Found in Translation: A Student’s Reflections from Bhashavaad 2.0

On the 29th and 30th of August, the second edition of Bhashavaad: National Translation Conference took place, organised by the Ashoka Centre for Translation in partnership with the New India Foundation, in an effort to bring together scholars, writers, translators and publishers. It is Day 1, and as I walk into the India International Centre, I am recovering from a common cold, unsure of what to expect. The first thing that registers my interest is the preface to an audience question. “Can I come to Hindi, please? So that more people can understand?” How fitting that this act of inquiry was also one of translation.

The second panel, “Translation, Print, and Publics,” tackled some key concerns — who do translators even write for? N Kalyan Raman, a translator of Tamil poetry and fiction, described the process of selecting a text from a particular literary tradition as “stochastic.” He stressed the importance of extending beyond the sphere of the source language. “It is not enough to just produce books. There must be material available for the audience to derive meaning.” Playwright Ashutosh Potdar spoke of the challenges he faced translating Kari Barclay’s Can I Hold You— a play about asexuality— for a Marathi audience, especially considering that verbs are loaded with a binary sexuality. “You are a translator, but you are also imagining. You are a dramaturgist, and you are also trying to be part of a public.” 

I found the insights from literary historian Aakriti Mandhwani particularly compelling. Her first encounter with translation in the archive was in the pages of a genre magazine. She made a case for a more primal print, citing the periodical and chapbook. “Worldliness is not just a preserve of the literary. Linking translation with pleasure does incredible things.” 

Raman also emphasised the importance of supporting literary magazines that spotlight literature in translation, such as Asymptote Journal and Words Without Borders. As somebody who spent much of the pandemic navigating the world of literary journals, I know how often their work goes unappreciated. Such avenues are full of brilliant and undiscovered writers, making form and style and dialect their own. Aside from publication, Potdar also brought the panel’s attention to the idea of Bhasha-Bhagini (sister language), which envisions different Indian languages in conversation with one another. 

The panel “Translating Lives” soon became my favourite of the conference, due in part to essayist Diya Isha’s (ASP’23) moderation. She began with a theme I have long considered: the unreliability of memoir. “When a translator selects what they are translating, they are forming the canon of their language in another. What responsibility do translators of biographers have in shaping the canon of the people?”

Translator Abhijit Kothari began with a minor amendment. “I was introduced as a literary critic — I’m an electrical engineer.” But Kothari is, without a doubt, an engineer like no other. He shed light on the process of translating Narmadashankar Dave’s autobiography from Gujarati, considered the first in the language. The work is a meticulous documenting of the world through jottings and footnotes. “Was he translating some version of himself? Perhaps. There’s no way I’m going to know that.” 

It was time for the beloved keynote speaker: Peggy Mohan, who also serves as a Visiting Professor in the department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ashoka University. Her most recent book, Father Tongue, Motherland, chronicles the history of languages in South Asia. She’s hard not to be charmed by— clad in a simple kurta and running shoes, her movements are animated as she walks about. In a round, contemplative voice, she begins,“We are standing at a luminous moment in India where translation is something that is going to start connecting us. The need to pick up English to communicate with somebody at the other end of India is gone because of technology.” 

The day’s final speaker was none other than Deepa Bhasthi, whom I was starstruck by after catching a brief glimpse of at dinner in the basement. Bhasthi is the translator of Banu Mushtaq’s story collection Heart Lamp, which rose to international attention after winning the Booker Prize earlier this year. A particularly striking question was posed during her panel, “No Story is Small.” “If empire wrote its dominance in English, can translation be the scalpel that reopens those wounds? Not to bleed again but to let them finally heal?” In response, she spoke of her choice not to italicise Kannada terms. “Nobody wants to be challenged anymore. Everybody wants to be able to understand every single word they’re reading.”

Day 2 of the conference began at 10 a.m., bright and early, but certainly no less stimulating. Scholar and moderator Supriya Chaudhuri opened “Translating Knowledge” with a call for intergenerationality. “Why are new translations necessary in each generation? Because we need to renew our knowledge in a medium we are capable of recognising.” Memorably, co-director of the Ashoka Centre for Translation, and Professor of English at Ashoka University Rita Kothari, spoke of translation as a gesture towards the “one lonely writer in the room” with something to say. 

The spotlight then shifted to student translators who read from their recent work. They included Aadrit Banerjee, Darshayata Deka, Hariomm Pati, Sarib Bhat (UG ‘26), and Shaanba Arambam, translating from Bengali, Assamese, Odia, Kashmiri, and Manipuri respectively. The vast collection of stories featured an Adivasi freedom fighter from Assam, a student's negotiations with gender, a child bride, a man standing at the threshold of two worlds, and a chronicle of poverty during a local festival. 

Laura Brueck, who teaches comparative literature at Northwestern University, inaugurated “Translating the Hidden” with a central question — Should translators be revealing that which is resistant to revelation? Aside from the ever zealous interpretations of hidden meanings at the hands of the English department, there is also the compelling idea of purposeful obfuscation constructed by the author of the source text. 

What was remarkable about this conference was that it didn’t gloss over the drudgeries of the job — there was a panel on copyright, and even one on economics. Editor Suchismita Ghosh spoke of the shock on a customer’s face upon finding out that a regional translation of a Murakami novel cost more than the original. “Translation is underpaid as a labour of love.” 

Literary superstar Jerry Pinto’s energy ensured that spirits were still high, even during the conference’s final panel, “Translating Bhakti.” Audience members got on their feet and recited verses along with Pinto. “Holding an ant up to the sky so that it covers an entire cloud — this is what the Bhaktas want you to think about, regardless of whichever religion you follow!” he proclaimed, miming the act and leaving everybody in awe. 

After this mushaira of sorts, I put my finger on a profound sense of beauty in the event’s proceedings — even in the instances that I remember only in little fragments. Does language make us human? I am beginning to think it might.

(Edited by Teista Dwivedi and Giya Sood.)