April at Outspoken-ish

Lost in Translation, Aakhir Kyon?

(Devanagari script from a section of the Sanskrit Bhagavata-purana, c. 1880–c. 1900; in the British Library. The British Librfary/Robana/REX/Shutterstock.com)

Socha na tha ki form hi content hoga, ki medium hi message hai.

In this month’s dispatch of Outspoken-ish, we’re talking about language and how as desis, we remain bi, if not, multi-lingual. And yet we abandon the richness of multilingualism and settle for one. To read, write, think, speak on the straight narrow path of a language not our own historically, but one we have completely owned.

But doesn’t the onus lie on us, if we’re serious about preservation?

Even as the International Booker Prize shortlist sees the Amazon links to Geetanjali Shree ticking, T finds herself thinking about learning to read and write like a translator, while growing up in a milieu as rich as India, wherein the spoken word prevails over the written.

You can expect to find Tintin here. And also Russian folktales. In Bangla. T also discusses Love in the Big City and After the Sun, as she seeks to place herself and the questions around being lost in translation, in an Outspoken-ish essay.

Coming Soon!