Into Bhasha and English: Comparative Study of Bhasha and English Translation in India

The paper explores the various aspects of the translation process in India, by comparing regional language and English translations of three particular regional language works, using the Malayalam and English translations of Tarashankar Bandyopadhyaya’s Bangla novel Arogyaniketan, U.R. Anantha Murthy’s Kannada novel Samskara, and V.S. Khandekar’s Marathi novel Yayati. The obvious fluency of a bhasha translation as compared to the English translation, I argue, point to the cultural filiation shared by Indian bhasha works despite their linguistic differences. The English translator in India faces the predicament of having a target language with no cohesive target readership. In fact, without a clear idea of who she is translating for, the English translator is forced to smoothen out the vexatious cultural aspects, which resist being carried over completely across borders. On the other hand, interlingual translation between the regional languages in India is more of an intracultural than an intercultural transference, which leads to less self-conscious translations. Contrary to Lawrence Venuti’s argument that ethnocentric violence is the price you pay for fluency, the bhasha translations appear to be more sensitive to cultural nuances than the English ones with all their foreignizing devices of extensive notes and glossary.