dalit' ( see K Satchidanandan ed. Modernism and After, Sahitya Akademi). I shared my apprehensions about confusion in the essay arising out of unclear distinctions between ` Varna', ` Jati' and `Untouchability'. I also pointed out the confusion arising out of lack on emphasis on the distinctions between ` modernism' and `modernity' in the essay as leading to a certain misunderstanding of the historiography of the post-independence Marathi poetry.

The workshop was inaugurated by the respected Dean of Arts faculty. During his inaugural speech he called Rajan Barett my colleague by the name `Dr. Sachin Ketkar', not once but thrice.
It was befitting of the workshop organized around the theme of identity. While making my presentation on Aniket's essay , I introduced myself as Dr. Rajan Barrett. The respected Dean of the Arts faculty, with his harmless lapse of memory had ushered in an ` anonymity crisis' of sorts in me. Taking away Rajan's identity had resulted in the loss of my identity too. I suggested to Rajan that we have now start resembling Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of the department. He said that we should rather be called the grave-diggers. I wonder whose skull are we going to find under the ruins now. Is it Yorrick's skull?