8.6 Gowri Ramnarayan & Kamlakar Bhat: On Why South Indian Lit Should Be Your Next Obsession

Lost in Translation? Or Found in the Process?

In this episode, we talk to Gowri Ramnarayan and Kamalakar Bhat, two translators dedicated to bringing Tamil and Kannada texts to life in English.

Gowri shares the complex challenges of translating her grandfather’s historical novel, Ponniyin Selvan, from seamlessly blending poetry into prose to interpreting the layered meanings of cultural expressions. Kamalakar opens up about his translation of Kirtinath Kurtkoti's essays, Courtesy of Criticism, and how the process often involves reconstructing missing historical context and striking a balance between accuracy and accessibility. Together, they explore how translation is not just linguistic work but a journey into the heart of a text.

If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to translate a story without losing its soul, this episode is for you. Expect insights, behind-the-scenes secrets, and a fresh perspective on the art of bringing Indian literature to the world.

Books, shows and films mentioned in this episode:

• Yugadharma Haagu Sahitya Darshana (Kannada) by Kirtinath Kurtkoti
• Sakina's Kiss by Vivek Shanbhag
• Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag
• Mithun Number Two and Other Mumbai Stories by Jayant Kaikini
• Tejo Tungabhadra by Vasudhendra
• Author recommendations:
  • Salma
  • Imaya Kumar Jagannathan
  • Prapanchan
  • Mogalli Ganesh
  • Abdul Rasheed
  • H. S. Shivaprakash

‘Books and Beyond with Bound’ is the podcast where Tara Khandelwal and Michelle D’costa uncover how their books reflect the realities of our lives and society today. Find out what drives India’s finest authors: from personal experiences to jugaad research methods, insecurities to publishing journeys. Created by Bound, a storytelling company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social media platforms.

Transcript

Tara Khandelwal: 0:02

Un Welcome to Books and Beyond. With bound I'm Tara Khandelwal and I'm Vishal d'cota, in this podcast, we talk to India's finest authors and uncover the stories behind the best written book and dissect how these books shape our lives and worldviews today. So

Michelle D'costa: 0:20

let's dive in. This episode is part of our branded series with Penguin Random House India. Hi everyone. Welcome to Books and Beyond. Today, I'm super excited to delve into two books which dive deep into the world of South Indian literature, and they actually connect the broader audiences to translation. Right? In a way, we are uniting cultures from, you know, Tamil and Kannada literature, which sort of we don't get to see every day. We are joined by two remarkable translators, Kamala kar Bhatt and Gauri namra Nayar. So Kamla karbat is a bilingual writer, a poet and a translator. So he has translated courtesy of critics, which is a collection of essays by the Distinguished Scholar and critic kirtinath Kurt Kothi. So by translating his essays from Kannada to English, this book actually introduces, you know, literary and cultural critiques by kirtina to a broader audience. I was very much intrigued by this book because I have never read any book which sort of emphasizes on the knowledge and the cultural roots of Kannada literature. And actually, being a mandorian, I've always wanted to dig deeper into Kannada literature, and this was very eye opening for me. And we also have Gauri ramnaran with us today. She's a writer, playwright, theater director, musician, journalist, and she's the legendary kalkis granddaughter, and she's a critically acclaimed biographer as well. So she's translated kalki's historical novel, pony and silver, and we are actually going to talk about the first part, which is called first flood, right? And the book follows a period of ambition, power, betrayal, you know, set in 10th century Tamil Nadu, right, during the reign of the Choza dynasty. Now, what I like about this book is that it's an iconic story by Kalki, obviously, which was written in Tamil. And I don't think a lot of Indians would have known about it. Had it? Not you know, seen this sort of translation. So I'm very eager to dive deeper into this. Welcome kamlaker and Gauri. So excited to speak to both of you today. Thank

Kamalakar Bhat: 2:31

you so much. It's really exciting. And thank you to Books and Beyond for this episode on our book kirtinath Kut kuti is courtesy of criticism. I am really looking forward to, forward to talking about this book and the essays that I have translated of kirtinath Kuch Koti. Thank you very much for having us on this episode.

Gowri Ramnarayan: 2:55

Thank you so much for inviting me to be a part of this. I'm particularly glad that I am, I'm in this event along with another writer, another eminent writer, who's not a translator, because I think the breed of translators are kind of unsung, unknown, and they remain in the margins, so it's kind of nice to be given some visibility or audibility. So thank you very much. No,

Michelle D'costa: 3:21

it's a pleasure. And yes, it's really nice to have both of you here. So before we actually move into the process of translation, you know, because both of you are really renowned translators, I actually want to start with the content of the books, right? The original content of the books, right? So I want to know sort of, let's say, start with, you know, Kamala kar so, you know, kirtinath was a chronicler of changing literature in Kannada, right, you know. So we know that there was a lot that was sort of changing in that period regards to genre, style, content. And he felt sort of like, you know, literature in the, I would say, late 19th or early 20th century were actually embracing, as well as well as resisting western influences, which is quite interesting, and he was actually observing it with a very keen eye. So could you please tell us what was happening in that period, and what you think you know, I would say, was like sort of the starting point, or what made him want to chronicle all of that.

Kamalakar Bhat: 4:16

It's very interesting that Kirti began as a poet. In fact, his first published work is a collection of poems called Ghana Kelly. He never really intended to become a critic, which he eventually did. He started as a poet, then he started writing plays. In fact, one of his plays was awarded a prize by the then Bombay government. He also did some translations from Marathi into Canada and from English into Canada. So he was primarily into poetry play. Is and translation. But in 1958 manohari Grantham ale of Dharwad, with whom he was closely associated. In fact, he was an advisor for this publishing house, and he remained an advisor until his death in 2003 they had completed 25 years, you know, of being publishers of Kannada works. So they wanted to bring out some anthologies of modern Kannada literature, therefore, in every genre, and they, you know, asked kirinath kudkou to curate it and write introductions to each volume. This is, this was his first piece of criticism. That's when he first wrote, you know, any kind of critical essays. But it was remarkable that by that time kids got it, had already acquired immense scholarship, not only in Canada literature, but also in Sanskrit literature. And he was familiar with English literature, and he was also familiar with Marathi literature, even consequent, you know, later on, he even learned Gujarati and he he was familiar with Gujarati literature. He was familiar with Hindi and Urdu literature as well. Thus, he was primarily a multilingual scholar. But going back to his first book, 1959 to 1961 when these anthologies were published and when he wrote his first criticism, this was a period when the Kannada literature was, in fact, in transition, some kind of transition. Of course, it was soon after. It was soon after India's independence, and a decade of Independence was over. And like other languages, Kanda also had a modern literature. It had emerged from its, you know, ancient literatures or the medieval forms of literature. And there was a huge rupture, of course, this modern literatures, as in the case of other Indian language literatures was, of course, influenced and mediated by colonial impact. And kirtanath kudkothy was taking stock of what is the nature of this emergence, and he was also interested in trying to understand to what extent in Kannada literature there is a continuity with the ancient and the medieval Kannada literatures. Although the late 19th century Kannada literature marked a departure from the traditions Kannada literary traditions in some respects, primarily with reference to new genre, genres emerging, such as lyric writing, such as novel writing, and even in drama, new form of drama writing emerged. So all these were in terms of forms they were new. So he wanted to explore what are the continuities and discontinuities between the ancient the medieval kandara literary traditions and the emergent ganda literature. And in that first, you know, remarkable book, which eventually was published in 1962 in book form, these introductions that he had written for the anthologies. And the title of that book was Yuga Dharma and Sahitya Vikasa, which basically means the spirit of the times and the literary evolution. So in that remarkable book, he takes stock of the entire spectrum of Kanta literature, from its earliest articulations to the end of 19th century. The sheer breadth of that enterprise was breathtaking. He He talks about all the ancient writers in Canada, such as beginning with Pampa, Rana, Jannah, and their contributions, their significance, and the medieval literatures, the transformations there, the evolutions there, the emergence of new forms during this period. And then he comes to the late 19th century, when under the influence of colonialism, colonial education and the influence of colonial literature. A new literary practices were emerging. So it was really breathtaking, with respect to the kind of scholarship he could bring to it, and with with respect to the kind of encyclopedic vision that he had. And that is the reason why I think that first book had a immense impact when it was published in 1962 and it went on to be studied as a kind of a resource text by all the students and scholars of literature in Canada for many, many years. Yeah,

Michelle D'costa: 10:37

and I think, I think this sort of depth and the range comes across when you read the essays. I'm so glad that, you know, he was asked to actually write introductions to an anthology. As you said, I really loved hearing that origin story, because I think that sort of sparked that idea in him. Sparked that's probably that interest to chronicle it, you know, on a more serious note, I guess, thank you so so Gauri in, in your case, let's say, you know, pony and Selwyn is, is a classic, you know, and it's written in, you know, the 1950s right? So I want to hear a bit about, sort of like, let's say, you know, the origin story of it. What do you think was sort of the intention of writing the book back then, and the sort of sensation that it became,

Gowri Ramnarayan: 11:19

you know, when Kalki wrote only in Selwyn, he had already become a celebrity, a celebrity writer, a celebrity editor, and he was a very important person in the Tamil world of literature, you know, and particularly politics. So before I go to pony and sell one, I must say that Kalki began his life as he was born into a very ordinary family, and they were in provident family, you can say, in a village, and he had the responsibility of having to take care of his family without the father was also absent. The father was dead. So this man, he was the only person who was sent to study in school, because they could not afford to send all the children to school because he was the most intelligent, but he gave up school in answer to Mahatma Gandhi's non cooperation movement call. And then he joined the Congress party's office in tiriti, a small town in Tamil Nadu. And he began became, became a pamphlet here for the messages that that party wanted to send out. Then he wrote straightforward propaganda stories which were which were definitely intended to promote certain ideals of the Congress leaders to the people, and in small publications and as as pamphlets which were being distributed. And he went to prison and so on and so forth. He happened to become a journalist, because he thought that through journalism he could propagate these ideas and reach a wider audience. So this intention of being a propagandist existed in him all his life. And whatever he wrote, he said, I'm not writing to entertain people. I'm writing to provoke thought and invoke values. This was a very clear agenda. He had an agenda. And he named himself Kalki. And he says, why? He says, This is the 10th Avatar of Vishnu which destroys everything I want to destroy everything regressive and build a new world. Look at the the the arrogance and the confidence of a young man with nothing really to give him that confidence. You know, he was able to feel that he could make a change with his pen. But this was two of many writers across India during that period, because they were fired by idealism. So when he wrote pony and sell, when he had already written two classics, and this was something that he says in his Epilog, that when he started writing pony and Selman. The image this was published as a serial in his magazine, and it ran for three and a half years, and people waited in bus stops, in train stations, in shops, in queues to get the first copy. This. The kind of enthusiasm it provoked was something that stunned the author himself, though he was used to fame and celebrate this something. This was something exceptional. And the magazine Kalki, of which he was the editor, became the largest circulating publication in India, all newspapers, all publications in every language in India during the time phony and sermon was published. So you can imagine the kind of surprise and astonishment that the writer and delight that the writer would have felt. Why did he write pony and Sylvan? It started in 1950 that was the year India had become a republic. So this is actually a meditation on leadership. He was absolutely convinced that only the person who did not desire power should be given power. So this was a warning to the people of India to make sure that they elect the right person who would not be interested in power and would govern the country well. And he chose the face of Raja, Raja Chora, or arguably one of the greatest kings of the Tamil territory, in order to be. Because he made he would prove to be a remarkable King, with extraordinary success, building a huge country across the seas in later life. But he shows Rajaraja as a young boy. So this is the beginning of India as a republic. So what are we going to achieve in this country? What are we going to do? What are our goals? What are our values? So when he creates puny and Salvan, if you've read when you read punyan saliva, you'll know that he creates this character as an amalgam of all the qualities that he admired in his leaders, the integrity and uprightness of Mahatma Gandhi, the charm of Jawaharlal Nehru, the steel of walabhai Patel, the gentleness of Abul Kalam Azad and the brilliant, astute mind of Raja Ji. So this is how puny and Salvin developed, and all the political intrigues that you will see there, you will see how people yield to corruption and to all the malign influences in a great in a great society. And he shows how these have to be fought by people in order to create a great country for themselves. And we do know that after the story ends for Neil Sullivan, story ends Raja. Raja becomes one of the greatest monarchs of the South, and he his conquest a legion, and his accomplishments in the world of art, sculpture and painting and literature and dance and music is what was something extraordinary. So this is a composite figure. This is, this was his dream for India. He was redefining India and formatting it in pony and seven and using the swashbuckling structure of a historical novel in order to achieve his own ends. At least that's how I read it. Yeah.

Michelle D'costa: 16:38

No, it's really fascinating that that, you know, both sort of, I would say, Kalki and Kirti, not in their own ways. They were, you know, thinkers, you know, during that day, they were sort of, you know, revolutionaries in their own way, trying to, trying to, sort of, I would say, disrupt the status quo, trying to disrupt what currently exists, and say no, but you know, this is what we think is actually happening. It's really, really interesting to see that, and how you, both of you, have sort of brought that alive for audiences of today, which I think is really cool. So now, obviously, you know, I want to know more about the translation process. So, you know, I know that, you know, let's say, when we talk about Kannada literature, as you said, kamakar, there are so many writers over years who have written, you know, masterpieces. So you as a translator, sort of, how did this book sort of speak to you? You know, what about this? You know, picked your interest. And sort of, could you please tell us a bit about the process of, sort of, you know, translating such loaded texts of a scholar? Because we do know that these are quite academic texts.

Kamalakar Bhat: 17:39

Well, how did I choose to select Kirti Nath kutchkotti for translation? You know, there are multiple factors. First of all, I wanted to bring to English readers something that can introduce the depth and range of Kangra literature. And I couldn't think of anyone better than Kurt Kothi to do that effectively and competently. Although there have been literatures of histories of Kanda literature written by others, there are multiple histories of Canada literature which are primarily a chronological presentation of, you know, writings and publications. That is not what Kurt Kotti does. Kurt Kothi brings in a certain kind of, you know, insight into the continuity between periods, continuity between writers and the He traces the common elements and patterns across periods and across generations. And he's, he's perhaps the only critic to have written about such a large, you know, let's say spectrum, such a large era, he has written about virtually every major Kannada writer from ancient literature, ancient Kannada literature, usually in the history of Canada literature. The Canada literature is divided into three periods, ancient Canada literature, medieval Canada literature and modern Kannada literature, which is late 19th century onwards, and he has written virtually about every major Kanda writers of these periods, and written with, with great, you know, insight. Now, this was definitely one of the reasons, because I was looking for somebody who could, best, you know, introduce Canada literature to non Canada readers. The second reason I chose to translate his NAT coach Koti, is because, you know, I'm very much interested in in the field of post colonial literature and post. Colonial thinking. And here was a writer. Here was a young man of maybe 2030, years in 1951 1959 when he wrote these essays that are compiled in his collection yoga Dharma and saita Vikasa, he was 31 years old, and in 1959 he wrote very unequivocally about the need to study Kannada literature and in a by extension, Indian literatures not in continuation or in relation to English literature, irrespective of the influence they may have drawn from English literature. He was of the opinion that they should be read in relation to their own literary traditions. He also was unequivocal in arguing for a decolonized ways of literary studies, establishing decolonized ways of literary studies. So by that count, perhaps he was one of the earliest post colonial critics, and this was remarkable. Now people haven't really recognized him as a post colonial critic, simply because he doesn't use the kind of language that we come across in a post COVID employing this was the second reason that he was very clearly somebody who was interested in establishing ways of reading literature by not through a monochromatic lens of the Western frameworks of literary studies. I have a three reason. When I was, whenever I studied Kannada literature, one would come across kirtis name. And there were multiple. There were many, many legends about him. One of the legends about him was his memory. You know, there are many, many stories about how kiernaturkoti would, you know, speak very fluently about any period of Kannada literature, about any writer in Canada, and without the help of notes or texts he would quote, you know, long passages from ancient epic poems and or modern lyric poems, Pampa or kumaraviyasa, whoever, as well as Kalidasa, bhasa bhavabhuti, you know. So he was legendary in terms of his memory, one of one such story about Kurth Cody's memory pertains to the great Canada poet Dr Bendre, the dnapita awardee lyricist. This perhaps was some sometime in 1960s when Bendre was teaching in Solapur, and a play that he had written was to be performed in Dharwad, and two days before the performance of the play, the group discovered that two lines of a song in the play are missing. They are assumed that it is a complete song, but then they discovered that it is missing. Now there was no way they could contact Bendre, who was far away in sulapur, and this performance was being done in Dharwad. So apparently Kurt Kothi, who was in Dharwad, he gave them those two missing he wrote the two missing lines, and on the day of the performance, of course, Bendre was back in Dharwad. He reached Dharwad, and to everyone's surprise, there wasn't much difference between the original two lines that Bendre had written and the two lines furnished by kushcoti. So there are many such stories SR Vijay Shankar, who has written a monograph on kirtanath Kush Koti, you know, humorously quotes an occasion when he spoke to his wife. And his wife, apparently, that is kirtanath kudko, his wife, who apparently said that, you know, you all keep praising his remarkable memory. But whenever I tell him to go and get a few things from the Kirana store, if I tell him to bring three things, he would have forgotten two things. So that says something about kirdina Worth Court is, you know, memory being partial to literature. KV subarna had received Maxis award. KV subbana, the founder of Nina Sam, the place in a remote village where he started a theater group, where he started a publishing house, a cultural center, etc. So when he received Maxi award, He dedicated the amount the award money to conduct literary workshops. Ops in colleges in all the towns and, you know, remote places and kids, one of the resource persons. And he was ready to speak to anyone anywhere about literature. It doesn't have to be, you know, scholars. It doesn't have to be in big universities or in in Metro town, in metro cities, he was always ready to speak about literature to anyone. So whenever he visited Dharwad in the attic of Manohar grant Mala, there would be a, you know, there would be a regular meetings where people would come sit and talk about literature. And it would go on, apparently, till late in the night, up to 12 o'clock, talking most of the time, of course, with Koti talking so many, many writers. So all these legends about Kurt Kothi and his great enthusiasm for literature, you know, that is something that also attracted me to the kind of work he has done. One final thing I want to mention before I conclude this section, is that Kurt Kothi was not merely writing literary criticism. He uses, in fact, a word in Kannada which simply means the word is Hara, which means casual conversation. For him, talking about literature was not a matter of, you know, showing off his scholarship. It was a matter of sharing his passion. It was a matter of sharing his passion. Therefore, he was ready wherever, even in even in bus stand, he would stand and talk about literature for an hour. He so he had this absolute enthusiasm for literature, passion for literature, and he made use of every means. And writing was only one of the ways in which he did that literary criticism was perhaps a very little of the amount of, you know, amount amount of talk that he has delivered on literature, what he has written is perhaps much less so. These are the reasons why I believed it would be best to, you know, start with kirsinath kurta. Oh,

Michelle D'costa: 27:22

thank you. Thank you for sort of bringing alive the kind of person he was. I think it shows that his love for literature, his enthusiasm for literature, sort of his personality, is what drew you to the work, and not just the academic form of writing. And it's also very interesting to know that he had a memory of an elephant of sorts when it comes to literature, but everything else was like It fell out of the door. So, yeah, but, you know, Gauri, I mean, I want to know about, you know, sort of, you know, why you chose to sort of translate this book, you know, I'm sure being the granddaughter of kalki would have, you know, come with its own sort of pressure. Would have come with its own expectations. Because, you know, I'm sure you have grown up in a family in, you know, a culture of Tamil literature, traditions, all of that was that sense of pressure that you felt sort of while translating this epic. Did you feel like, okay, you know, am I doing justice to this? And sort of, I would sort of want to understand how did your connection with him, or sort of being part of the family sort of influence, you know, the translation of this whole series.

Gowri Ramnarayan: 28:26

Not very sure I can answer this question well, because I don't think I it was not unlike Mr. Kamala. But I did not choose to translate this. In fact, I thought that I was not going to translate anymore because I was fed up with translations on the whole so. But when penguin asked me, and I asked my family, and I said, Oh my god, 2500 pages, and, you know, six volumes, how am I ever going to do it? I'll have to sign away my life for the next two years and not do anything else. My family, everyone said that if you turn it down, you will regret it. So that was the reason why I undertook translating this because, you know, translation is a very tough task master. It's and it does not have the the excitement of creative writing, at least for me. You know, you learn a lot. It's, I mean, and when you do it well, you feel there are passages. When you do well, you feel very happy, and when you do it badly, you know you're down in the dumps. But it's something that, I mean, it's a labor, there's no doubt about it. But the fact that I had read Kalki from the time I was very young, I started reading very young. So from six years from the time I was six, and I had not read his novels there. See, I'd read all his political writings. He was majorly a political writer. And I mean, every issue of kalki, he would rewrite the leader, and he would write about some political campaign. He would write about the political leaders he tried about the World War when he was, you know, when it was, he was basically a journalist. And I. I somehow found that very fascinating when I was young. So I became, I became aware of a style without knowing it. And he, one of the things that makes you makes downable is his humor. He, you know, which is sadly a casualty in translation. I think, because humor is the most difficult thing to translate, you know, from one language to another, so that something you know, and his tongue in cheek humor that you know, kept me really interested. But when I started doing the translation, I now realize that it is probably the most important work that I've done in my life, for myself. Forget about others for myself, because I can't tell you the number of things I learned about my own culture. First of all, the pleasure of working, living immersed in your own mother tongue, which is something it's a privilege for me, because I write in English. I write in English. I'm a journalist, right? So it was a great pleasure to be with your language, to feel the rhythms of your language. That was the first thing. Secondly, the the what I've learned not only about Tamil culture, of course, the book is talks about a Tamil kingdom and a Tamil world and so on, but actually about universal values, which are so important now. So I really don't think about the impact that it is creating on others, or whether it will be successful or not. I mean, if I start thinking along those lines, I don't think I can work at all. I just have to think of how best I can do it, and what joy it brings me. For instance, one of the things that I really learned from this book, which I know is so important to us today is that communal harmony is most important, because Kalki talks about it. He pony Silvan, the main character. He knows Jesus Christ. And he mentions Jesus Christ, you know, and the religion that has come up in the in foreign countries. And then he talks about Buddhism, you know, he's influenced by Buddhism. And we know from history that the Chora monarchs gave supported every religion, people of every creed in their country. They made a special effort to do that. So those are things that I would not have paid attention to when I was reading it as a novel, right? Second thing is I also noticed that tremendous importance is given to women. The novel is driven by women, extremely intelligent, savvy, shrewd, crafty women. So he was not talking about the equality, you know, gender equality, you know, as a slogan. He showed it in this book. And then the other thing that really moved me is his socialist principles. So he's a congressman. He didn't admire Prakash naran, and he you can see that he finally makes a spoiler, but he finally makes a gardener, the emperor of the Chora kingdom, and a boat woman, a fisher woman, she becomes a queen. And so you know these in imperceptible ways. You realize the value of human beings, and how the equality, fraternity, liberty, these things that we've learned from the French Revolution, you actually learn were part of your own culture, you know, and so, or at least conceptualized as our own culture, by Kalki, much of it he has taken from history, but of course, his own ideologies, they would definitely have to enter till Kalki was writing historical novels in order to remind the people of their own glory, then the magnificence of their own culture, and also to make you remove the inferiority, the sense of insecurity that had been bred into them by the foreign by foreign rule, 150 years of British rule. So this, this, these are the things that I learned by doing this book. So my attitude towards translating has been just living with the text for myself, doing my best with it, trying to understand it as best I can, and trying to communicate what I have learned through the language that I use in English. Because, you know, language plays a very important part, right, the choice of the word. So by the words that I choose to communicate these ideas which I feel are, you know, like flames burning out of the book, you know, so that that's the best way. Best thing that I can say about the book that it it really energizes you. It fires you up, and it makes you believe in values, which, in our cynical times, they're very difficult to remember and to hold on to, and very difficult to be. You know, you feel dispirited. So translating this has, in a way, got me out of depression about our political world, because it shows hope that translating this book has sort of put heart back into me, because we live in a very cynical world, or at least I feel cynical sometimes when you read the newspaper, and it's very difficult not to feel dispirited, discouraged, you know and do. Translating this book has made me feel that ideals are not things which are come. Completely out of your world, that it is possible to reclaim them, to repossess them, and to make them a part of your life. And I in the choice of words, in the way in which I've translated, I've tried to share these feelings of mine, as well as tell the story without adding anything of my own. Of course, yeah,

Michelle D'costa: 35:19

that's so nice to hear Gauri, I'm really it's really interesting to see that, you know how much fun you've had translating, and not just fun. It's sort of, as you said, it's about reflective piece you have learned so much. You know, in the process, it's really good. I'm really glad that your family sort of pushed you to do this, and they said you might regret it, because honestly, it is, I would say, not just the work, obviously the work that we have read. But I think it's also the process that sort of, you know, made you and sort of kamlacker Enjoy the whole you know, process that makes it even more special. And in fact, that's the exact question that I wanted to ask you, Gauri, because as you spoke about the language and how difficult it is to, you know, translate humor, for example, for me, I loved the conversation style of the book, and I, honestly, I thought it would it that was one of the, maybe the most difficult things for you to do, because, you know, from Tamil to English. So I don't know if you remember any phrases or any idioms as such that you encountered in Tamil in the original version that you sort of struggled to translate into English. And you can, obviously, you know, maybe tell us the line in Tamil, and then sort of tell us what you chose, or what you sort of maybe what you omitted to translate. Was there anything with that

Gowri Ramnarayan: 36:28

every day, every passage, every sentence, to translate? Because, first and foremost, the style that Kalki uses, which you might have got out of the first book, is that which I've tried to retain, though it is kind of, it's not really an English way of thinking or writing. See, languages belong to two entirely different cultural realms, so, and the thing is, many of his sentences are questions, you know, and then, didn't this happen? And don't you think that this is so? So in English, we don't all as some of the most profound thoughts are framed in the form of questions. And for me to reproduce it in English was very difficult. And the second thing is, unless you know the original it's very difficult for you to follow what I'm saying, I think. But Kalki is language is something very he developed it. Developed it on his own. He evolved it. It's called, I mean, for want of a better word. Critics have called it Kalki Tamil, because there is nothing like it before and there is nothing like it afterwards. He created his own language, which is really a very chatty language, and Raja Ji, his mentor, described it best. I think he said that kalki's language is like two friends talking. He's your friend. He's talking to you with his arm around you, and you're walking together, and you keep going, and he keeps talking without looking back. So that is the style, because he didn't have time to revise anything. He was the editor of the magazine. He was writing the political stuff. He was writing reviews of dance music theater. He was going to attending concerts. He was a critic of music and dance. And he was also building monuments to Bharati and Superman and Mahatma Gandhi. He was doing, he was functioning as a secretary and later the president of the Tamil Nadu association of writers. So he was his life. I don't know how he fitted in so many things within 24 hours, you know. So it was this was not the only thing that he was doing, only himself when he wrote at night, after he finished all the work for the magazine, and then after dinner, he would sit and write it. In the night, go to sleep, and in the morning it would be sent to the press. This is how he wrote it. My uncle told me I was four when he died, so I have no way of knowing I don't remember him at all, except some vague memories. So this is something that excited me, the fact that a man could do so many things and do them so well, and also write this novel about the translation. I was telling about the difficulties of translation. I don't think I can remember any particular phrase at this moment. If you told me earlier, I would have given you a whole list, but I can tell you the difficulties, the major difficulties, first, it could use the language itself. Secondly, he uses onomatopoeia all the time. That is impossible to get in English. English is not a language which allows it's not a lyrical language. In fact, once when a K Ramanujan asked me about his translations from the arbar poems, I said they are fantastic as modern poetry, but there is no musicality. Whereas the arbar poems and the saiwa poems of Tamil Nadu, I don't know about the Kannada, vachana Kavita, because I don't know Kannada, they thrive on a musicality, on a melodious, rhythmic lilt. You know, that was completely missing in the English translation. So I remember that he's Ramanujan. Is my god, translator God. So I pray to Him every day before I start working. So, you know. And so that is one thing, language. Then quotes, like quotes from an enormous over, I don't know if that's the word you pronounce it, of Tamil poetry, from the Sangam poetry of you know, 2000 years ago, to modern poetry, medieval poetry. I mean, there's nothing that he has left untouched. The book is, you have read the book, you know how many poems he has quoted, translating them was man sheer hell, because I'm not a poet, and I don't translate poetry, so I'm each one has a different language. So I mean the Tamil, and each of them so different, and the purpose is different, the tone is different. So that was extremely difficult. What makes it more difficult is that he himself. These were so internalized in him. All these poems, my mother read it aloud to me. So did my uncle, but my mother used to sing all the songs in music as she was so they were integral to the poem. Poetry was integral to the novel. Now that goes out of the window, absolutely goes out of the window. And then the third is that he uses a sort of a visual imagery which I find impossible to translate in English. That visual I tried my best, but the visuality in English is very different from the visual experience in an Indian language. And when he and book abounds in descriptions, and these descriptions, or these descriptions, he has used an extremely high toned language, and for the conversations, they are extremely colloquial, you know, like chats, right? So you you read the book. So, you know, so to navigate these 234, streams, that was absolute. It was very, very difficult. And then finally, I would say that the righteousness and the in the intrepidity, the valor and so on. Those are qualities that we associate with our Indian way of life. When you translate them into English, they sound mockish, they sound sentimental, they sound absurd, in fact. So how do you do it? I mean, it's, it's a real challenge. So, my god,

Michelle D'costa: 42:16

yeah, it definitely. I mean, I obviously, you know, anticipated that there would be a struggle with the language, but just the way you've explained it, I can imagine the layers of complexity and the kind of effort you have put in. And definitely, I mean, as someone, I mean, I can't tell because I haven't read the original version, but what I can tell is, you know, the kind of lyrical quality, as you mentioned, the poems and the stuff, honestly, for me, that was the highlight of the book. Like I have a poet, and whenever I see something like, I mean, prose is obviously beautiful, right? I mean, it's for a reason. I mean, it's a historical novel, right? It should be prose. But then for me, I felt the poetry is what sort of elevated, you know, the story, and it sort of made it what it is. And I can only imagine, you know, as your mother would have, sort of, you know, sang these songs to you, or sort of recited the poetry. I'm sure it would have been a whole different experience altogether,

Gowri Ramnarayan: 43:12

absolutely. And also, you would notice that the poetry is not there as quotations. They're connected to the situation, to the character under the ambience. The entire ambience is evoked by that poetry, exactly idea of that age, right? So to bring that in English was, I don't know how much went out of the window, yeah,

Michelle D'costa: 43:34

no, that's what I wanted to say. So as someone who reads in English, I can say it was definitely something like a wholesome experience, right? And I think you've, obviously, you've done a really, really good job. So thank you so much for bringing bringing, sort of all of these aspects together. And you

Gowri Ramnarayan: 43:49

are a small story about this, because you're so taunted by these poems that I asked, I have a friend called Whitney Cox who teaches in Chicago, University of Chicago. So I wrote to Whitney and said, Whitney, can are these? Are the poems? Can you find translations done by other people? Because they're well known poems, you know? Can you find those translations? Or maybe do some for me? So he sent me through, sent me quite a few translations. None of them worked in the context, because the language that each poet had used to translate was very different from kar King language, so it sounded too modern and too spare and too complicated, you know. So I had to just throw it all away. And then, though they were probably far better than my efforts. And then I had to just depend on myself to say, Okay, this is what this is. This guy is saying this. How would he say it? What would he reciting this poem, how would he feel about it? What would he say? Yeah, and what is like your your vision as a translator and in the context? So when you get it from somebody else, they are doing it out of context, out of out of out of context for this book. So it didn't work.

Michelle D'costa: 44:57

Wow. That's really, really fascinating. To just see the kind of, you know, sure effort and the sort of like, I would say it's almost like writing another book, actually, if you think about this, the kind of effort and the kind of thinking, Yeah, very much. So I think it should be a

Gowri Ramnarayan: 45:13

writer to translate. I'm sure you can't really translate another person's thoughts without analyzing it, making it making it your own. Especially, I don't know about nonfiction, because I've done one work of nonfiction which is very different, but a work fiction has to become yours,

Michelle D'costa: 45:32

yeah. And that's exactly what I want to know, even for like Mr. Kamala Karu, you know, because I think the nature of the essays are so academic, you know. And it has its own vocabulary. There's so much jargon, you know, and you're talking about heavy subjects, you're talking about culture, society, literature, all of that, right? And so I really wanted to know, in your case, you know, sort of, how did you, you know, did you put in sort of, I would say, extra effort to make these essays quite understandable, accessible or sort of simple, you know, to the audience of today, could you please sort of share that with us?

Kamalakar Bhat: 46:03

Michelle, it's very interesting, because, you know, generally, I am more, you know, hopeful about the process of translation and what is gained in translation than lost in translation. But I perfectly agree with Gauri that, you know, a translator is perpetually anxious about the what is lost in between. But you know, to share my experience of translating a Kirsty not good Cody, who, in fact, has a lot to say about translation, will not go into that right now. There are a couple of things I think that are that that kind of come across to me as significant? First of all, when I started translating, I felt that good quality is not very difficult writer to translate. He's not a very difficult writer to translate. It is because he wrote in Kannada also. He wrote in very accessible manner, like I said earlier, his whole project was not to, you know, showcase his scholarship, but to share his enthusiasm. So his writing, except his very first book, all the almost all the other writings, especially the later writings, are very, very accessible. Most of them were written even as column writings. But very soon so, when I first started translating, I simply went about translating. And having come from academic background, what I was translating was turning into academic language, you know, but very soon after within, you know, a couple of essays, I began to realize that, you know, I'm making a mistake, because I realized that what is important in court is style, is his tone, and that tone has to communicate a certain enthusiasm it has to communicate a certain conversational, you know, let us say, involvement of the reader, so as a result of which he, you know, in his writings, he's almost, it's almost as if he's putting his Hands on another person and sharing his thoughts on a literary work of a whole lot of literary work. So in order to communicate that tone, one had to also leave this academic style and try to develop a certain, let us say, subtle way of accessible, simple, yet something that can carry the, like you said, you know, the heavy ness of the subject. So another area of difficulty was that, you know, kurti is a multi lingual scholar, you know, like I said earlier, he knew many languages, and he was very familiar with the literatures of all these languages. And you know, his writing is full of quotations from diverse languages, especially from Sanskrit, and not all of them are marked. You know, you never know something he has dropped, which perhaps is a quotation from some writer. So I had to be very careful which expression is his and which he's, you know, which is an allusion, and then, you know, he the way he quotes also, you know, takes for granted that reader is also familiar with that he takes it for granted that leader is a circular Daya, you know, who is equally familiar with the all the literary words that he is has in mind while talking about it. So I had to be very careful about what are his quotations, even when they are explicitly quoted. There are quotations that are implicit. There. There are quotations that are explicit, even when they are explicitly, explicitly quoted, he doesn't give references. So one had to hunt down all these references. One had to rely on scholars and friends to really understand the significances of those quotations. And also, sometimes he would insert his own terms in, you know, along with terms of, say, another vardhana or Abhidhamma Gupta, or, you know, Bharata or somebody. So it's a bit challenging to be able to detect what is what. And these were some of the challenges. But I think the greatest challenge was to be able to retain the quality of that intimate conversation, which is what his writings are. He doesn't want his writings to go across as some kind of academic tome. He wants it to go across as intimate conversation, and that is where I needed to, you know, revise multiple times in order to obtain some kind of an ease in the style in which I was able to put it across in English.

Michelle D'costa: 51:15

Wow, that would have been such a challenge. I mean, imagine having implicit quotations and then just wondering, like, you know, Is it really him? Is it not him? I can only imagine. And of course, you don't find all this on Google, you know, especially both of you are dealing with with text that's really old, and you will have to sort of go into archives, and, as you said, probably speak to scholars and people. Wow. So it's not just, it's not as easy as it, you know, looks like it's you're not just taking the text and translating as is, but you're also, you know, sort of, like, I would say, like archivists, or sort of, you know, historians. You're going into, into sort of, like time traveling and trying to find out what's, what's, sort of, you know, his and what's not that's really fascinating. So, you know, just just listening to, to, sort of, you know, the way, you know, you all have translated, your process, your passion for translation and the way both of these books spoke to you, I really am very, sort of curious about, you know, translations in your languages. So for example, kamnaker, I would love to know what you think about the current state of, sort of, you know, Kannada translations and sort of, what do you think sort of is lacking at this point. And of course, for Gauri, the same thing applies for Tamil literature. And do you really feel like it's sort of reached a stage where it should be, or do you feel like there's something lacking?

Kamalakar Bhat: 52:33

So fortunately, in the past decade or so, there has been a lot of interest in translating from Indian languages. Number of works are now being translated and are finding publishers. Publishers are showing a lot of interest in translating from Indian languages. But since you asked me about what is lacking, what I feel there are two things that I I have specific opinions on. Number one, that most of what gets translated today are modern literature, your ans. Bu also, at one point, had discussed this, how we find it easy to translate modern literature, and we tend to limit all our translations to modern literature, although this unfortunately gives the wrong impression to monolingual readers that the culture of this language is only limited to the past 100 or 200 years, because Canada has literature of nearly 1500 years, and Tamil longer than that. And many of Indian languages have very long history. Therefore it is important, I think, that we are also able to translate our ancient and medieval literatures, and that is one of the lacking Another is that translation is also happening on a piece to piece basis. So there are individual texts that get translated when, for example, a particular author is translated. What is lost is the cultural milieu from which that particular text actually has emerged. So I think translation also needs to be, it has to be a process, rather than merely a single Love, you know, project process in the sense that it has to bring, bring out the in the entire, you know, for example, if the vachana literature is translated, rather than only Vasa Varna aka Mahadevi Alamo propos, vachanas being accessible. The entire discourse on vachana and how they came to us, how even the ones that are being. Translated what was the kind of history through which they have become accessible, accessible to us? All these are also important, so that entire discourse also, I think, are equally important in order for us to be able to appreciate them in the context. And it is this kind of larger picture that exists behind individual authors or individual texts, or even even the set of texts that I also, I think translation needs to give attention to.

Michelle D'costa: 55:32

Yeah, I get what you're saying that, of course, it's only a selected kind of text, only something that maybe publishers will perceive, that you know, a modern audience will understand, or, let's say, some books will sell. You know, only those kind of books are translated, and the rest are just completely ignored. I think there's a huge sort of black hole when it comes to, you know, translations for sure. So yeah, Gauri, what do you think is that the same sort of situation for Tamil literature as well?

Gowri Ramnarayan: 55:56

So sorry that I cannot answer this question because I don't read translations from Tamil. I read translations from other Indian languages, of course, European languages. Why should I I know Tamil? So I read Tamil, and sure, I have read some translations of older poetry because I I don't understand that language as well as I understand modern Tamil. I've never read. I haven't read anything in any translation in modern Tamil, you know, Sangam literature, or medieval literature, Bhakti poetry and so on. Those I have read, and I'm not sure about the quality of those translations. I don't think about whether they are, you know, truthful to the original or not. I just see whether it makes any sense to me. So, you know, I haven't compared and contrasted it with the original to see whether it's good or bad, I mean, but if it's I mean, the way I look at it is Rama Rajan made Sangam literature tip. You know, everybody is reading it, everybody is dancing it. Everybody isn't so and also there are many others who have done it, George heart, so many others have translated. And there are young people who are doing it now. The camera is now being translated by a group of in the US. Pop penguin is going to publish it. So I haven't really thought about it, except to say that I think translation is important. I mean, if there had been no translations of Tolstoy or d'orstaski, I wouldn't have read those books. So, you know, I mean, I'm eternally grateful to the translators and and I leave it to the publisher to decide whether they are good or bad. You know, bad translation should not be published at all. So I leave it that. And on that note, I'd just like to say something about pony and Selwyn. So it's not exactly what you asked me. I think one of the reasons that this translation of pony and Selwyn has been appreciated, and many people have told me that they like to like the books, I think they've been brought out beautifully by then, you know, as hard bound copies with lovely illustrations. And you know, they've taken a lot of trouble to present it. I think translations need some extra effort on the part of publishers to make them attractive, because automatically, I mean, people don't automatically pick up translations from off the book bookshelf. You know, they would rather go for an original novel in a language, or original work, a book which they can read in that in a language that they can read. So I think I'm really grateful to penguin for doing that, and I think it's important that people pay special attention to the way a translation is presented.

Michelle D'costa: 58:34

Very true. Yeah, actually, so even that's something that I've thought about, because you're right, and I think especially now, with, with the whole publishing industry booming, with so many books coming out right now, right, especially in English and all of that. Like, how would a reader actually notice a translation? And how would they, how would they be sort of motivated to pick it up, right? What is it? I think you're right when it, when it comes to saying that, I think translations need that extra push and and I think, as kamnaker said, as well, I think there needs to be a bit more variety as well when it comes to what kind of works should be published and sort of how should they be pushed in the market. Because I think in today's world, you need a mix of both of them. It's not just the content. It's about how you're marketing the book, or how you're, you know, sort of producing it for sure. Okay, so, so, you know, you know, I think this, this whole conversation was super, super fascinating and interesting. And before we sort of wrap it up, I would love to know your top three recommendations for us, you know. And I know that you know, both of you are sort of avid readers, if, let's say, you know, probably for Gauri, do you have any recommendations in Tamil literature? Maybe not translations, but let's say, sort of, you know, like books that you've read in English, something that sort of covers the whole Tamil, you know, landscape, the modern world. And for you, Kamala, Karu is it like any books in Kannada that you've read that you would like to recommend?

Kamalakar Bhat: 59:51

So from Canada, I would recommend three books. One is Vivek shanbag sakinas kiss. He also, of course. Has another very well known and a book called ghachar Bucha, which also is doing very well. Another book is Mithun and Other Stories by Jayant kaikini, which is published by Harper Collins, and third one is by tejongavadra, by vasudendra. These are three books that I have in the recent past, read which have been translated into English from Canada, which are definitely worth reading, although there are many more. But since you asked for three, I am mentioning these three. Yeah,

Michelle D'costa: 1:00:34

and just to add, we have interviewed Vivek shanva, and we loved both the books. Just just fascinating. You know, it's like that, bringing alive a whole sort of different milieu, different culture, really interesting.

Gowri Ramnarayan: 1:00:46

I don't know the English translations, really, as I told you before, but there are three writers who I think are really important for non Tamil people to know about. One, I would say Salma. She's a fabulous writer, and her writings really resonate with both power and empathy. I think that it's very difficult, that combination is very difficult, you know, to have moments of tenderness and to have moments of fierce power, you know. So I find that very interesting. Imam is another writer whose writings I find extremely What should I say? They arouse me, arouse my the provoke thought, of course, and they kind of make my nerves tingle so I like him, I am. And the third writer who's now no more, he died a few years ago. He was a sort of a friend of mine, a writer called prapanchan who lived in Pondicherry, and he has written some extremely interesting works, and his style is something that I have particularly enjoyed, because I find that modern writers, each one has his or her own style. That's true of every writer, I suppose. But today, I think writers are trying to also pay attention to the dialectal tones as well. You know, not just write a sort of a sterilized Summit, standard Summit. So I think you all these three writers I find really interesting. Thank

Michelle D'costa: 1:02:17

you. If I

Kamalakar Bhat: 1:02:18

can just add a few more names, not necessarily all of them are, you know, translated, or some of them are translated. But I can't immediately remember the titles that are available in English, but authors to look out for from kadhida are some of them I would like to mention are mogaly, Ganesh, Abdul Rashid, then muddak guru, and also H sriva Prakash, who has come out with recently with his collected poetry. These are all some fascinating writers who are writing, among many other writers. These are some of the fascinating writers to look out for.

Michelle D'costa: 1:03:03

Thank you so much. And I think this, this is just like a treasure trove of stories, and sort of like introducing it to, let's say, an audience of, let's say, you know, people who don't read as much translation, or maybe they've not read enough of karanda translation or Tamil translation. I had a really, really sort of fun time just hearing about your processes and the kind of fun that you all have had while translating, I will definitely look out for more books translated by all for sure. Thank you so much for sort of, you know, making translation accessible to us.

Kamalakar Bhat: 1:03:37

Thank you, Michelle. Thank you so much. Thank you for having us on this Books and Beyond episode. It was lovely talking to

Gowri Ramnarayan: 1:03:44

your deep interest in what in every word that both of us, both of us said, and in your responses the way you empathized with our struggles. But I also want to say that translation is, I don't know if I describe it as fun at the moment, I would say it's blood, sweat and tears. So yeah, maybe a little fun. Yes,

Michelle D'costa: 1:04:05

yes, that's a lovely way of putting it. I think that could be a very interesting title, blood, sweat and tears translation.

Gowri Ramnarayan: 1:04:13

Thank you so much for giving us a patient and hearing and actually being interested in every little connotation in what we said and you picked them all up. So thank you very much.

Michelle D'costa: 1:04:25

Oh, no, it was a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Tara Khandelwal: 1:04:29

Hope you enjoy this episode of Books and Beyond

Michelle D'costa: 1:04:32

with bound. This podcast is created by bound, a company that helps you grow through stories. Find us at bound India on all social media platforms, tune

Tara Khandelwal: 1:04:42

in every Wednesday as we peek into the lives and minds of some brilliant authors from India and South Asia. You.