How translations are giving Tamil books a new lease of life

Translation expands our ability to explore through literature the thoughts and feelings of people from another society or another time, says award-winning translator Edith Grossman in her seminal work Why Translation Matters.

“It permits us to savour the transformation of the foreign into the familiar and for a brief time to live outside our own skins, our own preconceptions and misconceptions. It expands and deepens our world, our consciousness, in countless, indescribable ways,” she says. For Grossman the translator is, in fact, the second writer who begins with a written work and creates another.

The Spanish-to-English literary translator believes translation extends to writers, whose language is limited by reach, a consequential size.

Two recently translated works from Tamil to various languages prove Grossman right. The books Kallikaattu Ithihaasam by Vairamuthu (2001) published by Surya Literature, and Irandam Jamankalin Kathai by Salma (2004) of Kalachuvadu Publications, are back in news not only in Tamil Nadu but also across the country.

While Kallikaattu Ithihaasam is the first Tamil work that is being translated into all the 22 official languages in India through the Sahitya Akademi, the Marathi translation of the book Irandam Jamankalin Kathai has recently been awarded the Akademi’s Translation Prize.

The success of the novels could lie in the fact that they deal with human migration forced in the name of development, and the suppression faced by women in a minority community, respectively. Both issues have a universal appeal and, hence, the demand for translated works is only growing.

Documenting migration due to dams

Lyricist Vairamuthu is known for using different kinds of imagery in his songs. It is not an exaggeration to say that Tamil film songs attained modernity with Vairamuthu. Though he started writing poems in 1972, it was only in 2001 that the lyricist was able to come out with his first fiction Kallikaattu Ithihaasam. The novel first appeared as a series in the Tamil magazine Ananda Vikatan. It was subsequently published as a book. In 2003, the book won the Sahitya Akademi award.

“I chose to name the work as Ithihaasam (history), because the incidents mentioned in the book happened in real life. I lived the first 17 years of my life in Kallippatti,” says Vairamuthu in the preface of the book.

The plot of the book is set in the 1950s against the backdrop of an arid village, Kallippatti, and revolves around the life and times of Peyathevar, a poor farmer. The novel has 36 chapters but the real story starts to unfold only in the 30th chapter. The novel delineates the story of how the Vaigai Dam impacted the life of Peyathevar. The Vaigai Dam was constructed in 1958 and led to 14 villages in Theni district being submerged in water. This led to the displacement of thousands of people.

Until the 30th chapter, the reader discovers the endless struggles of Peyathevar’s life in which he loses his wife and a son-in-law, is unable to bailout the second son-in-law who is a murder convict, and deals with a spoilt son. By painting Peyathevar’s life in detail, Vairamuthu is able to arouse empathy for him in the minds of the readers over what happens with him in the end.

While Peyathevar’s life may mirror the lives of countless farmers across India, Vairamuthu is able to introduce to his readers the various facets of Tamil culture by sprinkling in details about Tamil food and traditions such as celebrations during Maarkka Kalyanam, where the boys undergo circumcision to announce attainment of puberty, or about the business of illicit liquor-making.

Munshi Premchand of Tamil

The novel has so far been translated into Hindi, Malayalam, Urdu and Kannada. One of the major challenges the translators came across while translating Kallikaattu Ithihaasam was the proper usage of names of local flora and fauna, and also what the characters spoke, since it was written in Madurai Tamil, the dialect spoken in some southern parts of the state.

“Since I have already translated the poems of Vairamuthu, the opportunity to translate the novel has naturally landed in my lap. The author was always available for clearing any doubts that made my job easier,” says Malarvili K, HOD of the Kannada department in Presidency University, Bangalore, who translated the work into Kannada as Kalligaadina Ithihasa. The translation is being praised by well-known Kannada writers like Shudra Srinivas, she adds.

It took four-and-a-half years for Malarvili K to complete the translation since it required a lot of research to find out the exact words and proverbs in Kannada that were Tamil equivalents.

“Throughout the translation, I wondered whether there could be an influence of Tamil over Kannada or vice versa. In Kannada, we use the word ‘chaaru’ for broth and the same word is used in Tamil. Similarly, the tradition of carrying the dead in a sitting position to the burial ground is also followed by the Lingayat community here,” she says.

According to Hayath Iftikhar, who translated the novel into Urdu as Kallikkaadu Ki Dastan, the novel can be equated with Munshi Premchand’s Godaan.

“Premchand wrote the novel first in Urdu and it was then translated to Hindi. It talks about the farmers’ issue. But in that novel, Premchand dealt with farmers’ lives before Independence, whereas Vairamuthu wrote about their problems after Independence,” says Iftikhar.

While the Hindi translator, late H Balsubrahmaniam, even translated the name of the village Kallikkaadu in the book title as Naagphani Van ka Itihas, Iftikhar retained the village name since he considers names should not be translated.

Questioning male chauvinism

“Amma, who created Allah?” asks Rabia.

Shocked, Zohra says: “Having asked this, you have become a Kafir from now.”

This is a conversation between a mother and her daughter at one place in Irandam Jamankalin Kathai. The piece of conversation aptly sums up the essence of the novel. When published in 2004, the novel faced severe backlash from the Muslim community, since in the novel, Salma has makes a scathing attack on patriarchy entrenched in her community.

“The Tamil literary world has mostly remained silent and many (of course, mostly men) tried their best to prevent this novel from hogging the limelight. So, Irandam Jamankalin Kathai wasn’t reviewed by many back then. But once it was translated into other languages such as English, the work created its own place,” says Salma.

The novel was first translated into English as The Hour Past Midnight by Lakshmi Holmstrom, and later into Malayalam, Hindi, German and even Catalan. It was also translated into Marathi as Madhyaratrinanantarche Tas by Sonali Navangul in 2015. The Marathi version of the book was awarded the best translation of 2020 by the Sahitya Akademi.

The book remains the first and only published novel by a Tamil Muslim woman. Following the translations, it has attained a cult status and started to appeal to a wider audience, cutting across the barriers of geography, languages, caste, gender and religion.

Revolving around six Muslim families, the plot has no protagonist. We can also say that all women characters are ‘sheroes’ in their individual capacity. The women raise questions like why only men are allowed multiple marriages as they find themselves attracted to other men. They discuss among themselves everything, including sex, a subject considered to be taboo for most women.

The novel also touches upon the issue of honour killing. One of the families in the novel murders their own daughter for being in love with a Dalit man. The novel brings to the fore the societal approval of this murder as the entire village knows of the murder and even becomes complicit by helping the family bury the woman secretly before police arrive for investigation.

The incident bears an uncanny resemblance to the 2003 ‘honour killing’ of Kannagi-Murugesan in Puthukooraipettai.

“Beyond caste, religion, creed and gender, there is no doubt that the women are handed down an unjust life where human feelings are not considered common for both the sexes,” writes Salma in the book’s preface.

Writing in the dark to bring the light

Even before Irandam Jamankalin Kathai, Salma faced backlash from her community over her poems. Born in Thuvarankurichi in Trichy district, Salma was the fourth daughter to her father from his second wife and was forced to leave school at the age of 13 in accordance with her village tradition.

She was forced to live in a small room in her house for nine years as a punishment for refusing marriage. Even after her marriage, she was not allowed to step out. She spent another 15 years in confinement at her husband’s house. Salma used that time to read and write poems.

She wrote her poems under the pseudonym ‘Salma’, instead of using her maiden name Rajathi Samsudeen. Her poems were smuggled to the outside world with the help of her mother and first appeared in the literary ‘little magazine’ Kalachuvadu. Those poems created a sensation and many were interested to know who this poetess was. Finally, her photograph appeared in a popular Tamil weekly magazine through Chennai-based journalist Arul Ezhilan.

After her unmasking, Salma faced a lot of opposition from her village but since her husband was a panchayat president, it offered her some protection. In 2001, she was elected the panchayat chief after her village was reserved for women candidates.

What inspired translator Sonali to write Salma’s book in Marathi was the parallel she saw between her life and that of Salma’s.

“When I was nine, I met with an accident and was left wheelchair-bound. I spent most of my time inside the home. When I caught hold of Salma’s novel, I was able to relate with her, since she too has been suppressed by the traditions,” says Sonali.

Like Salma, Sonali too has been in touch with the outer world with a little window in her room, she says.

“Through this translation, I am literally holding hands with Salma and moving into another world. Whether literate or illiterate, most women are being suppressed by their caste and religion. With her novel, Salma is showing light to us.”

Publishing translations

Anush, who owns Ethir Veliyeedu, a popular publishing company based in Coimbatore district, says there is a lack of lobbying in the Tamil publishing industry. Ethir Veliyeedu publishes a lot of books translated into Tamil from other languages.

“We have many good writers in the Tamil literary world. However, it is because of a lack of lobbying that a majority of important books are not getting traction in other languages.”

For instance, in Malayalam, he adds, the printing order itself crosses 1,000 or 2,000 copies per edition. Then they promote it intensely. They lobby for their writers in national and international markets through book releases, reviews and reader clubs. “But such a culture does not exist here. Our print order is just 500 copies per edition and if the book sells more than 200 copies, it is a great thing. Most of the time, there are hardly any reviews.”

According to him, Malayalam, Bengali and Marathi are the three top languages from which books are getting translated into other languages. Tamil Nadu is nowhere near.

Talking about how translated works are being received, Anush says that the contemporary political works translated from other languages into Tamil are selling like hot cakes.

“Whether it is a novel, or a poetry, or an essay collection, content is the king. In our publication industry, 90 per cent of translations in the non-fiction category are based on contemporary politics. But when it comes to fiction, we translate only the works of world-renowned writers.”

Through Ethir Veliyeedu, Anush adds, he has started to take Tamil literary works to other languages. “In another year, we plan to translate at least 10 popular works in Tamil into other languages.”