India in Translation Through Hindi Literature

INDIA IN TRANSLATioN THROUGH HINDI LITERATURE A Plurality of Voices MAYA BURGER & NicoLA POZZA (EDS) Offprint PETER LANG Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • Frankfurt am Main • New York • Oxford • Wien ISBN 978-3-0343-0564-8 © Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, Bern 2010 Hochfeldstrasse 32, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland; [email protected], www.peterlang.com, www.peterlang.net Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................... 7 Note on Transliteration ............................................................................. 8 MAYA BURGER AND NICOLA POZZA Editors’ Introduction ................................................................................. 9 Part I: Selection and Issues of Translation MAYA BURGER Encountering Translation: Translational Historiography in the Connected History of India and Europe ................................................. 25 SUDHIR CHANDRA Translations and the Making of Colonial Indian Consciousness ............ 47 MADAN SONI Before the Translation ............................................................................ 65 THOMAS DE BRUIJN Lost Voices: The Creation of Images of India through Translation ....... 77 ANNIE MONTAUT Translating a Literary Text as Voicing Its Poetics Without Metalanguage: With Reference to Nirmal Verma and Krishna Baldev Vaid ............................................................................. 103 NICOLA POZZA Translating from India and the Moving Space of Translation (Illustrated by the Works of Ajñeya) .................................................... 127 Part II: Reception and Book History ULRIKE STARK Translation, Book History, and the Afterlife of a Text: Growse’s The Rámáyana of Tulsi Dás ................................................. 155 PURUSHOTTAM AGRAWAL “Something Will Ring …” Translating Kabir and His “Life” .............. 181 FLORENCE PASCHE GUIGNARD Go West, Mira! Translating Medieval Bhakti Poetry ........................... 195 GALINA ROUSSEVA-SOKOLOVA Behind and Beyond the Iron Curtain: Reception of Hindi Literature in Eastern and Central Europe ................................... 235 Part III: Practices of Translation and Writing Experiences SUSHAM BEDI Looking in from the Outside: Writing and Teaching in the Diasporic Setting .................................................................................. 249 GEETANJALI SHREE Writing Is Translating Is Writing Is Translating Is … .......................... 267 GIRDHAR RATHI Compunctions in the Act of Translation ............................................... 277 RAINER KIMMIG “… The Savage Silence of Different Languages” or Translating from South Asian Literatures ............................................ 285 Contributors .......................................................................................... 293 Index ..................................................................................................... 297 SUSHAM BEDI Looking in from the Outside: Writing and Teaching in the Diasporic Setting This paper looks into certain questions related to translating and imparting culture as a writer and educator. It focuses on the dual role of a diaspora writer in translating her culture to the adopted country as well as exporting the re- constituted culture back to her native country. It raises questions about Indianness, cultural and linguistic identity, gender and societal issues and changes caused by living in a different geographical space. I am looking at these questions as an outsider trying at the same time to be an insider, as an observer as well as a participant. In other words, being at “home and in the world,” while playing many roles. Being a writer also affects my teaching and both conditions are in a way interconnected as I bring a sense of telling and getting a story in the classroom. It also effects the selection of materials – a preference for historical, political and literary. I have looked into my own no- vels and short stories and into my experience as a Hindi teacher at Columbia University to answer some of these questions. A writer reveals multifaceted truths of her/his times and her/his society; the main challenge lies in authentically depicting those truths. A diaspora writer must unearth and excavate the truths of two societies, her current one and that of her/his place of origin. Thus, as a diaspora writer, my responsibility is twofold: to the place where I now live as well as towards my birthplace. Whether I like it or not, I can never escape the imprints left upon me in the formative years of my life; miles and decades of separation from my birthplace will never erase those first influences. Language connects me to my birthplace. I remain intimately in- volved with Hindi, my native language, both by writing in it and by teaching it. Teaching Hindi supports my writing economically, linguisti- cally, emotionally and creatively. But the cultural ethos of what has become home invariably leaves its own imprint and colors on the creative process. One becomes cognizant 250 Susham Bedi of these influences slowly, sometimes after many years and only through gauging their effect on one’s writing; sometimes others draw our atten- tion to these changes and sometimes we notice them ourselves. Whatever one becomes is a product of various degrees of adaptation. Just as we differ from each other as individuals, so too do the adaptations we make. What is claimed, retained, given up, assimilated, adopted is a matter of individual difference. This is true for all immigrants but especially so for sensitive souls. Some may protest, others indulge in denial, but the process is inevitable. What is “my India” or “my Indian culture”? These are important questions and so is the question of how much of the West, of America has permeated my Indianness. In this paper, I will try to address the issue of how the two, my Indianness and my North American experience, are reflected in and inform my writing and teaching. So what is my India? Which India am I trying to construct in my writing and teaching? What is that culture that gives me my self-image of being an Indian? My dress? My language? My Hindi teaching? My thought processes, my values, or my opinions? Certainly my appearance, that is my clothes and style of dressing, is a part of this self-image. I came to this country as a wife of a diplomat, representing India; wearing a sari was obligatory at official functions. When I started teaching at Columbia University, the same seemed natu- ral to me in the formal setting of a classroom. Wearing Western clothes or dressing in a Western way was neither required of me nor was it natu- ral. In time I made all sorts of changes in my dressing style; I still wear saris and salwar kameez but I have found a sort of “fusion dress” – long skirts – works best for me. All these aspects of my Indian self play an important part in my role as a teacher. The students in my classes are of Indian origin as well as of European descent. My choice of dress may initially alienate some of my students, but as the semester progresses they feel comfortable with me in class as well as outside the classroom. I become a representative of my culture to them; they ask me a variety of questions that deal with Indian dress. Some students have even wanted to learn how to tie a sari! In the past I have had gatherings at my home where female students tried on my saris and salwar kameez. At the end of every semester we host a party at my home where we cook together and discuss spices and recipes. A Writing and Teaching in the Diasporic Setting 251 number of times the party has become a potluck when students cooked and brought Indian dishes. More important than dress and food are my values, my thinking, and what is called saskr: the relevance of social and familial context and the particularity of time and space in which I grew up. My saskra given to me by my native land has constructed and framed my thinking and my attitudes. So what were those values and mores? This is a vast topic but I can shed light on some aspects of it. I will consider here my life experiences, the circumstances that have shaped my individuality and how they have impacted my writing and teaching. Needless to say, there is no one “India”; many strands, from different eras, regions, religions and cultures exist simultaneously: there is rural India and there is the urban expanse, there is the North and there is the South, and so on. Diversity of all kinds is a fact of Indian life. I am a woman, born and raised in India. What does it mean to be that kind of a woman? Family, values (saskra), instructions, taboos, expectations of self-control, suppression and inferior status as compared to that of a boy all play a part in the creation of self and identity. My family belonged to a sect called Arya Samaj. Education for all, social reforms, rejection of idol worship and centrality of the Vedas and recitation of mantras are all central tenets of this sect. At the same time, the contemporary social and political movements also cast their spell on my development. Secularism and non-alignment propagated by Nehru, the national movement for independence, an em- phasis on progressivism as well as Western romanticism and orientation to sciences, particularly psychology, were revelations for me. What permeated every aspect of our lives was modernity. But this was not the modernity that rejected tradition outright; it sought to create a balance between the two. Coming

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