Tomb of Sand. By Geetanjali Shree. Translated by Daisy Rockwell. Tilted Axis. 28 August 2021
Mayank Jain Parichha
A
language requires words in some order, or sound (dhwani) that presages a meaning. Multiple sounds in an order form a language such that a person gets the meaning of what has been said. But first, the order in which these sounds are arranged needs to be understood. Panini the Sanskrit grammarian, was a genius at ordering sounds, in a meaningful way.
While language is all about sounds in order, not all sounds are well- meaning words – like the sound ‘chh‘ to show disagreement. In writing, these sounds can become banal, and even lose their exact meaning, unless the writer describes the emotion or expression with which they emerge. However, over time some sounds are accepted in writing too. For instance, ugh or Ohh! – these sounds have a popular known meaning or meanings. But what about those sounds one uses in an indirect speech to connote something like “badbad badbad” in Hindi, referring to someone’s gibberish?
Using sounds (other than well-meaning words) in writing requires skill and an unconventional style – a willingness, indeed a boldness to innovate and discover new terrains in writing. Geetanjali Shree, a prolific Hindi writer, values Dhwani in her latest novel Ret Samadhi, published in 2019, An exquisite piece of literary writing , the original novel in Hindi showed up Shree crafting a beautiful language to express even things which are tough to convey in writing.
Reading the novel
Ret Samadhi is Shree’s fifth novel and those who are familiar with her work, would find some common elements in her writing — non-linear sentences, intellectually stimulating conversations. This style, where non-linear sentences set a tone of conversations, prefiguring context and perspectives is sometimes confusing, but most of the time it is deeply engaging.. Literary critics believe that she discovers an altogether new style with each of her work, whether it is Mai, Hamara Shahar Us Baras, or Khali Jagah. But Ret Samadhi is a huge leap forward; this novel is about the wonders one can do with the Hindi language.
To translate a work like Ret Samadhi, which even those whose first language is Hindi would find tough to grapple with, would require skill and literary dexterity on the part of the translator. Oftentimes, a complaint is heard that translators simply choose an interpretative style, and try to simplify narratives, in effect intruding upon the work.
Too, sometimes a translator removes some parts of a novel and sanitizes it to make it politically correct to attract readers. Such renditions raise valid and complex questions about the dilemmas inhering in the project of translation. The presumption here is that the translator needs to give to readers what the author has originally intended.
Rashmi Sadana, mentions interesting debate over the translation of Vikram Seth’s ‘A Suitable Boy’ in her book English Heart, Hindi Heartland, when the Bengali translator Enakshi Chatterjee objected to the condensation of the novel by the Hindi translator Gopal Gandhi to make it comfortable for “upper-caste vegetarian Hindi” readers.
Sadana writes,
“What is at issue for Chatterjee is the deletion by a translator of an author’s original fictional details of the skinning of animals and tanning of their hides. The circumstance of Seth undertaking a kind of ethnographic research in a Chamar colony on the outskirts of Delhi raises a key question and reveals the subtext of this entire story: what are the politics of imagination at work in elite portrayals of Dalits? Many if not most Chamars do not work with leather in India today and in fact do a range of other low-skilled work, but the classical representation of this group as ‘leather workers’ has great purchase in Seth’s text (which is set not in an ethnographic present but in the historically reimagined 1950s).”
Daisy Rockwell, an American translator of South Asian literature renders Ret Samadhi into English staying as far as possible true to the intricacies of Shree’s style and densities. In Tomb of Sand there are very few instances of sentences condensed unless it was extremely necessary. Translation is an art and innovations are part of such a project and this is palpable in Tomb of Sand, which , interestingly, is not the exact translation of the Hindi title. It is next to impossible to find exact words to render it faithfully into this title in English, but it conveys the essence.
When I asked Rockwell about maintaining the originality and allegations of meanings lost in translation, she replied, “One should not view a translation as an imperfect representation of a superior and unattainable original. Read translations as original works and you will be much happier. People always obsess about what is lost in translation. It has become a cliché. Of course, things are lost in translation! But is that bad? They might not have even been good things. And much is gained in translation. A translation is an interpretation, a refraction, a reworking, and as such it contains something old, but also contains something new.”
In Tomb of Sand Rockwell tried to think as Shree would. At the end of the novel Rockwell expresses her experiences of translating Ret Samadhi,
“What is a translator to do with a text that is focused on its own linguicity (not a real word, I know)? I have striven throughout my translation to recreate the text as an English dhwani of Hindi, seeking out wordplays, echoes, etymologies, and coinages that feel Hindi-esque. I have also included many fragments of poetry, prayer, prose, and songs in the original language, alongside their English renderings, and even the occasional fragment of the original that was too good to leave behind. Readers who are not familiar with the South Asian linguistic landscape will find the text packed with words and phrases from Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, and Sanskrit. What they may not realize is that the original text was similarly packed with English.”
Ret Samadhi, is a story that tells itself and reviewing a story that tells itself makes for a fascinating idea. There were two women, one death. There were also men, who were alive, and men who were dead, there was a transgender who was both. “All of these are characters in this story: the bug, the elephant, the compassion, the door, Ma, the cane, the bundle, Bade, Beti, the Reeboks that Bahu wore, and the rest of the gang, who come up in the story.” There was also an un-named friend of Sid (grandson) who was griping about being excluded from the story, and says that he would find a new story!
The novel is divided into three major parts. In the first part, 80-year-old Maa, a central character of the novel sinks into depression after the death of her husband and her family vainly tries to bring her out of that state.
Depression in old age is a common phenomenon but in most South Asian families, this word is taboo, as is probably everything that concerns mental health. People of old age suffer alone from mental health – nobody understands their state of being and if they show any deviance from what is considered ‘normal,’ they are declared mad and derelict. In their loneliness their whole life their coping with its waywardness and their struggles own struggles haunt them. The question of their relevance in family, and their identity isolates and forces them to detest life.
A senior journalist in her early sixties went through bouts of depression during the lockdown, and she knew the reason – her husband is dead, her sons are settled, she has retired, now memories and regrets haunt her, her loneliness makes her miserable. She opened up about this episode and told me, “My father was anglicised, like many English- educated Kashmiri Pandits – married life was never imagined and talked about in great details in my family until I was in that institution”, she said, “We used to discuss literature, books, and everything else was taken care of by my mother.” She added, “Now I question all my decisions I took.”
Was Maa’s story different? The journalist underwent counseling and now she is documenting her experiences as she found more women with similar fates. Shree’s character Maa charts her own course; she goes on her own journey in a world of her choice, this is her escape from the fate of de of isolation and depression. She finds meaning.
In an interview she gave once, Shree likened Maa, her character to Bilkis Bano, the dadi of Shaheen Bagh, a fearless lady who, after spending all life in a patriarchal power set- up, found her emancipatory voice in the CAA/ NRC movement. But how could a woman who had never questioned any authority all through her life, start questioning the government, from the front lines so to speak? Shree provides clues: Women are surrounded by multiple boundaries; once they pass over a boundary, then there is no looking back. CAA gave Bilkis a chance to cross that boundary.
The story is not an easy ride; it demands the reader’s attention. In the age of social media when readers have skewed attention and people don’t stick at one place, this book is simply not for them but they should persevere: the beauty of Shree’s prose and sly humor promises a deeply satisfying engagement with the text. For instance, the struggle of the serious son to bring laughter on his face, a simple and beautiful episode that serves as a commentary on the human condition in its very humour.
In the second part of the novel, Maa shifts in with her bohemian daughter (Beti), who is a journalist. The daughter’s life is quite different; she, a middle-aged independent woman, she lives life on her terms. She can come home at any time; nobody moral polices her. She has a boyfriend, who is not allowed to interfere in her personal space. After spending 80 years of her life in a set-up where patriarchal power relations of family colonise her, Maa at her daughter’s takes on a a new lease of life, a new birth.. Her sacrifices that allowed her daughter an independent life, now pay off
The novel gathers pace in the second part. It flips from a long narrative about a Joint family to a deeply engaging adventure of Maa in her newly-acquired avatar. Every day, she crosses boundaries of gender, age and identity – it seems as if an air of magical realism propels the novel. Where would you find a character, who scripts a life for herself after spending 80 banal years. Her friendship with a transgender character, Rossie, a hijra becomes an vital ingredient of her metamorphosis. Nobody knows where Rossie came from, stands outside the law. Rossie can turn into Raza tailor; the daughter is uncomfortable about Maa’s closeness with Rossie.
Maa is becoming younger and Beti older. The bohemian daughter is becoming conventional; Beti is now a ‘mother’ to Maa, a ‘daughter’ who won’t let up on her dreams
At the end of the second part, a twist in the plot – Rossie is murdered. And Maa decides to fulfil Rossie’s last wish. She wants to deliver Chironji, a form of almond to Rossie’s relatives in Pakistan. Beti, like a loving mother, gives in to Maa’s wish and takes her to Pakistan, a country which she grew up assuming it as an enemy state. But for Maa, it is her past, a crucible for reminiscences of her love life, her dreams, her heartbreaks – Pakistan was a beautiful past she left years ago.
When she first crossed the borders, she was young and now when she is back in this country to relive her love, she is young again.
In the third part, the story touches on the wounds of partition. And the novel seems to enter a different zone – it is written as a homage to those who suffered from the partition; but also, with a deep bow to all those who wrote about the holocaust.
In the first chapter of the third part, Shree brings all partition writers to retell their sorrow and longings,
“The group of Partition writers has come to sit in a row, and every person has a name card at their place like at a formal banquet. Bhisham Sahni. Balwant Singh. Joginder Pal. Manto. Rahi Masoom Raza. Shaani. Intizar Hussain. Krishna Sobti. Khushwant Singh. Ramanand Sagar. Manzoor Ehtesham. Rajinder Singh Bedi.”
Krishna Sobti’s autobiographical novel, Zindaginama also gets mentioned. Shree assigns an important place to her guru and why not? Sobti crossed borders like Maa did. Maa’s story had heartbreak, longing, love, desire to peep beyond borders and finally cross. Didn’t Zindaginama have this too?
Shree writes:
“Krishna Sobti emerges from the pages looking fabulous in a brilliant purple garara and kurta studded with silver stars, a warm vest and Chitrali cap to top it off, uncapped pen still in hand, ink not yet dry. As she moves the pen across the page, she draws a line between Zindaginama and A Gujarat Here, A Gujarat There, and keeps forging ahead, as though fashioning new borders—all of which she will cross—and thus it is never closed and never shall be.”
Maa scripted the climax of her iconic story. She meets her ex-husband, whom she married just before partition rents them apart and sings a thumri, her head on his chest, a damsel in distress because her husband is probably upset at their separation. Maa’s ex-husband is the secret of her life. Every woman has a secret – a past that they left behind, as they enter an institution of arranged marriage. They live their new reality burying their past, like Maa did for 80 years. But she, is a revolutionary; not like the others. She crosses every boundary and seeks her ex-husband in Pakistan – an act of emancipation, Inquilab. Her love was revolutionary, an inter-faith love and she is willing to die for it, like all revolutionaries.
Read here Excerpt From Tomb of Sand/Ret Samadhi
In Shree’s narrative, characters remain symbolic – she doesn’t care about developing them, they all come and go, they exist for the story as tropes. Shree weaves her story taking cues from our day-to-day experiences and our everyday conversations. Like when she describes the shouting habits of the eldest son in middle-class families, Shree saw it as a template of paternalistic behavior in South Asian men.
“Shouting is a tradition, an ancient custom upheld by eldest sons. In a masterful style.” The eldest son must hide beneath the cloak of his shouting, otherwise, everyone would know how insecure he is, he never wants to share his vulnerabilities – he is a man, a man with responsibility, a man with power. How can he be vulnerable? He borrowed that guise from his father and dabbled it in his character, who taught him to be tough; don’t cry, man don’t cry. Release your anger on others, when you feel like – you can throw stuff, you can shout, you can beat your kids and if you feel like, you can casually beat your wife too, but not daily, you are an officer, you have to wear a good image for yourself. Beating your wife doesn’t suit your image. What if someone invites you to say a few words on women empowerment, and you say women shouldn’t tolerate domestic violence? You hypocrite!
“The father had shouted until his retirement; then he’d handed the yelling over to his son and grown relatively peaceful himself. Bade had wrapped himself in the majesty of even louder yelling, and he’d begun to glitter and glow. Now, in just a few months, he too would retire to ample leisure, and the yelling would fall to Sid. But for now, he still raged.”
Interestingly, a word Reebok finds mentions no less than 26 times. Reebok isn’t identified as just a brand here but a signifier that engenders relational patterns in the family – no sooner than daughter-in-law (bahu) dons Reebok, she sets on long walks, learns yoga. Reebok epitomizes her freedom. Now when she has raised her kids and married them off – she is free to do whatever she desires, per her mood. BY slipping on brand new Reebok shoes she leaves Beti in a quandary as if she has asked her: who is more liberated?
Shree’s prose often represents a new educated urban middle-class set-up where drinking is allowed, non-veg food is not barred. Brands, movies, trends, slang find a fair amount of mention. However, caste doesn’t figure much. It is subsumed under a typical set –up of a family of a bureaucrat that emits a sense of being an upper caste or at best, from other backward castes (OBC) too.
It would have been interesting to read some detailed conversations and interactions around caste, especially through Maa’s character. The novel only brings up caste in few conversations, like when Bade recommends his acquaintance from his village for a government job; the reader gets gests a sense of the way caste operates among bureaucrats but other than that caste doesn’t figure prominently. This is justified because Shree is not writing a tale about the caste system.
Judging a translation
In Tomb of Sand, Daisy Rockwell prefers sounds (dhawani) over dogmatic grammarian considerations, for instance this paragraph, “quicktothedraw requires quickwittedness, not the sort of dimwittedness that that goes about stumbling and losing balance at bells and whistles.” She coins two new words by mixing other words.
Rockwell is mindful of the author’s craft. That’s the reason for the bigger size of this novel. She has also attempted to remove complexities for the English translation reader, made it simpler without sanitizing it of its innovativeness, Since there is a difference between spoken Hindi and literary Hindi, fiction written with a lot of linguistic innovations and non-linearity in sentences demand deep and close reading. As a translator Rockwell does precisely that and the eesult is evident.
Tomb of Sand as a translation is about innovation as much as the original Ret Samadhi was in Hindi.
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Mayank Jain Parichha is a journalist who covers socio- political and cultural issues for national and International publications. He has been a recipient of various fellowships, loves literature He can be reached at gareebpatrkar@gmail.com
Daisy Rockwell is an artist, writer, and translator, whose translations from Hindi include works by Krishna Sobti, Khadija Mastur,Upendranath Ashk, and Bhisham Sahni.Among other works, “Taste” a novel.
Geetanjali Shree is an acclaimed Hindi fiction writer, playwright and essayist. She is also an Advisor to The Beacon
Geetanjali Shree in The Beacon
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