fहndi - Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya

cannot be scribed as English language. Torecreate such idioms in other languages isa Herculean task, even though the wordMALAYALAM has the reverse reading andwriting pattern.Let's see the transference of some ofthe source subtitles, which paved way forthe enthusiastic reading of each subtopicsof the novel. There are 21 subtitles inEnglish, and Hindi translator transformedthem with equal numbers (Malayalamtranslator did not put the numbering, butthe chronological order kept as such). Assome of the phrases in original are ofphrases in colloquial Hindi and Malayalamthe translator has to adopt both languagesin TL also. The opening subtitle is withalliteration using the syllable 'P' in "ParadisePickles and Preserves". The first distancingtranslation of this phrase in Hindi to makethe TL meaningful is — 'Paradise AcharAur Murabbe.’ In terms of loan words inSL, the translator has to transliterate orcarry them into TL. So did for the faithfultranslator in Malayalam, without changinga single word of the original. The 7thsubtitle phrase in English 'Wisdom ExerciseNotebooks' could have in transliteration assuch in Hindi, but Neelabh made it absurdwhen got literally translated as 'Gyan AbhyasPustikayen." Every Malayalee is quite awareof the notebook ‘Wisdom' (with itsglobalised marketing strategy) for exploitingthe buyers, just like 'Ganga' soap advertisedfor cleaning body or removing sins. Similaris another cultural term used for anelephant — 'Kochutombhan.' This word iscoined by the novelist in resonance to thecollective noun — 'Kochukomban' meaning— small tusker. Neelabh's choice of thisword created some other nuances in thecultural milieu by a similar word 'Kochuthomman'.Besides, the title Kochu Thomman isdenoting a satirical poem of modernMalayalam poet N.V. Krishna Warriorcharacterizing a common man. Whiletranslating the cultural terms 'Mrs. & Mr.'as well as 'Ms.' into any Indian languagesincluding Sanskrit, the intranslatability liesin coining the cultural equivalences in theTL. Here Neelabh had tried the dynamicsof equalizing them with 'Smt. & Shri.',as one of the subtitles where there are threeSmts - viz. 'Smt. Pillai, Smt. Eapen, Smt.Rajagopalan'. The referred Malayalamtranslator did not go for that extreme toundervalue Indian culture by substitutingthose terms, but merely carried over theSL to TL.With regard to the title of the book,it was a difficult task for Arundhati to putsome apt title, and that came only afterfinishing the total discourse, that sheremembers: "...When I read the book now,I can't believe the amount of referencesthere are to small things, but it wasabsolutely not the case that I started withthe title and built the novel around it."Shashibala Talwar and R.S. Sharma tracethe origin of the title to Salman Rushdie'sMidnight’s Children. Saleem, the hero ofthat novel is worried about a slight errorin specifying a certain date. Padma, hisbeloved, remarks under the circumstances :"What are you so long for in your face?"Everybody forgets some small things, allfgndi •April-June 2013 :: 135