Transcending Languages

Updated on: Thursday, September 15, 2011

September 12 saw the reading of modern Nepali short stories and its translations simultaneously in English, Hindi and Bengali, held at the Anita Banerji Memorial Hall – Jadavpur University. The translations were done by the students of Jadavpur University, in collaboration with students of Southfield College, Darjeeling.

The event started with the presentation of a Nepali song by the Darjeeling students, which was then followed by the readings. In order to get into the feel of the workshop, all the students of Darjeeling were dressed up in their native attires wore their hair in similar ways, and the men dressed in their cultural attires as well. The workshop and translation work has been on for a month, and the students from both the cities have given in their best to not only understand and co-operate with each other, but also to bring out the true essence of literature.

The extracts read out in Nepali language were mostly all the works of writers and authors like Shiva Kumar Rai, Gabriel Rana, Rabindra Kumar Ghimire, Indra Bahadur Rai, and many more from the modern writers. “Translations of IB Rai’s work have been particularly difficult,” says a Comparative Literature student, who was also a part of this workshop. While from some stories just a paragraph was read, from others, the beginning, middle paragraph and the end were read out as well, which were then translated to either Hindi, English, or in Bengali.

When some of the students of Southfield College were asked to share their experience of the workshop, most of them marked out how the language barrier is an important issue, and during this month of hard work, they realised that co-operation in any case was the key element for a successful work.

Transcending Languages

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