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Translation of Bhakti Poetry into English: ACase Study ofNarsinh MehtaAbstractSince the colonial times, translation into English by bilingualpoet-translators is a strategy to decolonize one’s soul. Thetranslators always wanted to locate themselves in the ‘trueIndian society’ by translating what they conceive of as ‘trulyIndian’. However, the notion of ‘true Indian’ has changed overthe period of time. In case of translators of Indian literatureinto English like Sri Aurobindo, Indianness meant pan-IndianSanskritic heritage while in the case of modernists like A.K.Ramanujan, Indianness means pre-colonial heritage in themodern Indian languages-the bhashas. As the poetics ofBhakti is largely indigenous, mass based, oral andperformative, its translation into English whose poetics ispredominantly elite, written and Westernized, involvesintensely creative interaction between two widely disparatecultural domains. This interaction helps the translatorovercome his own feeling of being cut off from his owncultural and social milieu and helps to rehabilitate and relocatehis sensibility in the Indian context. This paper is a detaileddiscussion of my spiritually moving encounter of translatingNarsinh Mehta, the renowned fifteenth century Gujarati poetinto English. There is a discussion on the challenges arising outof the great divergence between two languages, cultures,poetics and traditions and the strategies I have used as atranslator.Sachin KetkarSince colonial times, one of the predominant themes inIndian intellectual discourses is the quest for ‘true’ and ‘authentic’Translation Today Vol. 3 Nos. 1 & 2, 2006 © CIIL 2006