A long wait for some, chit-chat for others

The editor of The Little Magazine, a bimonthly which claims to be the platform which would carry important work in the world languages along with the best contemporary writing in the South Asian languages, recently made a well-known Tamil writer wait for more than one hour. The venue was Asian College of Journalism auditorium. The editor was Antara Dev Sen. Who was the Tamil writer, you might ask. Before I tell you who he was, let me tell you something about the event. A couple of weeks back, I received a e-mail from the Little Magazine group saying that, “You will be happy to know that some friends of TLM in Chennai have organised a literary evening with writers and translators on the 2nd of September. We hope to have an informal chat on “Accessing Indian literature through its languages” led by Asokamitran, Dilip Kumar and Mini Krishnan. Please do come, as a member of the TLM family, and join us for some tea and arattai.” (I didn’t understand the word arattai. I asked one of my colleagues what it meant. He said, “It means chit-chat.” The time mentioned was 6.30 pm. At 6.40 I walk into the auditorium. There were three people sitting in the conference hall. On the corridor I met writer Ashokamitran who was walking into the loo. He came back with in five minutes. And soon Mini Krishnan, Editor Translations of the OUP joined us. She later announced that, “ Antara is on the way, so we will have to wait.” One announcement followed the other. And some more people joined us, including a couple students of Asian College itself. Finally the editor landed up, spreading a page-3 smile. (I think it was around 8 pm). Writer Ashokamitran must have gone to the loo five times by the time since he was there from 6.30 onwards. He must be suffering from old-age related problems. But who to complain: so he waited. Does Antara behave like this if the guest was either Salman Rushdie or V S Naipaul? “Sir, last time when I saw you, you looked very dull. But now you seem to be ok,” somebody approached him with a broad smile, and said. “Oh… That’s not right. Even now I feel worse than what I was feeling two months back,” Ashokamitran said in his humoristic style. The editor began to speak. Did she say sorry for being late?, I don’t think so. She started off with the issues being faced by translating works from Indian languages into English. Soon Mini Krishnan pressed the red button of the mic. She raised the issues which could have discussed in a seminar on translation. The focus of the meeting slowly concentrated on issues related to translation. “We have a number of translators but very few are good. What we have to do is to improve the quality of translation,” said one from the twenty-something audience. How do we do that? “Even the English translation of Chemmeen (The famous Malayalam novel written by Takazhi) is horrible. I have read both, so I know the difference. The person who doesn’t know Malayalam will have to depend on this translation only. Its so sad,” Sasikumar, the Director of the Asian College of Journalism said. He himself narrated an incident when he had to translate the Malayalam word Kattan Kapi into English while working for his movie, 6666666. “How do you translate the word Kattan Kapi. If you translate it as “black coffee” then the whole purpose of using the word is changed since Kattan Kapi is not black coffee,” he said. Sasikumar was trying to divert the topic from translation, as he himself was aware of the number of issues regional literature faces. But it seemed Mini Krishnan was adamant. “Idioms can’t be translated,” sprung another opinion from a great personality. “No, anything can be translated,” said Ashokamitran who spoke only four times in the discussion and that too in two or four sentences in each conversation. “Translation is translation. And even a bad translation wont spoil the original,” quoting C V Raman he said. “Of course, Kanthapuram was translated years back,” said Kannada writer S Diwakar. The meeting witnessed a number of unwanted discussions. What’s TLM: how many people have heard of? How do you reach the magazine into more hands? Issues like this were not discussed. I like literature and I buy a lot of books. But I have never come across TLM any time. It was my friend, a poet, who gifted me the magazine. That’s why I still get the copy with a script pasted on the first page, saying: “here’s a gift from me”. It’s getting cooler in the air-conditioned room and the fan above which Ashokamitran sat was also on. To get away from the cold, the poor writer had to occupy the side seat. Somebody was alert and he switched off the fan immediately. That’s great from the people who organized the event. At least they protected our writer from getting cold, even if they kept him waiting.