Session on 'Translations and Indian Writing'

‘Lost in translation’ is an oft-used phrase conveying a word or a sentence, or an expression perhaps, whose meaning or nuance takes on an altogether different form when passing from one language to another.
In the session, ‘Translations and Indian Writing’, Gillian Wright and Mridula Garg set out to prove how true the phrase is, especially in the context of translating Hindi into English.They were speaking on day three of the Rajnigandha Times Delhi LitFest.
Translations, said Wright, open a window on to the past and the present. “They’re very important,” she emphasized. Wright described herself as a consumer of translations, always on the lookout for “unusual things”. “I think we’re missing out on a lot,” she rues, referring to the lack of English translations of works in Indian languages.
Wright has translated three works of Hindi fiction into English, while Garg has had almost 30 books published, three of which she has translated into English herself.
Garg gave the example of her novel, ‘Chittacobra’, the title of which she coined. “It was a combination of two words – ‘Chitta’, which means consciousness in Sanskrit, and cobra,” she shared. This was one of the works she translated herself. “You’re anyway half-mad, and in a trance, when writing a novel. To be half-mad again is difficult!”
Still, there’s a lot more “leeway” offered to an author when translating her own work. In many ways, she added, it becomes a new work.
Garg also spoke about another novel of hers, of how literally translating the title (‘Kathgulab’) into English (‘woodrose’) did not appeal to either the editor or the publisher. “I wanted to convey the imagery, but they felt the English word didn’t have the resonance of the Hindi. So it was named ‘Country of Goodbyes’” On the other hand, a Japanese translation of the same piece of fiction was titled ‘woodrose’. “The Japanese translator, who speaks beautiful, idiomatic Hindi, felt the word was exotic.
“It depends on your mental make-up, and on the culture that you come from.” Still, the title, felt Garg, is as important as the subject matter of what is translated.
Wright admitted it is challenging getting across meaning in Hindi into English. “The Hindi language is full of dialects, and words from other languages, which makes it very difficult to translate from Hindi to English.” In this context, Wright said it is easier to translate, say, the fiction of Nirmal Verma, located as it is in an urban middle-class milieu, than a work set in a village in eastern Uttar Pradesh, with its many dialects.
Garg alluded to the difficulty of translating “love and longing”, particularly love and longing that’s of an “ephemeral” nature. “Because Hindi is emotive, and so is Japanese, but English is not.
“There are so many layers, and you end up leaving so much unsaid.”