In 2018, Susham Bedi wrote the novel Navabhoom Ki Raskatha in Hindi. Seven years later the book is still being read in the original tongue. A hardcover imprint by the Hindi Book Centre seems quite popular.
Last year, in 2024, this book was one of the twelve that were translated to English by Astri Ghosh under ‘The Women Translating Women’ project. An effort of the Ashoka Centre for Translation funded by the eponymous Susham Bedi Memorial Fund and printed by Zubaan Publishers, New Delhi.
Titled A New World Romance, the English translation is faithful to the language and construction of the Hindi original. Very often with translations the decision to remain true to the original can be a Faustian bargain. In this case, despite Ms. Ghosh’s sincerity, we end up losing much of the froth and fun that Ms. Bedi packs in the original.
In India a vernacular novel and a novel in English often cater to very different demographics. With very wide gaps in social and cultural moorings. What may be normal for one set of readers may be unthinkable for another. What maybe current for one set may feel dated to another. What may seem familiar and comfortable to the vernacular reader may seem alien and contrived to the English reader…and vice versa.
As someone who speaks mainly in Hindi and reads mainly in English, I can only sympathize with Ms. Ghosh as she took on the task of translating this deeply felt, very personal and fully engaged work on love, longing, desire and loss.
The book begins with the author talking to the reader. The sootradhaar works seamlessly in Hindi but the sturdy introduction of the original seems cloying and plods in English. This continues for the first seventy pages. The book, which sets off to a hot start in Bedi’s Hindi original, splutters and coughs in Ghosh’s English effort. This despite the several shining situational and emotional turns that the translation brings out ably. In English the book simply fails to make the kind of purchase it needs to on the reader.
Luckily the reader’s interest grows along with the ardour and passions of our protagonists. By half mark Ketaki and Aditya have doubts about the form their relationship is taking. The Hindi reader will be fully vested in the lovers’ conundrum. And despite what is lost in translation, the first nibbles of anxiety mean that the English reader isn’t too far behind.
From here on both the Hindi and the English versions of the book tend to remain quite engrossing. Too much choice can be a bad bad thing. And this comes across fully regardless of language. As the relationship between two mature, sweet people quickly rams through the honeymoon phase into the murky toxic world of suspicion, distrust and mutual antipathy,readers are hooked.
A trainwreck is fascinating in any language.
The end again is something that seems false in Hindi and downright hideous in English. The tryptic of conclusions offered by Susham Bedi is a lazy end at best. In translation Astri Ghosh may have chosen to commit to one of the three possible endings.
The book would have worked better with such a liposuction.
Recently there has been much debate on the license allowed by the Korean writer Han Kang to her English translator Deborah Smith. When they were both awarded the Man Booker prize, there were fans who said that Smith deserved Kang’s Nobel. While there were others who said Smith’s liberties have destroyed the very spirit of Kang’s writing.
While most of us will never read the original in Korean—we have thoroughly enjoyed the total novelty of the English translation just like hundreds of thousands of other readers.
So, could Ms. Ghosh have chosen to re-engineer Ms. Bedi’s book while translating it into English? As a reader all I can say is if that wasn’t allowed, then at least a nip tuck may have been considered.
Niggles aside, the translation does a great job of bringing Bedi’s treatise on choice in general and feminine choice in particular to English. The English reader will feel the excitement, elation, joy, jealousy, helplessness, frustration, dread, confusion and despair along with Ketaki and Aditya. And as a result, will be the richer for it.
Additionally, Bedi in her book refers to several Indian classics. When Aditya quotes Jayadev’s Gita Govindam to Ketaki, the ancient meter seems to pulsate with their desire for each other. Thanks to this translation, curious English readers may choose to be reminded of Bhojaraj and Kalidas, and peruse works hitherto neglected.
A reader such as myself would never have stumbled on Susham Bedi without Astri Ghosh’s English translation—tragic though it is, I suspect this is quite common among Hindi speakers who read in English. The translation got a wonderful writer to the likes of us. As well as to the world of non-Hindi readers, making it a laudable effort.