My translations in "Steel Nibs are Sprouting: New Dalit Writing from South India – Dossier II Kannada and Telugu"

Wanted to share my happiness with all of you on the release of the book ‘Steel Nibs are Sprouting: New Dalit Writing from South India – Dossier II Kannada and Telugu.’  The book came into the market a few days back. 

Okay...I have translated 6 texts from Kannada to English for this volume and this translation task was a great morale booster for me...coming 6 months after the release of my translation of Chandramukhiya Ghatavu...

Sometime in mid 2011, I received a mail that surprised me...it was from Susie Tharu and she was asking me if I could translate a couple of texts for this volume...I was stunned and happily said ‘yes’ without even knowing what texts these would be...Susie Tharu taught me at CIEFL and I had wanted to work with her as a research student, but somehow things didn’t fall into place then...so, I felt this was an opportunity given to me to work with Susie...and it took some time for my work to take off... I began translating the first two texts, Channanna Walikar’s autobiographical texts - solaadaru sari geluvaadaru sari tanna astitvakkagi devara jotegoo spardege nillabeku and Karulina Teppada Mele ...  I knew that translating these texts was not going to be easy, but I did not realise that it would be so difficult... I kept on regardless and it took me almost a month to get a decent first draft... I felt happy that I was able to do some justice to the texts (from my own point of view, of course)...and sent them off to Susie...that was it I thought... I was going to be part of a prestigious anthology... I was pleased...

A couple of weeks later, I got another mail from Susie asking me if I could translate another two essays...and added that translating these essays required some research... I wondered what these essays were...when I found out that these essays were on Male Madeshwara and Manteswamy culture/traditions (written by Mahadeva Shankanapura), I began to have second thoughts...though, I had heard about them, I had no idea about these traditions...I had to read about them and then attempt translation...it was going to be arduous and challenging... It would have been the easiest to back off...but I wanted to try...I read the original essays in Kannada and felt that I could jump into the work of translating right way and do the research simultaneously...there were some descriptive passages that did not require research as such...and slowly, but surely, I inched forward... half a page a day in the beginning...then one page...I gained some confidence after 3-4 pages and began to get a feel of the essay...but the translation process slowed down whenever I had to get some clarity on some idea or topic...and I had to consult some books or browse the web...now I feel it was a fascinating experience... I did not know anything about Male Madeshwara and Manteswamy traditions when I began translating and by the time I finished, I was richer...

The most difficult task, I feel, came after I completed these two essays...Susie asked me to translate a poem written by Shankanapura... I could handle prose, but verse..?  and the poem was not easy...only if you knew the allusions could you even understand it, but translating it was another thing altogether...what to do?  I bravely started...but hit roadblocks so often that I had to ask Susie to help me...we sat together to sort out the problems and managed to clear some...but still a couple of clarifications were required...Susie asked me to speak with Shankanapura himself...some of the incidents and images went back to the time of Basaveshwara and travelled to the time of Male Madeshwara...and Shankanapura made these ancient images resonate to the modern Dalit question...Shankanapura was good enough and patient enough to answer all my questions and volunteered so much information that I was able to approach the poem from a position of clarity...but of course, the original has its own resonance, because of its rootedness...in the end, I managed a fair translation, with Susie’s and Shankanapura’s inputs, I can say with some satisfaction...I then realised that I had done five translations!!  Wow...and these were difficult texts for me...all five of them...

There is a final thing coming...one more poem to be translated, Susie said...I said ‘yes’... and it was Indudhara Honnapura’s poem...nanna kavana...which I was able to translate with some degree of comfort...and that was it...but I was hungry for more...ha ha ha...

All right...here are the six texts I translated that appear in this volume...

1. WHETHER ONE LOSES OR WINS, ONE SHOULD STAND UP AND FIGHT EVEN AGAINST GOD (Solaadaru sari geluvaadaru sari tanna astitvakkagi devara jotegoo spardege nillabeku by Channanna Walikar) (p. 77)
2 ON A RAFT MADE OF ENTRAILS (Karulina Teppada Mele by Channanna Walikar) (p. 83)

3 MY POEM [poem] (Nanna Kavana by Indudhara Honnapura) (p. 125)

4 MALEMADESHWARA TRADITION – A COUNTER-CULTURE (Malemadeshwara Parampare: Ondu Pratisamskriti by Mahadeva Shankanapura) (p. 258)
5 MANTESWAMI TRADITION AND THE CHIKKALURU JATRE (Manteswami Parampare mattu Chikkaluru Jatre by Mahadeva Shankanapura) (p. 262)
6 ON THE TRAIL OF THE FLAMING FEET [poem] (Urichammavuge Jaada Hididu by Mahadeva Shankanapura) (p. 256)

Please do read and tell me how you liked them...