AN 'UPHEAVAL' IN KONKANI, GOAN NOVEL GETS A PRESTIGIOUS TRANSLATION
By Frederick Noronha
PANJIM, April 10: Goa's Konkani language got a prestigious translation, with
Pundalik Naik's The Upheaval ('Acchev') just becoming the first novel to get
translated into English by the Oxford University Press publishing house.
This novel looks at peasant life in the Ponda taluka of Goa, against the
changing landscape of modernity and industrialization "which has fragmented
village communities". It was originally published in Konkani in 1977.
Freelance journalist and prizewinning translator Vidya Pai rendered the
Konkani text into English. This, together with the fact that it has a
weighty publisher behind it see Konkani writing reaching out to the wider
audiences it otherwise lacks."
"(T)he first Konkani novel to be translated into English, 'Acchev' is a
landmark in the history of the language for its amplitude and depth...
Critics have hailed this as 'a near-perfect work', and the elegant English
translation retains the nuances, lilt, humour and poetic rhythm of the
original," say the publishers.
Just out from the Press in Delhi, Volvoi (Ponda)-based author Naik says the
book was "against the destruction of humanity and nature", and it therefore
"had to be written in my mother tongue". Comments Naik: "I am happy that my
novel will now reach a wider audience in this English translation".
But getting the work published was no easy task.
"An unknown translator trying to place an unknown book by an unknown writer
in an unknown language didn't seem to make publishing sense and I gathered a
sheaf of rejection slips," comments translator Vidya Pai, in her note at the
start of the book.
This reference is obviously to travails that writers have to face in a small
language, yet to find a sufficiently large market of its own, and divided by
the existence of various scripts and dialects -- inspite of recent efforts
to push a form of standardisation.
Translator Pai also points out that during a workshop for award winners of a
national translation contest, other Indian languages "spoke of regional
writers and books that had been translated from their languages (while) we,
the Konkani writers, remained tongue-tied".
"We could boast of no organised attempts to translate Konkani writing into
English, to give it a wider readership. We had no translated titles to
display," she notes.
Translating 'The Upheaval' was conceived as a "small step to bridge this
gap". But as Pai herself notes, the book had a "long, often depressing,
gestation and a fairly-stormy birth".
Pai says her "mythical ancestor" fled southwards from Goa to escape intense
religious intolerance of the Portuguese centuries ago. In doing the work,
she found it "difficult enough" to comprehend the "culture, ethos and idiom
of language of the various Goan communities encountered in the book".
Says she: "If this translation introduces the reader to a Goa quite apart
from the cliched world of fun, frolic and feni, if it arouses interest in a
language marginalised by history's tide, if it inspires the Konkani reader
who has lost touch with his roots to seek to savor it in its original form,
this book's purpose will have been met."
Maria Aurora Couto, now based in Aldona, writes about "the Konkan, its
people, their language" in a 20-page introduction to book.
Konkani speaking communities have a "spread on the coastal belt (of western
India) which stretches along the west coast from Wasai (Bassein) and
Sindhudurg (Malwan) in Maharashtra, North and South Kanara in Karnataka to
Kochi (Cochin), Quilon and Alleppey in Kerala", she notes.
Besides, urban centres like Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Mumbai and Delhi "also
have a a considerable Konkani-speaking population who, despite merging
linguistically into the language of the State, nevertheless sustain cultural
links through community activity in samajs, associations and kendras".
Explaining the setting, Ms Couto -- incidentally the wife of former advisor
of the Goa Governor, Alban Couto -- notes that Naik's novel is set in the
village of Ponda in the so-called New Conquests "where Portuguese influence
was insignificant".
"It is no surprise that the socio-political thrust of his novel has less to
do with colonisation than with the changing landscape of Goa which began
with the mining boom in the 1950s," she comments. Naik wrote the novel at
the age of 25.
This novel's opening scenes are "palm trees, toddy tappers, bird song, rice
fields, a tenant farmer's sweaty body, clods of earth in freshly ploughed
fields watched by an ubiquitous figure of the Goan rural scene, the
scarecrow".
Naik has himself worked with many creative forms -- including poetry, short
stories, novels, plays and is also a screenwriter. He has 40 books to his
credit and two films.
This 144-page book is priced at Rs 295 and is available from OUP
(www.oup.com) in New Delhi.
Expected to reach out to a wider audience -- not just in Goa -- the book
assumes that the reader would not be familiar with local terms and nuances
from the Konkani language.
Its three-and-half page glossary explains terms like 'tavern' (small village
liquor shop where men gather to drink and to gossip after the day's work is
over), 'vaddo' (cluster of houses forming a part of a village), 'sompo'
(crude porch), and 'yajman' (host).
It also introduces terms like 'chumbal' (length of cloth wound tightly into
a disc and placed on the head while carrying heavy loads), 'dhalo'
(religious festival of song and dance), and Jalmi (literally, one who
creates, but here a descendent of the founder of the village who officiates
as a priest in ceremonies conducted to appease the spirits).
Its cover carries an illustration by Mohan Naik, courtesy the
Calangute-based Art Chamber 'Galeria de Belas Artes', titled 'Peasant Family
in Goa'. (ENDS)
--
Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa * India 832.409490 / 409783
GOAPIX in.photos.yahoo.com/fredericknoronha * GOANEWS www.goacom.com/news/
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