A password for literary passion
ABDUL LATHEEF NAHA
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Students of EMEA College, Kondotty, opted for a daunting, yet heady, literary adventure when they decided to translate some Malayalam short stories into English. And they gained much from this unusual exercise
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BEHIND MOST success stories, there is a will to think out of the box. And such an effort by a few students and teachers of a rural college in Malappuram district has borne fruit in the form of a work of translation that is set to make a literary mark for itself.
The book titled `Password' proves that nothing can stop you if there is a will. It proves that students, if guided properly, can dabble in serious literary jobs, including translation.
The will of the BA English students of EMEA College, Kondotty, was to do something creative as well as unique. The route they chose was to take the cause of the new-generation Malayalam writers. They translated the short stories of nine young Malayalam writers into English.
The anthology
The anthology tells not just the stories of writers such as P. Surendran, K. Madhupal, K.R. Meera, S. Sitara, Thomas Joseph, C.S. Chandrika, K. Rekha, Santhosh Aechikanam and Indu Menon, it is by itself the tale of a courageous venture on a college campus. The students who stole the heart of the campus with their work are V.K. Mariyumma, P.P. Shareefa Begum, K.P. Anupama and Mohammed Rashid. But they are quick to give the credit to their teacher K.P. Premkumar, who edited the book.
They deliberately avoided established writers of Malayalam, because such writers were already known beyond Kerala. "Established journals and publishers in English usually omit the new-generation writers, as they are not ready to take `risks'," says Mr. Premkumar.
The challenge
And this little group from EMEA College took the risk when Yet Books, the first international imprint from Kerala, came forward to publish the works of those young Malayalam writers.
It took about two months for the students to complete the translation. "We set a deadline... and had to even skip some classes," says Anupama. She knew well that translation is a "risky game." First they attempted word-to-word translation, but soon shifted to the sentence-to-sentence pattern. "We toiled to maintain the original sense and beauty of the Malayalam stories," she says.
They ensured quality by subjecting their translations to the rigorous scrutiny of a series of gatekeepers. First, Mr. Premkumar reworked the translations to make them presentable before a non-Malayali reader. They were then sent for the writers' comments.
After incorporating the comments, they were edited by a professional editor who knew both languages and had read the original stories. The edited version was further edited and polished by another professional editor of English fiction.
Translation was painful yet thrilling to the students. "This thrilling experience gave us a chance to put many theories we learned into practice," says Shareefa Begum.
The beaming Begum is now confident to take tougher challenges. It was a fantastic experience for Mariyumma, who had translated Vimala Rao's `Silver Pickle Dish' into Malayalam. "It helped us improve our vocabulary and sense of nuances," says Mariyumma. She says the project helped her develop a stronger and more passionate interest in literature.
The right word
But it was not a bed of roses for them. "We first thought a dictionary and a thesaurus would solve our problems," says Ms. Anupama. But they did not. For two months, the foursome was on a sleepless hunt for exact words in English.
For example, they got the meaning of `mannankatta' (meaning clod) after a painful search. "Sometimes we took more than half-an-hour to translate a sentence," says Mariyumma.
They retained several words in Malayalam for fear that their original sense would be lost. Words like makaram, nchattuvela, ettan, kacha, khalb, namaz, uppa, kasavu and sindoor were retained with footnotes explaining their meanings.
New venture
The college has promised another anthology. The returns from Password, if any, will be used for that. It will be a tribute to the women writers of Malayalam. Twenty women writers representing the modern and post-modern ages have been identified.
If the University Grants Commission approves, there will be yet another great work of translation from EMEA College campus. The students are hopeful. So are their teachers and all those who lent them support.
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