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.

Episode Transcript

Tara Khandelwal (00:02):
Un Welcome to Books and Beyond. With bound I'm
Tara Khandelwal and I'm Vishald'cota, in this podcast, we talk
to India's finest authors anduncover the stories behind the
best written book and dissecthow these books shape our lives
and worldviews today. So

Michelle D'costa (00:20):
let's dive in.
This episode is part of ourbranded series with Penguin
Random House India. Hi everyone.
Welcome to Books and Beyond.
Today, I'm super excited todelve into two books which dive
deep into the world of SouthIndian literature, and they
actually connect the broaderaudiences to translation. Right?
In a way, we are unitingcultures from, you know, Tamil

(00:44):
and Kannada literature, whichsort of we don't get to see
every day. We are joined by tworemarkable translators, Kamala
kar Bhatt and Gauri namra Nayar.
So Kamla karbat is a bilingualwriter, a poet and a translator.
So he has translated courtesy ofcritics, which is a collection

(01:06):
of essays by the DistinguishedScholar and critic kirtinath
Kurt Kothi. So by translatinghis essays from Kannada to
English, this book actuallyintroduces, you know, literary
and cultural critiques bykirtina to a broader audience. I
was very much intrigued by thisbook because I have never read
any book which sort ofemphasizes on the knowledge and

(01:27):
the cultural roots of Kannadaliterature. And actually, being
a mandorian, I've always wantedto dig deeper into Kannada
literature, and this was veryeye opening for me. And we also
have Gauri ramnaran with ustoday. She's a writer,
playwright, theater director,musician, journalist, and she's
the legendary kalkisgranddaughter, and she's a

(01:49):
critically acclaimed biographeras well. So she's translated
kalki's historical novel, ponyand silver, and we are actually
going to talk about the firstpart, which is called first
flood, right? And the bookfollows a period of ambition,
power, betrayal, you know, setin 10th century Tamil Nadu,
right, during the reign of theChoza dynasty. Now, what I like

(02:11):
about this book is that it's aniconic story by Kalki,
obviously, which was written inTamil. And I don't think a lot
of Indians would have knownabout it. Had it? Not you know,
seen this sort of translation.
So I'm very eager to dive deeperinto this. Welcome kamlaker and
Gauri. So excited to speak toboth of you today. Thank

Kamalakar Bhat (02:31):
you so much.
It's really exciting. And thankyou to Books and Beyond for this
episode on our book kirtinathKut kuti is courtesy of
criticism. I am really lookingforward to, forward to talking
about this book and the essaysthat I have translated of
kirtinath Kuch Koti. Thank youvery much for having us on this

(02:53):
episode.

Gowri Ramnarayan (02:55):
Thank you so much for inviting me to be a
part of this. I'm particularlyglad that I am, I'm in this
event along with another writer,another eminent writer, who's
not a translator, because Ithink the breed of translators
are kind of unsung, unknown, andthey remain in the margins, so
it's kind of nice to be givensome visibility or audibility.

(03:19):
So thank you very much. No,

Michelle D'costa (03:21):
it's a pleasure. And yes, it's really
nice to have both of you here.
So before we actually move intothe process of translation, you
know, because both of you arereally renowned translators, I
actually want to start with thecontent of the books, right? The
original content of the books,right? So I want to know sort
of, let's say, start with, youknow, Kamala kar so, you know,
kirtinath was a chronicler ofchanging literature in Kannada,

(03:43):
right, you know. So we know thatthere was a lot that was sort of
changing in that period regardsto genre, style, content. And he
felt sort of like, you know,literature in the, I would say,
late 19th or early 20th centurywere actually embracing, as well
as well as resisting westerninfluences, which is quite
interesting, and he was actuallyobserving it with a very keen

(04:04):
eye. So could you please tell uswhat was happening in that
period, and what you think youknow, I would say, was like sort
of the starting point, or whatmade him want to chronicle all
of that.

Kamalakar Bhat (04:16):
It's very interesting that Kirti began as
a poet. In fact, his firstpublished work is a collection
of poems called Ghana Kelly. Henever really intended to become
a critic, which he eventuallydid. He started as a poet, then
he started writing plays. Infact, one of his plays was

(04:42):
awarded a prize by the thenBombay government. He also did
some translations from Marathiinto Canada and from English
into Canada. So he was primarilyinto poetry play. Is and
translation. But in 1958manohari Grantham ale of

(05:06):
Dharwad, with whom he wasclosely associated. In fact, he
was an advisor for thispublishing house, and he
remained an advisor until hisdeath in 2003 they had completed
25 years, you know, of beingpublishers of Kannada works. So
they wanted to bring out someanthologies of modern Kannada

(05:32):
literature, therefore, in everygenre, and they, you know, asked
kirinath kudkou to curate it andwrite introductions to each
volume. This is, this was hisfirst piece of criticism. That's
when he first wrote, you know,any kind of critical essays. But

(05:57):
it was remarkable that by thattime kids got it, had already
acquired immense scholarship,not only in Canada literature,
but also in Sanskrit literature.
And he was familiar with Englishliterature, and he was also
familiar with Marathiliterature, even consequent, you
know, later on, he even learnedGujarati and he he was familiar

(06:20):
with Gujarati literature. He wasfamiliar with Hindi and Urdu
literature as well. Thus, he wasprimarily a multilingual
scholar. But going back to hisfirst book, 1959 to 1961 when
these anthologies were publishedand when he wrote his first
criticism, this was a periodwhen the Kannada literature was,

(06:41):
in fact, in transition, somekind of transition. Of course,
it was soon after. It was soonafter India's independence, and
a decade of Independence wasover. And like other languages,
Kanda also had a modernliterature. It had emerged from

(07:06):
its, you know, ancientliteratures or the medieval
forms of literature. And therewas a huge rupture, of course,
this modern literatures, as inthe case of other Indian
language literatures was, ofcourse, influenced and mediated
by colonial impact. Andkirtanath kudkothy was taking

(07:31):
stock of what is the nature ofthis emergence, and he was also
interested in trying tounderstand to what extent in
Kannada literature there is acontinuity with the ancient and
the medieval Kannadaliteratures. Although the late
19th century Kannada literaturemarked a departure from the

(07:54):
traditions Kannada literarytraditions in some respects,
primarily with reference to newgenre, genres emerging, such as
lyric writing, such as novelwriting, and even in drama, new
form of drama writing emerged.

(08:16):
So all these were in terms offorms they were new. So he
wanted to explore what are thecontinuities and discontinuities
between the ancient the medievalkandara literary traditions and
the emergent ganda literature.
And in that first, you know,remarkable book, which

(08:38):
eventually was published in 1962in book form, these
introductions that he hadwritten for the anthologies. And
the title of that book was YugaDharma and Sahitya Vikasa, which
basically means the spirit ofthe times and the literary
evolution. So in that remarkablebook, he takes stock of the

(09:02):
entire spectrum of Kantaliterature, from its earliest
articulations to the end of 19thcentury. The sheer breadth of
that enterprise wasbreathtaking. He He talks about
all the ancient writers inCanada, such as beginning with

(09:30):
Pampa, Rana, Jannah, and theircontributions, their
significance, and the medievalliteratures, the transformations
there, the evolutions there, theemergence of new forms during
this period. And then he comesto the late 19th century, when
under the influence ofcolonialism, colonial education

(09:54):
and the influence of colonialliterature. A new literary
practices were emerging. So itwas really breathtaking, with
respect to the kind ofscholarship he could bring to
it, and with with respect to thekind of encyclopedic vision that
he had. And that is the reasonwhy I think that first book had

(10:20):
a immense impact when it waspublished in 1962 and it went on
to be studied as a kind of aresource text by all the
students and scholars ofliterature 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 readthe essays. I'm so glad that,
you know, he was asked toactually write introductions to
an anthology. As you said, Ireally loved hearing that origin
story, because I think that sortof sparked that idea in him.
Sparked that's probably thatinterest to chronicle it, you
know, on a more serious note, Iguess, thank you so so Gauri in,

(11:01):
in your case, let's say, youknow, pony and Selwyn is, is a
classic, you know, and it'swritten in, you know, the 1950s
right? So I want to hear a bitabout, sort of like, let's say,
you know, the origin story ofit. What do you think was sort
of the intention of writing thebook 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 veryimportant person in the Tamil
world of literature, you know,and particularly politics. So
before I go to pony and sellone, I must say that Kalki began
his life as he was born into avery ordinary family, and they

(11:44):
were in provident family, youcan say, in a village, and he
had the responsibility of havingto take care of his family
without the father was alsoabsent. The father was dead. So
this man, he was the only personwho was sent to study in school,
because they could not afford tosend all the children to school
because he was the mostintelligent, but he gave up
school in answer to MahatmaGandhi's non cooperation

(12:07):
movement call. And then hejoined the Congress party's
office in tiriti, a small townin Tamil Nadu. And he began
became, became a pamphlet herefor the messages that that party
wanted to send out. Then hewrote straightforward propaganda
stories which were which weredefinitely intended to promote

(12:28):
certain ideals of the Congressleaders to the people, and in
small publications and as aspamphlets which were being
distributed. And he went toprison and so on and so forth.
He happened to become ajournalist, because he thought
that through journalism he couldpropagate these ideas and reach
a wider audience. So thisintention of being a

(12:48):
propagandist existed in him allhis life. And whatever he wrote,
he said, I'm not writing toentertain people. I'm writing to
provoke thought and invokevalues. This was a very clear
agenda. He had an agenda. And henamed himself Kalki. And he
says, why? He says, This is the10th Avatar of Vishnu which
destroys everything I want todestroy everything regressive

(13:11):
and build a new world. Look atthe the the arrogance and the
confidence of a young man withnothing really to give him that
confidence. You know, he wasable to feel that he could make
a change with his pen. But thiswas two of many writers across
India during that period,because they were fired by
idealism. So when he wrote ponyand sell, when he had already

(13:33):
written two classics, and thiswas something that he says in
his Epilog, that when he startedwriting pony and Selman. The
image this was published as aserial in his magazine, and it
ran for three and a half years,and people waited in bus stops,
in train stations, in shops, inqueues to get the first copy.

(13:54):
This. The kind of enthusiasm itprovoked was something that
stunned the author himself,though he was used to fame and
celebrate this something. Thiswas something exceptional. And
the magazine Kalki, of which hewas the editor, became the
largest circulating publicationin India, all newspapers, all
publications in every languagein India during the time phony

(14:16):
and sermon was published. So youcan imagine the kind of surprise
and astonishment that the writerand delight that the writer
would have felt. Why did hewrite pony and Sylvan? It
started in 1950 that was theyear India had become a
republic. So this is actually ameditation on leadership. He was
absolutely convinced that onlythe person who did not desire

(14:38):
power should be given power. Sothis was a warning to the people
of India to make sure that theyelect the right person who would
not be interested in power andwould govern the country well.
And he chose the face of Raja,Raja Chora, or arguably one of
the greatest kings of the Tamilterritory, in order to be.

(15:00):
Because he made he would proveto be a remarkable King, with
extraordinary success, buildinga huge country across the seas
in later life. But he showsRajaraja as a young boy. So this
is the beginning of India as arepublic. So what are we going
to achieve in this country? Whatare we going to do? What are our
goals? What are our values? Sowhen he creates puny and Salvan,

(15:21):
if you've read when you readpunyan saliva, you'll know that
he creates this character as anamalgam of all the qualities
that he admired in his leaders,the integrity and uprightness of
Mahatma Gandhi, the charm ofJawaharlal Nehru, the steel of
walabhai Patel, the gentlenessof Abul Kalam Azad and the
brilliant, astute mind of RajaJi. So this is how puny and

(15:44):
Salvin developed, and all thepolitical intrigues that you
will see there, you will see howpeople yield to corruption and
to all the malign influences ina great in a great society. And
he shows how these have to befought by people in order to
create a great country forthemselves. And we do know that

(16:06):
after the story ends for NeilSullivan, story ends Raja. Raja
becomes one of the greatestmonarchs of the South, and he
his conquest a legion, and hisaccomplishments in the world of
art, sculpture and painting andliterature and dance and music
is what was somethingextraordinary. So this is a
composite figure. This is, thiswas his dream for India. He was

(16:26):
redefining India and formattingit in pony and seven and using
the swashbuckling structure of ahistorical novel in order to
achieve his own ends. At leastthat's how I read it. Yeah.

Michelle D'costa (16:38):
No, it's really fascinating that that,
you know, both sort of, I wouldsay, Kalki and Kirti, not in
their own ways. They were, youknow, thinkers, you know, during
that day, they were sort of, youknow, revolutionaries in their
own way, trying to, trying to,sort of, I would say, disrupt
the status quo, trying todisrupt what currently exists,
and say no, but you know, thisis what we think is actually

(17:01):
happening. It's really, reallyinteresting to see that, and how
you, both of you, have sort ofbrought that alive for audiences
of today, which I think isreally cool. So now, obviously,
you know, I want to know moreabout the translation process.
So, you know, I know that, youknow, let's say, when we talk
about Kannada literature, as yousaid, kamakar, there are so many
writers over years who havewritten, you know, masterpieces.

(17:22):
So you as a translator, sort of,how did this book sort of speak
to you? You know, what aboutthis? You know, picked your
interest. And sort of, could youplease tell us a bit about the
process of, sort of, you know,translating such loaded texts of
a scholar? Because we do knowthat these are quite academic
texts.

Kamalakar Bhat (17:39):
Well, how did I choose to select Kirti Nath
kutchkotti for translation? Youknow, there are multiple
factors. First of all, I wantedto bring to English readers
something that can introduce thedepth and range of Kangra
literature. And I couldn't thinkof anyone better than Kurt Kothi

(18:03):
to do that effectively andcompetently. Although there have
been literatures of histories ofKanda literature written by
others, there are multiplehistories of Canada literature
which are primarily achronological presentation of,
you know, writings andpublications. That is not what

(18:26):
Kurt Kotti does. Kurt Kothibrings in a certain kind of, you
know, insight into thecontinuity between periods,
continuity between writers andthe He traces the common
elements and patterns acrossperiods and across generations.

(18:48):
And he's, he's perhaps the onlycritic to have written about
such a large, you know, let'ssay spectrum, such a large era,
he has written about virtuallyevery major Kannada writer from
ancient literature, ancientKannada literature, usually in

(19:11):
the history of Canadaliterature. The Canada
literature is divided into threeperiods, ancient Canada
literature, medieval Canadaliterature and modern Kannada
literature, which is late 19thcentury onwards, and he has
written virtually about everymajor Kanda writers of these
periods, and written with, withgreat, you know, insight. Now,

(19:35):
this was definitely one of thereasons, because I was looking
for somebody who could, best,you know, introduce Canada
literature to non Canadareaders. The second reason I
chose to translate his NAT coachKoti, is because, you know, I'm
very much interested in in thefield of post colonial

(19:59):
literature and post. Colonialthinking. And here was a writer.
Here was a young man of maybe2030, years in 1951 1959 when he
wrote these essays that arecompiled in his collection yoga
Dharma and saita Vikasa, he was31 years old, and in 1959 he

(20:24):
wrote very unequivocally aboutthe need to study Kannada
literature and in a byextension, Indian literatures
not in continuation or inrelation to English literature,
irrespective of the influencethey may have drawn from English

(20:45):
literature. He was of theopinion that they should be read
in relation to their ownliterary traditions. He also was
unequivocal in arguing for adecolonized ways of literary
studies, establishingdecolonized ways of literary

(21:05):
studies. So by that count,perhaps he was one of the
earliest post colonial critics,and this was remarkable. Now
people haven't really recognizedhim as a post colonial critic,
simply because he doesn't usethe kind of language that we
come across in a post COVIDemploying this was the second

(21:26):
reason that he was very clearlysomebody who was interested in
establishing ways of readingliterature by not through a
monochromatic lens of theWestern frameworks of literary
studies. I have a three reason.
When I was, whenever I studiedKannada literature, one would

(21:50):
come across kirtis name. Andthere were multiple. There were
many, many legends about him.
One of the legends about him washis memory. You know, there are
many, many stories about howkiernaturkoti would, you know,
speak very fluently about anyperiod of Kannada literature,

(22:13):
about any writer in Canada, andwithout 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,

(22:35):
as well as Kalidasa, bhasabhavabhuti, you know. So he was
legendary in terms of hismemory, one of one such story
about Kurth Cody's memorypertains to the great Canada
poet Dr Bendre, the dnapitaawardee lyricist. This perhaps

(22:57):
was some sometime in 1960s whenBendre was teaching in Solapur,
and a play that he had writtenwas to be performed in Dharwad,
and two days before theperformance of the play, the
group discovered that two linesof a song in the play are
missing. They are assumed thatit is a complete song, but then

(23:21):
they discovered that it ismissing. Now there was no way
they could contact Bendre, whowas far away in sulapur, and
this performance was being donein Dharwad. So apparently Kurt
Kothi, who was in Dharwad, hegave them those two missing he
wrote the two missing lines, andon the day of the performance,

(23:43):
of course, Bendre was back inDharwad. He reached Dharwad, and
to everyone's surprise, therewasn't much difference between
the original two lines thatBendre had written and the two
lines furnished by kushcoti. Sothere are many such stories SR
Vijay Shankar, who has written amonograph on kirtanath Kush

(24:04):
Koti, you know, humorouslyquotes an occasion when he spoke
to his wife. And his wife,apparently, that is kirtanath
kudko, his wife, who apparentlysaid that, you know, you all
keep praising his remarkablememory. But whenever I tell him
to go and get a few things fromthe Kirana store, if I tell him

(24:25):
to bring three things, he wouldhave forgotten two things. So
that says something aboutkirdina Worth Court is, you
know, memory being partial toliterature. KV subarna had
received Maxis award. KVsubbana, the founder of Nina
Sam, the place in a remotevillage where he started a

(24:47):
theater group, where he starteda publishing house, a cultural
center, etc. So when he receivedMaxi award, He dedicated the
amount the award money toconduct literary workshops. Ops
in colleges in all the townsand, you know, remote places and
kids, one of the resourcepersons. And he was ready to

(25:08):
speak to anyone anywhere aboutliterature. It doesn't have to
be, you know, scholars. Itdoesn't have to be in big
universities or in in Metrotown, in metro cities, he was
always ready to speak aboutliterature to anyone. So
whenever he visited Dharwad inthe attic of Manohar grant Mala,

(25:30):
there would be a, you know,there would be a regular
meetings where people would comesit and talk about literature.
And it would go on, apparently,till late in the night, up to 12
o'clock, talking most of thetime, of course, with Koti
talking so many, many writers.
So all these legends about KurtKothi and his great enthusiasm

(25:53):
for literature, you know, thatis something that also attracted
me to the kind of work he hasdone. One final thing I want to
mention before I conclude thissection, is that Kurt Kothi was
not merely writing literarycriticism. He uses, in fact, a
word in Kannada which simplymeans the word is Hara, which

(26:18):
means casual conversation. Forhim, talking about literature
was not a matter of, you know,showing off his scholarship. It
was a matter of sharing hispassion. It was a matter of
sharing his passion. Therefore,he was ready wherever, even in
even in bus stand, he wouldstand and talk about literature

(26:39):
for an hour. He so he had thisabsolute enthusiasm for
literature, passion forliterature, and he made use of
every means. And writing wasonly one of the ways in which he
did that literary criticism wasperhaps a very little of the
amount of, you know, amountamount of talk that he has

(27:04):
delivered on literature, what hehas written is perhaps much less
so. These are the reasons why Ibelieved it would be best to,
you know, start with kirsinathkurta. Oh,

Michelle D'costa (27:22):
thank you.
Thank you for sort of bringingalive the kind of person he was.
I think it shows that his lovefor literature, his enthusiasm
for literature, sort of hispersonality, is what drew you to
the work, and not just theacademic form of writing. And
it's also very interesting toknow that he had a memory of an
elephant of sorts when it comesto literature, but everything
else was like It fell out of thedoor. So, yeah, but, you know,

(27:44):
Gauri, I mean, I want to knowabout, you know, sort of, you
know, why you chose to sort oftranslate this book, you know,
I'm sure being the granddaughterof kalki would have, you know,
come with its own sort ofpressure. Would have come with
its own expectations. Because,you know, I'm sure you have
grown up in a family in, youknow, a culture of Tamil
literature, traditions, all ofthat was that sense of pressure

(28:06):
that you felt sort of whiletranslating this epic. Did you
feel like, okay, you know, am Idoing justice to this? And sort
of, I would sort of want tounderstand how did your
connection with him, or sort ofbeing part of the family sort of
influence, you know, thetranslation of this whole
series.

Gowri Ramnarayan (28:26):
Not very sure I can answer this question well,
because I don't think I it wasnot unlike Mr. Kamala. But I did
not choose to translate this. Infact, I thought that I was not
going to translate anymorebecause I was fed up with
translations on the whole so.
But when penguin asked me, and Iasked my family, and I said, Oh
my god, 2500 pages, and, youknow, six volumes, how am I ever

(28:49):
going to do it? I'll have tosign away my life for the next
two years and not do anythingelse. My family, everyone said
that if you turn it down, youwill regret it. So that was the
reason why I undertooktranslating this because, you
know, translation is a verytough task master. It's and it
does not have the the excitementof creative writing, at least

(29:14):
for me. You know, you learn alot. It's, I mean, and when you
do it well, you feel there arepassages. When you do well, you
feel very happy, and when you doit badly, you know you're down
in the dumps. But it's somethingthat, I mean, it's a labor,
there's no doubt about it. Butthe fact that I had read Kalki
from the time I was very young,I started reading very young. So

(29:36):
from six years from the time Iwas six, and I had not read his
novels there. See, I'd read allhis political writings. He was
majorly a political writer. AndI mean, every issue of kalki, he
would rewrite the leader, and hewould write about some political
campaign. He would write aboutthe political leaders he tried
about the World War when he was,you know, when it was, he was

(29:56):
basically a journalist. And I. Isomehow found that very
fascinating when I was young. SoI became, I became aware of a
style without knowing it. Andhe, one of the things that makes
you makes downable is his humor.
He, you know, which is sadly acasualty in translation. I

(30:17):
think, because humor is the mostdifficult thing to translate,
you know, from one language toanother, so that something you
know, and his tongue in cheekhumor that you know, kept me
really interested. But when Istarted doing the translation, I
now realize that it is probablythe most important work that

(30:38):
I've done in my life, formyself. Forget about others for
myself, because I can't tell youthe number of things I learned
about my own culture. First ofall, the pleasure of working,
living immersed in your ownmother tongue, which is
something it's a privilege forme, because I write in English.
I write in English. I'm ajournalist, right? So it was a

(31:01):
great pleasure to be with yourlanguage, to feel the rhythms of
your language. That was thefirst thing. Secondly, the the
what I've learned not only aboutTamil culture, of course, the
book is talks about a Tamilkingdom and a Tamil world and so
on, but actually about universalvalues, which are so important

(31:21):
now. So I really don't thinkabout the impact that it is
creating on others, or whetherit will be successful or not. I
mean, if I start thinking alongthose lines, I don't think I can
work at all. I just have tothink of how best I can do it,
and what joy it brings me. Forinstance, one of the things that
I really learned from this book,which I know is so important to
us today is that communalharmony is most important,

(31:44):
because Kalki talks about it. Hepony Silvan, the main character.
He knows Jesus Christ. And hementions Jesus Christ, you know,
and the religion that has comeup in the in foreign countries.
And then he talks aboutBuddhism, you know, he's
influenced by Buddhism. And weknow from history that the Chora
monarchs gave supported everyreligion, people of every creed

(32:06):
in their country. They made aspecial effort to do that. So
those are things that I wouldnot have paid attention to when
I was reading it as a novel,right? Second thing is I also
noticed that tremendousimportance is given to women.
The novel is driven by women,extremely intelligent, savvy,
shrewd, crafty women. So he wasnot talking about the equality,

(32:28):
you know, gender equality, youknow, as a slogan. He showed it
in this book. And then the otherthing that really moved me is
his socialist principles. Sohe's a congressman. He didn't
admire Prakash naran, and he youcan see that he finally makes a
spoiler, but he finally makes agardener, the emperor of the
Chora kingdom, and a boat woman,a fisher woman, she becomes a

(32:53):
queen. And so you know these inimperceptible ways. You realize
the value of human beings, andhow the equality, fraternity,
liberty, these things that we'velearned from the French
Revolution, you actually learnwere part of your own culture,
you know, and so, or at leastconceptualized as our own

(33:14):
culture, by Kalki, much of it hehas taken from history, but of
course, his own ideologies, theywould definitely have to enter
till Kalki was writinghistorical novels in order to
remind the people of their ownglory, then the magnificence of
their own culture, and also tomake you remove the inferiority,

(33:35):
the sense of insecurity that hadbeen bred into them by the
foreign by foreign rule, 150years of British rule. So this,
this, these are the things thatI learned by doing this book. So
my attitude towards translatinghas been just living with the
text for myself, doing my bestwith it, trying to understand it
as best I can, and trying tocommunicate what I have learned

(33:58):
through the language that I usein English. Because, you know,
language plays a very importantpart, right, the choice of the
word. So by the words that Ichoose to communicate these
ideas which I feel are, youknow, like flames burning out of
the book, you know, so thatthat's the best way. Best thing
that I can say about the bookthat it it really energizes you.

(34:19):
It fires you up, and it makesyou believe in values, which, in
our cynical times, they're verydifficult to remember and to
hold on to, and very difficultto be. You know, you feel
dispirited. So translating thishas, in a way, got me out of
depression about our politicalworld, because it shows hope
that translating this book hassort of put heart back into me,

(34:43):
because we live in a verycynical world, or at least I
feel cynical sometimes when youread the newspaper, and it's
very difficult not to feeldispirited, discouraged, you
know and do. Translating thisbook has made me feel that
ideals are not things which arecome. Completely out of your
world, that it is possible toreclaim them, to repossess them,

(35:05):
and to make them a part of yourlife. And I in the choice of
words, in the way in which I'vetranslated, I've tried to share
these feelings of mine, as wellas 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'sabout reflective piece you have
learned so much. You know, inthe process, it's really good.
I'm really glad that your familysort of pushed you to do this,
and they said you might regretit, because honestly, it is, I
would say, not just the work,obviously the work that we have

(35:40):
read. But I think it's also theprocess that sort of, you know,
made you and sort of kamlackerEnjoy the whole you know,
process that makes it even morespecial. And in fact, that's the
exact question that I wanted toask you, Gauri, because as you
spoke about the language and howdifficult 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

(36:02):
that was one of the, maybe themost difficult things for you to
do, because, you know, fromTamil to English. So I don't
know if you remember any phrasesor any idioms as such that you
encountered in Tamil in theoriginal version that you sort
of struggled to translate intoEnglish. And you can, obviously,
you know, maybe tell us the linein Tamil, and then sort of tell
us what you chose, or what yousort of maybe what you omitted

(36:23):
to translate. Was there anythingwith that

Gowri Ramnarayan (36:28):
every day, every passage, every sentence,
to translate? Because, first andforemost, the style that Kalki
uses, which you might have gotout of the first book, is that
which I've tried to retain,though it is kind of, it's not
really an English way ofthinking or writing. See,
languages belong to two entirelydifferent cultural realms, so,

(36:50):
and the thing is, many of hissentences are questions, you
know, and then, didn't thishappen? And don't you think that
this is so? So in English, wedon't all as some of the most
profound thoughts are framed inthe form of questions. And for
me to reproduce it in Englishwas very difficult. And the

(37:13):
second thing is, unless you knowthe original it's very difficult
for you to follow what I'msaying, I think. But Kalki is
language is something very hedeveloped it. Developed it on
his own. He evolved it. It'scalled, I mean, for want of a
better word. Critics have calledit Kalki Tamil, because there is
nothing like it before and thereis nothing like it afterwards.
He created his own language,which is really a very chatty

(37:37):
language, and Raja Ji, hismentor, described it best. I
think he said that kalki'slanguage is like two friends
talking. He's your friend. He'stalking to you with his arm
around you, and you're walkingtogether, and you keep going,
and he keeps talking withoutlooking back. So that is the
style, because he didn't havetime to revise anything. He was
the editor of the magazine. Hewas writing the political stuff.

(37:58):
He was writing reviews of dancemusic theater. He was going to
attending concerts. He was acritic of music and dance. And
he was also building monumentsto Bharati and Superman and
Mahatma Gandhi. He was doing, hewas functioning as a secretary
and later the president of theTamil Nadu association of
writers. So he was his life. Idon't know how he fitted in so

(38:19):
many things within 24 hours, youknow. So it was this was not the
only thing that he was doing,only himself when he wrote at
night, after he finished all thework for the magazine, and then
after dinner, he would sit andwrite it. In the night, go to
sleep, and in the morning itwould be sent to the press. This
is how he wrote it. My uncletold me I was four when he died,
so I have no way of knowing Idon't remember him at all,

(38:43):
except some vague memories. Sothis is something that excited
me, the fact that a man could doso many things and do them so
well, and also write this novelabout the translation. I was
telling about the difficultiesof translation. I don't think I
can remember any particularphrase at this moment. If you
told me earlier, I would havegiven you a whole list, but I

(39:06):
can tell you the difficulties,the major difficulties, first,
it could use the languageitself. Secondly, he uses
onomatopoeia all the time. Thatis impossible to get in English.
English is not a language whichallows it's not a lyrical
language. In fact, once when a KRamanujan asked me about his
translations from the arbarpoems, I said they are fantastic

(39:28):
as modern poetry, but there isno musicality. Whereas the arbar
poems and the saiwa poems ofTamil Nadu, I don't know about
the Kannada, vachana Kavita,because I don't know Kannada,
they thrive on a musicality, ona melodious, rhythmic lilt. You
know, that was completelymissing in the English

(39:48):
translation. So I remember thathe's Ramanujan. Is my god,
translator God. So I pray to Himevery day before I start
working. So, you know. And sothat is one thing, language.
Then quotes, like quotes from anenormous over, I don't know if

(40:11):
that's the word you pronounceit, of Tamil poetry, from the
Sangam poetry of you know, 2000years ago, to modern poetry,
medieval poetry. I mean, there'snothing that he has left
untouched. The book is, you haveread the book, you know how many
poems he has quoted, translatingthem was man sheer hell, because
I'm not a poet, and I don'ttranslate poetry, so I'm each

(40:36):
one has a different language. SoI mean the Tamil, and each of
them so different, and thepurpose is different, the tone
is different. So that wasextremely difficult. What makes
it more difficult is that hehimself. These were so
internalized in him. All thesepoems, my mother read it aloud
to me. So did my uncle, but mymother used to sing all the
songs in music as she was sothey were integral to the poem.

(41:00):
Poetry was integral to thenovel. Now that goes out of the
window, absolutely goes out ofthe window. And then the third
is that he uses a sort of avisual imagery which I find
impossible to translate inEnglish. That visual I tried my
best, but the visuality inEnglish is very different from

(41:23):
the visual experience in anIndian language. And when he and
book abounds in descriptions,and these descriptions, or these
descriptions, he has used anextremely high toned language,
and for the conversations, theyare extremely colloquial, you
know, like chats, right? So youyou read the book. So, you know,

(41:43):
so to navigate these 234,streams, that was absolute. It
was very, very difficult. Andthen finally, I would say that
the righteousness and the in theintrepidity, the valor and so
on. Those are qualities that weassociate with our Indian way of
life. When you translate theminto English, they sound

(42:06):
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 therewould be a struggle with the
language, but just the wayyou've explained it, I can
imagine the layers of complexityand 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 theoriginal version, but what I can
tell is, you know, the kind oflyrical quality, as you

(42:39):
mentioned, the poems and thestuff, honestly, for me, that
was the highlight of the book.
Like I have a poet, and wheneverI see something like, I mean,
prose is obviously beautiful,right? I mean, it's for a
reason. I mean, it's ahistorical novel, right? It
should be prose. But then forme, I felt the poetry is what
sort of elevated, you know, thestory, and it sort of made it
what it is. And I can onlyimagine, you know, as your

(43:01):
mother would have, sort of, youknow, sang these songs to you,
or sort of recited the poetry.
I'm sure it would have been awhole different experience
altogether,

Gowri Ramnarayan (43:12):
absolutely.
And also, you would notice thatthe poetry is not there as
quotations. They're connected tothe situation, to the character
under the ambience. The entireambience is evoked by that
poetry, exactly idea of thatage, right? So to bring that in
English was, I don't know howmuch went out of the window,

(43:33):
yeah,

Michelle D'costa (43:34):
no, that's what I wanted to say. So as
someone who reads in English, Ican say it was definitely
something like a wholesomeexperience, right? And I think
you've, obviously, you've done areally, really good job. So
thank you so much for bringingbringing, 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 Iasked, I have a friend called
Whitney Cox who teaches inChicago, University of Chicago.
So I wrote to Whitney and said,Whitney, can are these? Are the
poems? Can you find translationsdone by other people? Because
they're well known poems, youknow? Can you find those
translations? Or maybe do somefor me? So he sent me through,

(44:10):
sent me quite a fewtranslations. None of them
worked in the context, becausethe language that each poet had
used to translate was verydifferent from kar King
language, so it sounded toomodern and too spare and too
complicated, you know. So I hadto just throw it all away. And
then, though they were probablyfar better than my efforts. And

(44:32):
then I had to just depend onmyself to say, Okay, this is
what this is. This guy is sayingthis. How would he say it? What
would he reciting this poem, howwould he feel about it? What
would he say? Yeah, and what islike your your vision as a
translator and in the context?
So when you get it from somebodyelse, they are doing it out of
context, out of out of out ofcontext for this book. So it

(44:55):
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 almostlike writing another book,
actually, if you think aboutthis, the kind of effort and the
kind of thinking, Yeah, verymuch. So I think it should be a

Gowri Ramnarayan (45:13):
writer to translate. I'm sure you can't
really translate anotherperson's thoughts without
analyzing it, making it makingit your own. Especially, I don't
know about nonfiction, becauseI've done one work of nonfiction
which is very different, but awork fiction has to become
yours,

Michelle D'costa (45:32):
yeah. And that's exactly what I want to
know, even for like Mr. KamalaKaru, you know, because I think
the nature of the essays are soacademic, you know. And it has
its own vocabulary. There's somuch jargon, you know, and
you're talking about heavysubjects, you're talking about
culture, society, literature,all of that, right? And so I
really wanted to know, in yourcase, you know, sort of, how did
you, you know, did you put insort of, I would say, extra

(45:55):
effort to make these essaysquite understandable, accessible
or sort of simple, you know, tothe audience of today, could you
please sort of share that withus?

Kamalakar Bhat (46:03):
Michelle, it's very interesting, because, you
know, generally, I am more, youknow, hopeful about the process
of translation and what isgained in translation than lost
in translation. But I perfectlyagree with Gauri that, you know,
a translator is perpetuallyanxious about the what is lost

(46:26):
in between. But you know, toshare my experience of
translating a Kirsty not goodCody, who, in fact, has a lot to
say about translation, will notgo into that right now. There
are a couple of things I thinkthat are that that kind of come
across to me as significant?
First of all, when I startedtranslating, I felt that good

(46:47):
quality is not very difficultwriter to translate. He's not a
very difficult writer totranslate. It is because he
wrote in Kannada also. He wrotein very accessible manner, like
I said earlier, his wholeproject was not to, you know,
showcase his scholarship, but toshare his enthusiasm. So his

(47:08):
writing, except his very firstbook, all the almost all the
other writings, especially thelater writings, are very, very
accessible. Most of them werewritten even as column writings.
But very soon so, when I firststarted translating, I simply
went about translating. Andhaving come from academic

(47:30):
background, what I wastranslating was turning into
academic language, you know, butvery soon after within, you
know, a couple of essays, Ibegan to realize that, you know,
I'm making a mistake, because Irealized that what is important
in court is style, is his tone,and that tone has to communicate

(47:56):
a certain enthusiasm it has tocommunicate a certain
conversational, you know, let ussay, involvement of the reader,
so as a result of which he, youknow, in his writings, he's
almost, it's almost as if he'sputting his Hands on another
person and sharing his thoughtson a literary work of a whole

(48:22):
lot of literary work. So inorder to communicate that tone,
one had to also leave thisacademic style and try to
develop a certain, let us say,subtle way of accessible,
simple, yet something that cancarry the, like you said, you

(48:48):
know, the heavy ness of thesubject. So another area of
difficulty was that, you know,kurti is a multi lingual
scholar, you know, like I saidearlier, he knew many languages,
and he was very familiar withthe literatures of all these
languages. And you know, hiswriting is full of quotations

(49:09):
from diverse languages,especially from Sanskrit, and
not all of them are marked. Youknow, you never know something
he has dropped, which perhaps isa quotation from some writer. So
I had to be very careful whichexpression is his and which
he's, you know, which is anallusion, and then, you know, he

(49:31):
the way he quotes also, youknow, takes for granted that
reader is also familiar withthat he takes it for granted
that leader is a circular Daya,you know, who is equally
familiar with the all theliterary words that he is has in
mind while talking about it. SoI had to be very careful about

(49:52):
what are his quotations, evenwhen they are explicitly quoted.
There are quotations that areimplicit. There. There are
quotations that are explicit,even when they are explicitly,
explicitly quoted, he doesn'tgive references. So one had to
hunt down all these references.
One had to rely on scholars andfriends to really understand the

(50:14):
significances of thosequotations. And also, sometimes
he would insert his own termsin, you know, along with terms
of, say, another vardhana orAbhidhamma Gupta, or, you know,
Bharata or somebody. So it's abit challenging to be able to

(50:37):
detect what is what. And thesewere some of the challenges. But
I think the greatest challengewas to be able to retain the
quality of that intimateconversation, which is what his
writings are. He doesn't wanthis writings to go across as
some kind of academic tome. Hewants it to go across as

(51:00):
intimate conversation, and thatis where I needed to, you know,
revise multiple times in orderto obtain some kind of an ease
in the style in which I was ableto put it across in English.

Michelle D'costa (51:15):
Wow, that would have been such a
challenge. I mean, imaginehaving implicit quotations and
then just wondering, like, youknow, Is it really him? Is it
not him? I can only imagine. Andof course, you don't find all
this on Google, you know,especially both of you are
dealing with with text that'sreally old, and you will have to
sort of go into archives, and,as you said, probably speak to
scholars and people. Wow. Soit's not just, it's not as easy

(51:36):
as it, you know, looks like it'syou're not just taking the text
and translating as is, butyou're also, you know, sort of,
like, I would say, likearchivists, or sort of, you
know, historians. You're goinginto, into sort of, like time
traveling and trying to find outwhat's, what's, sort of, you
know, his and what's not that'sreally fascinating. So, you
know, just just listening to,to, sort of, you know, the way,

(51:58):
you know, you all havetranslated, your process, your
passion for translation and theway both of these books spoke to
you, I really am very, sort ofcurious about, you know,
translations in your languages.
So for example, kamnaker, Iwould love to know what you
think about the current stateof, sort of, you know, Kannada
translations and sort of, whatdo you think sort of is lacking

(52:18):
at this point. And of course,for Gauri, the same thing
applies for Tamil literature.
And do you really feel like it'ssort of reached a stage where it
should be, or do you feel likethere's something lacking?

Kamalakar Bhat (52:33):
So fortunately, in the past decade or so, there
has been a lot of interest intranslating from Indian
languages. Number of works arenow being translated and are
finding publishers. Publishersare showing a lot of interest in
translating from Indianlanguages. But since you asked

(52:56):
me about what is lacking, what Ifeel there are two things that I
I have specific opinions on.
Number one, that most of whatgets translated today are modern
literature, your ans. Bu also,at one point, had discussed
this, how we find it easy totranslate modern literature, and

(53:20):
we tend to limit all ourtranslations to modern
literature, although thisunfortunately gives the wrong
impression to monolingualreaders that the culture of this
language is only limited to thepast 100 or 200 years, because
Canada has literature of nearly1500 years, and Tamil longer

(53:42):
than that. And many of Indianlanguages have very long
history. Therefore it isimportant, I think, that we are
also able to translate ourancient and medieval
literatures, and that is one ofthe lacking Another is that

(54:03):
translation is also happening ona piece to piece basis. So there
are individual texts that gettranslated when, for example, a
particular author is translated.
What is lost is the culturalmilieu from which that

(54:23):
particular text actually hasemerged. So I think translation
also needs to be, it has to be aprocess, rather than merely a
single Love, you know, projectprocess in the sense that it has
to bring, bring out the in theentire, you know, for example,
if the vachana literature istranslated, rather than only

(54:48):
Vasa Varna aka Mahadevi Alamopropos, vachanas being
accessible. The entire discourseon vachana and how they came to
us, how even the ones that arebeing. Translated what was the
kind of history through whichthey have become accessible,
accessible to us? All these arealso important, so that entire
discourse also, I think, areequally important in order for

(55:13):
us to be able to appreciate themin the context. And it is this
kind of larger picture thatexists behind individual authors
or individual texts, or eveneven the set of texts that I
also, I think translation needsto give attention to.

Michelle D'costa (55:32):
Yeah, I get what you're saying that, of
course, it's only a selectedkind of text, only something
that maybe publishers willperceive, that you know, a
modern audience will understand,or, let's say, some books will
sell. You know, only those kindof books are translated, and the
rest are just completelyignored. I think there's a huge
sort of black hole when it comesto, you know, translations for
sure. So yeah, Gauri, what doyou think is that the same sort

(55:54):
of situation for Tamilliterature as well?

Gowri Ramnarayan (55:56):
So sorry that I cannot answer this question
because I don't readtranslations from Tamil. I read
translations from other Indianlanguages, of course, European
languages. Why should I I knowTamil? So I read Tamil, and
sure, I have read sometranslations of older poetry

(56:16):
because I I don't understandthat language as well as I
understand modern Tamil. I'venever read. I haven't read
anything in any translation inmodern Tamil, you know, Sangam
literature, or medievalliterature, Bhakti poetry and so
on. Those I have read, and I'mnot sure about the quality of
those translations. I don'tthink about whether they are,

(56:37):
you know, truthful to theoriginal or not. I just see
whether it makes any sense tome. So, you know, I haven't
compared and contrasted it withthe original to see whether it's
good or bad, I mean, but if it'sI mean, the way I look at it is
Rama Rajan made Sangamliterature tip. You know,
everybody is reading it,everybody is dancing it.

(56:58):
Everybody isn't so and alsothere are many others who have
done it, George heart, so manyothers have translated. And
there are young people who aredoing it now. The camera is now
being translated by a group ofin the US. Pop penguin is going
to publish it. So I haven'treally thought about it, except
to say that I think translationis important. I mean, if there

(57:20):
had been no translations ofTolstoy or d'orstaski, I
wouldn't have read those books.
So, you know, I mean, I'meternally grateful to the
translators and and I leave itto the publisher to decide
whether they are good or bad.
You know, bad translation shouldnot be published at all. So I
leave it that. And on that note,I'd just like to say something

(57:41):
about pony and Selwyn. So it'snot exactly what you asked me. I
think one of the reasons thatthis translation of pony and
Selwyn has been appreciated, andmany people have told me that
they like to like the books, Ithink 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

(58:02):
to present it. I thinktranslations need some extra
effort on the part of publishersto make them attractive, because
automatically, I mean, peopledon't automatically pick up
translations from off the bookbookshelf. You know, they would
rather go for an original novelin a language, or original work,
a book which they can read inthat in a language that they can

(58:22):
read. So I think I'm reallygrateful to penguin for doing
that, and I think it's importantthat people pay special
attention to the way atranslation is presented.

Michelle D'costa (58:34):
Very true.
Yeah, actually, so even that'ssomething that I've thought
about, because you're right, andI think especially now, with,
with the whole publishingindustry booming, with so many
books coming out right now,right, especially in English and
all of that. Like, how would areader 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 rightwhen it, when it comes to saying

(58:55):
that, I think translations needthat extra push and and I think,
as kamnaker said, as well, Ithink there needs to be a bit
more variety as well when itcomes to what kind of works
should be published and sort ofhow should they be pushed in the
market. Because I think intoday's world, you need a mix of
both of them. It's not just thecontent. It's about how you're
marketing the book, or howyou're, you know, sort of
producing it for sure. Okay, so,so, you know, you know, I think

(59:16):
this, this whole conversationwas super, super fascinating and
interesting. And before we sortof wrap it up, I would love to
know your top threerecommendations for us, you
know. And I know that you know,both of you are sort of avid
readers, if, let's say, youknow, probably for Gauri, do you
have any recommendations inTamil literature? Maybe not
translations, but let's say,sort of, you know, like books

(59:39):
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 likeany books in Kannada that you've
read that you would like torecommend?

Kamalakar Bhat (59:51):
So from Canada, I would recommend three books.
One is Vivek shanbag sakinaskiss. He also, of course. Has
another very well known and abook called ghachar Bucha, which
also is doing very well. Anotherbook is Mithun and Other Stories

(01:00:11):
by Jayant kaikini, which ispublished by Harper Collins, and
third one is by tejongavadra, byvasudendra. These are three
books that I have in the recentpast, read which have been
translated into English fromCanada, which are definitely
worth reading, although thereare many more. But since you

(01:00:32):
asked for three, I am mentioningthese three. Yeah,

Michelle D'costa (01:00:34):
and just to add, we have interviewed Vivek
shanva, and we loved both thebooks. Just just fascinating.
You know, it's like that,bringing alive a whole sort of
different milieu, differentculture, really interesting.

Gowri Ramnarayan (01:00:46):
I don't know the English translations,
really, as I told you before,but there are three writers who
I think are really important fornon Tamil people to know about.
One, I would say Salma. She's afabulous writer, and her
writings really resonate withboth power and empathy. I think

(01:01:08):
that it's very difficult, thatcombination is very difficult,
you know, to have moments oftenderness and to have moments
of fierce power, you know. So Ifind that very interesting. Imam
is another writer whose writingsI find extremely What should I
say? They arouse me, arouse mythe provoke thought, of course,

(01:01:28):
and they kind of make my nervestingle so I like him, I am. And
the third writer who's now nomore, he died a few years ago.
He was a sort of a friend ofmine, a writer called prapanchan
who lived in Pondicherry, and hehas written some extremely
interesting works, and his styleis something that I have

(01:01:50):
particularly enjoyed, because Ifind that modern writers, each
one has his or her own style.
That's true of every writer, Isuppose. But today, I think
writers are trying to also payattention to the dialectal tones
as well. You know, not justwrite a sort of a sterilized
Summit, standard Summit. So Ithink you all these three

(01:02:14):
writers I find reallyinteresting. Thank

Michelle D'costa (01:02:17):
you. If I

Kamalakar Bhat (01:02:18):
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'timmediately remember the titles
that are available in English,but authors to look out for from
kadhida are some of them I wouldlike to mention are mogaly,

(01:02:39):
Ganesh, Abdul Rashid, thenmuddak guru, and also H sriva
Prakash, who has come out withrecently with his collected
poetry. These are all somefascinating writers who are
writing, among many otherwriters. These are some of the

(01:03:01):
fascinating writers to look outfor.

Michelle D'costa (01:03:03):
Thank you so much. And I think this, this is
just like a treasure trove ofstories, and sort of like
introducing it to, let's say, anaudience of, let's say, you
know, people who don't read asmuch translation, or maybe
they've not read enough ofkaranda translation or Tamil
translation. I had a really,really sort of fun time just
hearing about your processes andthe kind of fun that you all

(01:03:26):
have had while translating, Iwill definitely look out for
more books translated by all forsure. Thank you so much for sort
of, you know, making translationaccessible to us.

Kamalakar Bhat (01:03:37):
Thank you, Michelle. Thank you so much.
Thank you for having us on thisBooks and Beyond episode. It was
lovely talking to

Gowri Ramnarayan (01:03:44):
your deep interest in what in every word
that both of us, both of ussaid, and in your responses the
way you empathized with ourstruggles. But I also want to
say that translation is, I don'tknow if I describe it as fun at
the moment, I would say it'sblood, sweat and tears. So yeah,
maybe a little fun. Yes,

Michelle D'costa (01:04:05):
yes, that's a lovely way of putting it. I
think that could be a veryinteresting title, blood, sweat
and tears translation.

Gowri Ramnarayan (01:04:13):
Thank you so much for giving us a patient and
hearing and actually beinginterested in every little
connotation in what we said andyou picked them all up. So thank
you very much.

Michelle D'costa (01:04:25):
Oh, no, it was a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Tara Khandelwal (01:04:29):
Hope you enjoy this episode of Books and Beyond

Michelle D'costa (01:04:32):
with bound.
This podcast is created bybound, a company that helps you
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Tara Khandelwal (01:04:42):
in every Wednesday as we peek into the
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