Way Home , livre ebook
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2006
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141
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English
Ebook
2006
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Publié par
Date de parution
01 février 2006
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9788184759792
Langue
English
Publié par
Date de parution
01 février 2006
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9788184759792
Langue
English
TRANSLATED BY ARUNA CHAKRAVARTI
The Way Home
Contemporary Bengali Short Fiction
PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
About the Author
Dedication
Introduction
1. Anandibai Rajshekhar Basu ( Parashuram )
2. Aniseed Flower Bibhuti Bhushan Bandopadhyay
3. The Brahmin Tarashankar Bandopadhyay
4. The Story of a Coward Premendra Mitra
5. The Family Retainer Gajendrakumar Mitra
6. Cactus Ashapurna Devi
7. King of the Forest Jyotirindranath Nandi
8. Sap Narendranath Mitra
9. The Crossing Samaresh Basu
10. The King Is Dead, Long Live the King Prafulla Roy
11. The Fugitive and the Stalkers Sunil Gangopadhyay
12. The Way Home Sirshendu Mukhopadhyay
13. In the Opinion of This House Bani Basu
14. Shikha s Address Suchitra Bhattacharya
Footnotes
Aniseed Flower
The Brahmin
The Crossing
Notes on the Authors
Copyright Acknowledgements
Copyright Page
PENGUIN BOOKS
THE WAY HOME
Aruna Chakravarti is a well-known academic, writer and translator. Prominent among her many publications are her translations of Saratchandra Chatterjee s Srikanta and Sunil Gangopadhyay s Sei Samai ( Those Days ) and its sequel Pratham Alo ( First Light ), published by Penguin Books India in 1993, 1997 and 2001 respectively. She is the recipient of several awards, among them the Vaitalik Award (1986), the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award (1996) and the Sarat Puraskar (2004). Her first novel, The Inheritors , was published by Penguin Books India to critical acclaim and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize 2004.
For Milu
Introduction
A translation is an attempt at communication on behalf of a culture, a tradition and a literature. The choice of authors and, more precisely, the most significant areas of their work are the first steps towards this communication, for translation must be a valid exercise. The choice of a target language is equally important, for the wider its usage the larger the scope of transmission. The use of certain languages as filters also raises questions of power and hierarchy. For example, when a work from one of the regional languages of India is translated into English it becomes the representation of a small provincial culture for a powerful international culture. It is from judicious exercising of such choices that national, even regional themes and ideas become international ones.
The operation, however, is fraught with difficulty. The more divergent the two literary traditions and the wider the gap in space and time, the greater the skill required to bring them together in a meaningful way. A writer, revered in her own country, is tested through a translation by people who judge by an altogether different set of assumptions. If the translator fails to speak forcefully and meaningfully across the language barrier she is doing her writer a serious disservice.
Beauty and Fidelity. These are the twin ideals the translator is chasing; swinging sometimes this way, sometimes that. The golden mean, the exquisite harmony in which the strands are woven so lightly and easily that they raise no dust, is the committed translator s El Dorado-forever sought; forever elusive.
There is another dimension to the attempt. The very act of translation entails the filtering of image and idea from one sensibility to another, raising questions of race, sex, religion and personal history. Translation, with its deep racial, cultural and gender implications, serves as a measure of the growth of a language and the extent of domination of one language over another. At another level, the very process of transference reconstructs cultural identity and reframes the boundaries of language, idea and perception, thus changing the terms of affiliation. How much of oneself can the translator allow to seep into her work? How much shall she guard against? A translator of today working on a nineteenth-century Bengali classic, for example, may, quite unconsciously, orient it to the expectations of a present-day international readership. A woman, translating the work of a male author, may find herself giving it a gender slant. In both cases the shifts may proceed from natural human impulses and not from deliberate choice or premeditation. Should this be seen as a betrayal? Or as the expected consequence of the filtering of images and ideas from one sensibility to another?
Regarding the collection presented here, I would like to make a few observations. To begin with, the task assigned to me of selecting and translating fourteen of the best stories by contemporary Bengali authors was daunting from start to finish. For one, it was hard to determine what constituted Contemporary Bengali . I was not sure of the time frame involved. It obviously carries on to the present day. But when did it start? Post Rabindranath? Post Saratchandra? Or even later? After Bibhuti Bhushan and Tarashankar? I decided to include the last two authors in my collection and begin my quest from there. Scholars of Bengali literature may have problems with my decision. I can only beg them to bear with me.
The second hurdle I encountered was the choice of stories. The wealth, both qualitative and quantitative, of short fiction written in Bengali is so vast and varied that selecting fourteen stories was almost impossible. I tried to pick the ones which not only combine economy of expression with storytelling ability and rhetorical skill but also offer some significant comment on the human condition. I admit, of course, that many good stories have been left out. I hope to make amends for the lapse in a second volume.
Some of the stories in the collection have shared themes and patterns. They may deal with the same subject matter or even employ the same devices. For example, there is a strongly stated gender theme in a large cluster of stories. Sushila of Bibhuti Bhushan Bandopadhyay s Aniseed Flower is the young daughter-in-law of a harsh, conservative Brahmin family living in a remote village of Bengal. In her youth and innocence she doesn t realize that to survive in the society in which she lives she is required to mould herself in an acceptable stereotype. Her faith in her natural instincts and her spirit and independence are seen as a complete violation of the norms of rural middle-class living-not only by her family but the entire village. Two other stories take up the same theme: Ashapurna Debi s Cactus and Suchitra Bhattacharya s Shikha s Address . But the overall effect of each story is different. Whereas Sushila s resistance is na ve and unthinking, Bharati s and Shikha s are powerful and intellectually expounded. By seeking to redefine their role and image, and by demanding equality with men in economic and social spheres, they challenge the very basis of the world they occupy.
The impact of triple talaq on Muslim women is visible in Narendranath Mitra s Sap . The romantic and lyrical exposition of the theme makes Sap one of the most beautiful stories in this collection. The element of irony inherent in this story, however, does not distract the reader from the writer s main intention which is the examination of some significant human problems sparked off by archaic notions and warped interpretations of the shariat. A similar approach is visible in Bani Basu s In the Opinion of This House -an ironic representation of notions of female emancipation. It also deals with the conflict between reality and illusion and demonstrates the way people spin flimsy webs about themselves as a protection against unpleasant realities. Rajshekhar Basu s Anandibai is yet another comical expos of relations between the sexes. Although the characters are flat for the most part and the story fairly stereotypical, the economy of language, the intensity of effect, and the benign bland humour make it one of the best stories in the comic tradition. Though the other characters remain static, the central character is shown as having altered his view of himself and his destiny. It is a consequence of the insight he has gained in the conflict through which he has passed.
Two stories, The Way Home and The Crossing , explore and analyse innate human values. In the first, Sirshendu Mukhopadhyay employs the twin motifs of perilous journeys and surreal worlds, using fantasy to disguise universal truths but ultimately revealing them in the context of tribal folklore and ancient wisdom. A perilous journey is undertaken, too, in Samaresh Basu s The Crossing -not magical and illusory as in Sirshendu s story but harrowingly real. The Crossing -a brilliant compound of plot, characterization, point of view, language, tone, atmosphere, imagery and symbolism-is one of the most powerful stories in this collection.
Three stories have a weak, marginal man at the centre of the narrative. But the techniques of delineation are widely divergent. In The Brahmin , Tarashankar Bandopadhyay starts out with a character both comic and despicable-a stock type which he then develops far beyond its original dimensions. At the end of the story Purna Chakrabarty escapes the confines of his type and transcends it. He becomes an archetypal figure-a symbol of tragic human experience. Exactly the opposite happens in Premendra Mitra s The Story of a Coward . The writer skilfully manipulates the elements of the plot to provide the reader with a heightened perception of a common human weakness-the inability to take a decision. Nothing is solved for the protagonist at the end of the story. His conflict goes unresolved and he gains no insight. The reader, with his greater awareness, knows that life for the protagonist will go on in the same way for he was given a second chance but lacked the guts to take it. Haran of Gajendrakumar Mitra s The Faithful Retainer is also a stock figure-a timid, bumbling, middle-aged man shamelessly exploited and degraded by his own family. The technique employed here is somewhat unusual. Haran is seen not through the eyes of the omniscient narrator, but the narrow limit
