An Exclusive Interview with Bhaskar Chattopadhyay; Renowned Translator & Author

Bhaskar Chattopadhyay is an author, screenwriter, translator and columnist. He has translated such veteran writers as Rabindranath Tagore, Munshi Premchand, Satyajit Ray, and Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, among many others. His original novels are quite popular and many of them are being adapted for the screen. Bhaskar also writes screenplays and teaches screenwriting at York University, Toronto.

In an exclusive interview with Nitish Raj; Editor-in-Chief, The Literary Mirror the renowned translator talks about the various aspects of translation along with his original works and screenwriting.

Q.1: What challenges do we tend to face while translating an already acclaimed work?

Ans.: Along with the obvious and natural challenge of shouldering such a huge responsibility, there are quite a few other issues at hand. The first of course is to ensure that you are true to the spirit of the original. But then this is not a function of how acclaimed the original text is – one must try and be true to the spirit of any work that one translates, acclaimed or otherwise. The bigger issue is the very readership that the original has already earned. Because when you translate a novel from language X to language Y, then it is not just the readers of language Y who are reading it, those readers who had read the original are also reading the translation. And that could lead to criticism. Because the original has already created an impression in their minds. Unlike cinema, which is an art of forced projection, literature is wide open to interpretation. You read a story and create your images in your mind, and those images are unique to you. Only you own them and see them. Now imagine how complex this entire thing becomes with a vast readership! Matching those images, those perceptions is impossible for a translator. This is why translations always carry the curse of not being the original with them.

Q.2: Being an author yourself, what do you find more challenging: writing a novel from scratch or translating a novel, and why?

Ans.: Each has its own set of challenges. When you are translating, you don’t have to create something original, which can be a big relief for someone who can translate well but isn’t creative to the point of being original. But translations also have the constraint of sticking to the original. I have been in situations where I have found that an otherwise beautifully written original has one paragraph which is very poorly written. As a translator, what do I do when I encounter something like that? Do I remain loyal to the errors and inadequacies of the author? Or do I make a humble and yet sacrilegious attempt to make the original better? It’s a dilemma that can be very taxing on a translator.

While writing your original work, you do not have any such constraints, and that can be very liberating to some writers. You are the captain of the ship, you aren’t the second mate. You are in command. Sounds amazing, right? But then you also have the responsibility of steering the ship in the right direction, of creating something original AND interesting AND meaningful AND insightful. So like I said, each has its own set of challenges.

 Q.3: You have novelized the legendary Satyajit Ray’s film Nayak. How much different is it from writing a screenplay where we create it for the making of a movie?

Ans.: Novelizing is the reverse process of screen adaptation. In the latter, there is a story, and you create scenarios out of the story, then you string those scenarios together to create a wholesome screenplay that can help a cast and crew make a beautiful movie. In the novelization, you are watching a movie, imagining what the screenplay would have been like (if you don’t have the screenplay available to you), and then converting the scenarios into a story. In the scenarios, you don’t have thoughts, the story has elaborate descriptions of what the characters are thinking. In a film, images, and actions are there for everyone to see, but in a story, you have to describe those in great detail. There are several other differences too.

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Q.4: Don’t you think the essence of a great work like Aranyak gets lost after being translated into a different language?

Ans.: That depends on the translation. If the translator is competent and the translation is good, then the loss you are referring to can be minimized. A good translator must aim to ensure that the essence and the spirit of the original are not only retained but – and I cannot stress the importance of this enough – also understood by readers from a different milieu.

 Q.5: What are those aspects of a crime-thriller novel which differentiate it from the lot?

Ans.: I am not quite sure what you mean by ‘the lot’ here, and my answer would depend to a great degree on the meaning of that phrase. Can you rephrase?

 Q.6: You have published your novels from different publishers instead of one publisher for all your books. Is it a conscious effort or you just went with the flow?

Ans.: That wasn’t a conscious strategy at all. Readers do not pick up a book to read because it is from a particular publishing house, that is not a factor at all in the decision-making process. Throughout my writing career, I have been extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with some really talented, warm, friendly, and fun-loving people. That’s all that matters, really.

Q.7: What would be your suggestion to aspiring authors and translators?

Ans.: My singular suggestion to aspiring writers would be to write. It may seem like strange advice, but you would be surprised to know how many aspiring writers have never written anything at all! Thinking about writing is not writing. Writing is writing. It is, by far, one of the easiest and most inexpensive jobs that you can do. Just start writing, and then keep writing, keep making your writing better. Also, don’t put the cart before the horse, don’t think about publishing even before you have started writing. The first book I wrote saw the light of day only when a friend who read the manuscript literally forced me to send it to a publisher. I had no plans of publishing it at all. Don’t worry about publishing, marketing, hiring a literary agent, what to do with the Booker Prize money, and all that jazz. Just write. Write away like there’s no tomorrow. Write away till everything around you dissolves and disappears. Write away so that it becomes impossible to stop. If you can do that, then you stop being an aspiring writer. You become a writer.