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Literary Review
A cowherd hero
BAGESHREE S.
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Well-produced but marred by careless errors.
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Ettappa; Meerasabihalli Shivanna, Translated by G.S. Ujjanappa, CVG Books, Rs. 100
There is now a great deal of enthusiasm about translations from Indian languages. But this fast-growing body of literature is dominated by big names in their respective languages and one rarely comes across subaltern narratives translated into Englis
h.
Ettappa is a commendable project because it brings to English the folk narrative of a tribe that is not very well known even within the Kannada literary tradition. More so because it is the initiative of a small, private publisher. The
narrative celebrates the life of Ettappa, a hero of the nomadic Kaadugolla tribe. Meerasabihalli Shivanna draws from folk songs and tales to present the story of Ettappa who lives and dies to uphold the values of the cowherds.
Social structure
The story is no less than a study in the social structure of the community with its value system, internal hierarchies, relationships with other tribes, gender equations and so on. What is revealed to the reader is the social system of a tribe in a past when the worldview could be contained entirely within a pastoral context. Herds of cows and grazing fields are constant points of reference for every crisis or turn in the story. Every image and allusion is also pastoral, with the “divine” birth of Ettappa itself being a pastoral metaphor.
Yet another striking feature is the manner in which all the gods, goddesses and cultural heroes are humanised. A deity like Maarakka, for instance, is prone to intense anger and jealousy and lives the life of a cowherd. Reverence here is vastly different from what we see in canonised religious narratives. One comes across occasional subversion of the order of caste reverence. In one case, Ettappa states: “We being cowherds should not have given milk to higher classes in the village. By doing so the sanctity of our cows is lost.” (Page 12).
Bad translation
Sadly, this interesting narrative fails to sustain a reader’s interest because the translation is bad and editing a shade worse. Sentences such as “Ettappa at once thundered like monsoon thunder. Fire gripped him from bottom to top, and jumped over as if gun powder had burst into his eyes”, awkward as they are, give only a hint of the power of the original expression. Even the most blatant grammatical inaccuracies have gone into print unedited. Making reading even more difficult are a plethora of footnotes, some of which are absolutely unnecessary. On some pages, there are as many as seven to eight footnotes.
Ettappa is well-produced, beautifully illustrated and brought out with good intention. But nothing in a translated work, surely, can compensate for bad translation.
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