At one point of time I had thought of translating my own poems in English, but when I sent couple of them to some of my friends, Karishma almost immediately censored them - "It won't do; Too literal".

Now, having read some of the badly translated work, at least as a reader I know how absurd it could get. What then is one supposed to do? If you translate literally, you might end up doing absurd translation. While if you try to translate meaning, you might end up biasing the poem with your own interpretation.

Oh Jaya, isn't that the reason why good translators are so rare?

Of course. Just that I realized for myself how tough it is while I tried translating some of Bachchan's poems in this blog recently. Any good (free) web-resource on the art of translation?

Categories: Thoughts, Literature