Personal Notes of a Translator

I have been a translator for such a long time. I received the Katha Translation Award for translating a Gujarati short story into English way back in 1996 and then for a number of years, I have had quite a bit of professional translation experience. Then in 2005, I was interviewed by Dr. Tim Altanero, who was an Associate Professor at Austin Community College, for an article that he wrote on translating airline menus for Multilingual Computing and Technology, which is a well-known magazine that caters to the translation and the localization industry. You can read that article online at this link. And I taught a Certificate in Translation Proficiency for three years in my University. I have also taught Diploma in Translation Proficiency for the last two years.

I was a Moderator of ProZ.com for English-Gujarati, Gujarati-English language communities and also for the Literature Forum from December 2000 to December 2007, when I quit due to personal reasons. Presently, I am one of the co-moderators of the American Translators' Association's Language Technology Division's mailing list.

All this sounds good to those who can understand what it means.

But years ago, things were a bit different. The person who I would like to acknowledge as my guru, the person who really motivated me to begin translating in my life was a gentleman called Professor K Satchidanandan. He is a well known Malayalam writer and he used to be the editor of Indian Literature, a journal published by the Indian Academy of Letters, which is called the Sahitya Akademi here.

I wanted to write this post here to publicly acknowledge my debt to him and I shall remain indebted to him forever. Thanks a lot, Professor K Satchidanandan.

Diploma in Translation Students: Text for Project: Hindi Song--Urvashi Urvashi

When I started teaching the new batch of students for the Diploma in Translation Proficiency in 2007-08, I gave them a series of texts to be translated by the first week of December to be submitted as project work. These texts were given in the first lecture. I took a lot of time in selecting the texts. One of the texts that I gave to the students was a song from a Hindi movie. The song is reproduced below and in the next post, I'll put in my translation for all of you to compare. Also, those who do not know Hindi would be able to benefit from the English. When I showed this song to someone I knew, this friend of mine scolded me and said, 'You should have put in something more serious'. The song is from the movie, Humse Hai Muqabla [Let's Have a Contest]. The movie was originally made in Tamil and later remade in Hindi. The movie was called Kadhalan in Tamil. The lyrics are by P. K. Mishra and I have seen people criticize some of his lyrics. As a person steeped in literary matters, I wouldn't ever castigate a creative work.

I like the song and it is funky in nature. There's something else that I like in the song--its message. Even though the song looks like a funky song, it has a clear message-- 'take it easy policy'. The main idea is not to feel tense in any given situation. Isn't that a wonderful thing in a song that seems non-serious?

The music is by A. R. Rahman, who is known for fusion music and this song is a good example of it. The song is actually interspersed with English words. Sadly, I won't be able to upload the song here as that would be an infringement of copyright but I am sure it would be a treat for anyone to listen to it. If you want to hear the song digitally, you can always take out a trial membership to E-Music. The names of the singers are present in the brackets.

The music composer A. R. Rahman is himself a great phenomenon. His full name is Allah Rakha Rahman and he was born as A. S. Dileep Kumar on January 6, 1967. I'll try to put in more detailed information on him in a later blog.

Right now, do enjoy the music.

Urvashi, Urvashi, take it easy, Urvashi
Film: Humse Hai Muqabla
Music: A R Rahman
Lyrics: P K Mishra
Singer (s): A R Rahman, Noel James, Shankar Mahadevan
Starring: Prabhu Deva

(Rahman:)
मरहबा
मरहबा मरहबा, मरहबा मरहबा
Urvashi, Urvashi, take it easy, Urvashi
उँगली जैसी दुबली को, नहीं चाहिए फ़ार्मसी
Urvashi, Urvashi, take it easy, Urvashi
उँगली जैसी दुबली को, नहीं चाहिए फ़ार्मसी

जीत का मन्त्र है, take it easy policy
चार दिनकी, चाँदनी। यह जवानी fantasy
Urvashi, Urvashi, take it easy, Urvashi

(Mahadevan:)
जानती हो हिन्दी में प्यार के कितने अक्षर?
बोल दो मेरी खातिर, प्यार के दो ही अक्षर

(Mahadevan/James:)
जीत का मन्त्र है, take it easy policy
चार दिनकी, चाँदनी। यह जवानी fantasy

(Rahman:)
चित्रहार में बिजली उड़ गई
(Mahadevan/James:)
take it easy policy
(Rahman:)
पढ़ने पर भी फ़ेल हो गये
(Mahadevan/James:)
take it easy policy
(Rahman:)
बाप ने बोला, अम्मा का दुश्मन
(Mahadevan/James:)
take it easy policy
(Rahman:)
पाप करे, और गंगा नहाए
(Mahadevan/James:)
take it easy policy
(Rahman:)
Urvashi, Urvashi, take it easy, Urvashi

(Mahadevan:)
जानती हो इतना तो, बदन में लाखों नाड़ी
बता दो मुझको इतना, कहाँ है प्यार की नाड़ी

(Mahadevan/James:)
जीत का मन्त्र है, take it easy policy
चार दिनकी, चाँदनी। यह जवानी fantasy

नज़र के मिल जाने से ही, शील तो भंग नहीं होता
बिल्लियाँ न शाकाहारी, हर कोई राम नहीं होता
भलाई कभी औरतों की, क्राँती के बिना नहीं होगी
ज़माना बदल गया प्यारे, पुरानी बात नहीं होगी

(Rahman:)
फ़िल्म देखने वो नहीं आई
(Mahadevan/James:)
take it easy policy
(Rahman:)
बगल सीट पर बुढ्ढी हो तो
(Mahadevan/James:)
take it easy policy
(Rahman:)
संडे को भी छुट्टी न हो
take it easy policy
(Mahadevan/James:)
प्यार करे और नोट भी माँगे
take it easy policy

(Rahman:)
Urvashi, Urvashi, take it easy, Urvashi
उँगली जैसी दुबली को, नहीं चाहिये फ़ार्मसी

जीत का मन्त्र है, take it easy policy
चार दिनकी, चाँदनी। यह जवानी fantasy

(Mahadevan/James:)
अगर लड़की को अंधेरे में, आँख मारी तो होगा क्या?
अगर आज़ादी न हो तो, स्वर्ग मिलने से होगा क्या?
क्लास में फ़िगर नहीं हो तो, वहाँ पढ़ने से होगा क्या?
बीस की उम्र का जो है खेल, साठ में खेल के होगा क्या?‌‌

Translation Proficiency Courses that I teach

I started teaching Certificate in Translation Proficiency students at my Department since 2004-2005 and we introduced the Diploma in Translation Proficiency in 2006-2007. So, I have taught 2 groups of Diploma in Translation Proficiency students as well. These courses use English<>Hindi bi-directional as a medium of instruction. I stopped teaching Certificate in Translation Proficiency last year, 2007-2008, and I have been instrumental in grooming another faculty member to teach that course. I now focus on the Diploma course.

Our courses have got good coverage in the press. The Media Coordinator of the University was kind enough to issue press releases. You can see the coverage that our courses got in The Hindu [which is a national newspaper of repute] last year.

I am planning to write a workbook for the Diploma course and I hope I shall do it soon so that it could be implemented and could prove to be useful to the students. I also plan to upload exercises from the course for people who might be interested in the course, or its methodology or who might be simply curious how we run such a course.