Bloomsbury’s first Telugu-English translation, Tiger Lessons is a powerful articulation of a region, of the exploitation of the environment by man (to name just a few)—topics that are of utmost relevance in the present socio-economic and political context.
Venkatarami Reddy’s novel is not a romanticization of the occupation of the gollas (the shepherds) or the protection of wildlife in the forest, but an exploration of the larger questions that arise when the gollas in the Rayalaseema region have no other option but to confront wildlife when scarcity of water forces them to take their sheep for kondapolam, the act of taking them to the hills and the forests to help them survive during the summer months. The novel is about the genuine fears of the youth in the golla families who cannot follow the occupation of their forefathers. It is also about the illegal sandalwood smugglers, their using yanadis (the tribes) as scapegoats when they are caught in the act by the police who are hand in glove with them.
The ‘Translator’s Note’ by Narasimha Kumar at the end refers to the research involved in the translation of a text of this kind where the translator needs to understand the names of different places, references to saints, gods and goddesses, types of grass, trees, hills, different water bodies, agricultural implements, proverbs, customs of different castes, kinship terms, and so on. This enormous task of the translator that often goes unnoticed in such an endeavour needs to be recognized. The translator also succeeds in keeping close to the cultural roots as embodied in the proverbs used in the source text. The translation does well to do away with the annoying glossary at the end which used to be a mandatory practice of translated texts in English. But the Translator’s Note smuggles in some of the explanations traditionally found in the glossaries—of various castes and tribes, names of various temples and deities and some practices.
Now to come to Tiger Lessons per se. Is the text by Sannapureddy Venkatarami Reddy? Surely, the Telugu text, Kondapolam is. When it is translated into English, when Narasimha Kumar chooses to change the title to Tiger Lessons, rearranges the first chapter of the Telugu text which begins in the present with Ravi, the Forest Officer, visiting his village and the rest of the text as a flashback (albeit in consultation with the author), it becomes his own creation. The first chapter in the source text raises some fundamental questions the novel raises, of the following of the traditional occupation of tending sheep versus taking up modern jobs and the priorities of people of different generations in the same family. The translator chooses to begin with chapter two in the source text. Unlike the source text that makes the entry of the tiger surreptitiously, even the word tiger is not directly used by the novelist until the fifth chapter and he prefers to use instead the word pedda nakka, the big fox; the English rendering announces the tiger right away, right from its title. Along with the Telugu title, Kondapolam, the explanation of the practice of kondapolam with which the source text begins, even for the Telugu readers from the other Telugu regions who may be unaware of it, goes missing in the translation. Apart from this, the English text chooses to divide the novel into three books, naming them ‘Fear’, ‘Community’, and ‘Courage’. We wonder why the English text must become more explicit!
True, the translator is as much the creator of the text as the Telugu author (or is he more?). Prabha Sridevan, who translated among others, Imayam, the Tamil writer, said, in a recent conversation in The Hindu Lit for Life 2026, that while translating a text, she does not ‘overlook even a comma. Every word is an adventure. If I overlook anything, I fail as a translator.’ She also admitted: ‘Something is always lost in translation. It is like carrying water in your hands—however careful you are, some water will spill.’ As fellow translators, we see the gain, in this case, a different form of the source text, the touch and feel of the translator and the aroma and the emotional essence of the translated text. Most people who read the translation do not know the source text. In that case, are they reading Narasimha Kumar’s or Venkatarami Reddy’s text?
Most reviewers discuss the English text as if it were the source text, elaborate on its theme and judge it. Or there are a few who know the source text, who compare the two almost verbatim and critique the translation. How do we balance these two extremes? Is such a thing an impossible task? Whose text should it be, the translator’s or that of the author of the source text?
M Sridhar & Alladi Uma retired from the University of Hyderabad and have been involved in the field of translation for over thirty years.