Translators and Translations

 

My first attempt at translation was in the last 1990s while I was taking a class titled ‘Marx, Nietzsche and Freud,’ taught by  Professor Geoff Waite of the German Studies Department at Cornell University. The course requirement for graduate students was simple: maintain a journal reflecting on the required reading, lectures and class-discussion. I can’t remember the particular journal entry now, but there was a passage in Simon Navagaththegama’s ‘Sansaaraaranyaye Dadayakkaaraya’ that seemed relevant and which I felt should go into my reflections for the week. 

Geoff didn’t read Sinhala. So I translated the relevant paragraphs.

Emboldened, I proceeded to translate the entire book, with much encouragement from Liyanage Amarakeerthi who was reading for his PhD at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, at the time. A fun exercise and that was it, or so I thought.

Not too long after, I joined ‘Sunday Island.’ Then, as now, that paper was heavy with serious political commentary. The features, in contrast, were weak. Zanita Careem, who was in charge of that section, lamented that we didn’t have enough people to write. She was correct. So I got used to picking interesting stories from our sister paper, ‘Divaina,’ and translating the same.

It was probably in early 2003 that I became serious about the exercise. Dr Ranga Wickramasinghe wanted me to translate ‘Yuganthaya’ (End of an Era) written by his late father Martin Wickramasinghe. I told him that I am not equipped to undertake such a task and that I didn’t have the time either. Instead, I proposed that I translate Martin Wickramasinghe’s ‘Upan Da Sita’ (literally, ‘From the day of [my] birth.’  It was a biography and therefore episodic; ideal for serialising in a Sunday paper.

It took more than a year, but it got done. A decent draft, I told myself then. I believe this even today as I pour over the manuscript to get it ready for printing on commission for the Martin Wickramasinghe Trust. It’s almost a re-write!

The downside of translating a few pages each week for a newspaper is that it happens while attending to regular newspaper work. Deadline-pressure can make one careless and even flippant. There were occasions when I understood neither word nor sentence. I had glossed over such things or left them out altogether. Then there was the issue of language. I can safely say that I knew less about the Sinhala language and Sinhala culture then that I do now. That ignorance corrupted the exercise.

Now, as I go from word to word, sentence by sentence, it’s a new text that unfolds. It’s a new Martin Wickramasinghe that speaks to me. I am delighted for new reasons. Amazed at times as well. I haven’t read him at all, I am compelled to conclude.

This is of course not an essay about Wickramasinghe’s life, world-view, literary endeavours etc. There are many gems on many subjects in this book which a discerning reader will no doubt pick, marvel at and learn from. For me, right now, there’s this:

‘The colloquial language of the village brings together both language and life. Descriptions that bring together the life of the villager and the village environment are often found in the work of folk poets who employ this language. The meaning of such descriptions cannot be captured by the mind alone.’

The colloquial is not always read correctly by the pundits, especially if they are less conversant with it. It can, theoretically, make for even worse aberration when translated.

Martin Wickramasinghe was referring to a set of people who took issue with certain descriptions. He wrote ‘If a certain feeling is inspired within someone who read that description which is a blend of village life and the landscape of the village, it is because the description has the power to excite not just his eyes and mind, but other sensory organs as well.’

He concluded: ‘I don't believe that a person who does not make the effort to “hear” the sound of a bat flapping its wings, the cacophony of insects, the occasional barking of a village mutt, or the mooing of a calf, would be able to imagine village life or village language.’

He explained, further:  ‘Only someone who has some notion of the relationship between the language and life of the village would think that the syllables that make up the words “aththatu gæseema (flapping of wings),” “biruma (bark),” and “umbææ (mooing)” simultaneously raise the sounds of bats, dogs and calves. In order to feel the meaning of sayings such as “the air in the garden contained a certain wetness along with the cool” and “The vehi andura had rendered the air heavier than on other days,” not only the mind, but the body also has to be employed. I think all these pundits found fault with this description because theirs was only a mental exercise.’ 

How do we translate, then? Can we translate?

We can try. We must, I feel. And so we interject explanation in the text itself or as footnote and end note. We compile glossaries. We struggle not only to be faithful to the source text but to do justice to the reader as well, ever conscious of the reader’s shadow falling on the keyboard and a voice murmuring, ‘make sure it flows, make sure I am not overly taxed to flip to your glossary or glance at footnote and end note, and make sure you don’t butcher the meaning in any other way either.’

Back to ‘Upan Da Sita.’ A few more chapters to work on or rather re-write. Riches await, and not only about the life and times of Martin Wickramasinghe. I am privileged.

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer. malindadocs@gmail.com.