In Translation – Hindi
By Suryakant Tripathi ‘Nirala’. Translated from the original Hindi by Gautam Choubey
The book begins with ‘Sukul’s Wife’, a story of vidrohi tevar (revolutionary zeal). While celebrating the idea of a choice marriage between an inter-faith couple, it is traversed by organized orthodoxy—there is much discussion on choti—the tuft of hair epitomizing exalted caste, female autonomy, gastronomical preferences, the psyche of man-woman relationship, and so on.
By Vinod Bhardwaj. Translated from the original Hindi by Brij Sharma
The book reads like a collection of salacious and malicious gossip hung from the washline of a drab and nuanceless narrative voice to look like a novella and seductively titled as a ‘diary’. It is neither literary, nor anti-literary. The characters—artists, curators, gallery owners, critics, art dealers, models and maids—are cardboard figures. Only dogs and mice have some life and seem interesting.