Thank you for clearing up the omissions and ambiguities in your earlier note.

Apart from providing certain factual information of contextual relevance to your readers, I have made no claims for my work. So, there is no scope for your reading of personal attitudes into it.

Third: in the last section, I have made the general point that not everyone reads English translations the same way and that a reader should be aware of this distinction. The factors I’ve cited as contributing to the distinction – emphasis on English, cultural barrier and global orientation – are evidently real and true. I repeat that this is a general observation. If you read that as rude and disparaging, is it necessarily my fault? I don’t think so.

Kalyan

I have not said that the starkness was present in Savi’s translations–I wouldn’t know considering I don’t understand Punjabi. I have said that it was present in the poems that “Salma read”. I meant the English translations, of course, both of which I have heard on different occasions. I realise that my lack of specifics may have caused some confusion and I regret this. I have added an update to rectify the situation. I hope that helps.

BUT, having said that, my comment was about the quality of imagery and frankly, I was speaking about the poet’s work, not the translator’s. Your reaction seems a little needlessly defensive, and faintly arrogant.

Now how one separates a poem from its translation, on what grounds, along what lines and so on is a debate we can have. But it might go on a bit.

I have said “This quality is disappointingly missing from some of the poems featured at Poetry Web International.” Note: Some. Not all. Clearly, I don’t think so about ‘Image’ which is why I chose to quote from it.

I don’t want to comment on your ‘Anglophone’ argument. As a reader of English poetry, I have the right to react to a poem that is presented to me in English. If it doesn’t do much for me, it doesn’t do much for me. Accusing me of lack of adequate knowledge and resorting to derisive name-calling (‘these stupid Anglophones’ and so on) seems like a strange response.

Your criticism may of course be valid, but it needs to be read in the light of two other passages in your own narrative.

First, “Image”, the translation of a Salma poem that you hold up favourably for its starkness, is not only done by me, it is also one among Salma’s poems featured on the PI website.

Second, the Punjabi translations of Salma’s poems done by Swarnjit Savi, which you have said elicited such an intense response from the audience at the reading, were based on my English translation of those poems, provided to him by Salma herself. The success of Mr. Savi’s translations, including the starkness thereof, could not be unrelated to their source, one would think.

I rest my case.

It seems to me that English translations of Indian literature are read in this country by two different sets of readers – the first, comprising monolingual Anglophones who are strongly tied to the “world” literary milieu; and the second, made up of readers who are rooted in the literary milieu of one or more Indian languages. In my experience as a translator, it is the latter group that takes English translations of Indian literature seriously, discerning or appreciative as the work demands. A good proportion of the exchanges between literary milieus of Indian languages are facilitated through such English translations.

In contrast, the former group (of Anglophones) tends to be dismissive, frequently judging the English language abilities of Indian translators as being not up to par. There is often a cultural barrier to be overcome, in addition to their focus, by default, on the “world” literary milieu.

Any criticism of contemporary English translations of Indian literature is best read with this context in mind.

Kalyan