Challenges in translating Dalit life-history into Sanskrit

Presenters

Narsalay Madhavi - Department of Sanskrit, University of Mumbai, Mumbai, India
Panchal Renuka - Department of Sanskrit, University of Mumbai, Mumbai, India

Panel

73 – Reading Life Narratives in Modern Sanskrit Literature

Abstract

A Marathi best-seller (first edition in 1993 and 200th edition in 2024) with the title Amca Bap an amhi by Dr. Narendra Jadhav is the life history of his father, born in a Dalit family.  It describes the struggle faced by the author’s father (bap) in upbringing his children facing poverty and social stigma.  The book has been translated in Indian Languages and Foreign languages like English, French, Korean, Thai and Spanish.  We have undertaken the translation of this book in Sanskrit.  The translation is yet to be completed and poses certain challenges:

  1. Translating the title of the book which uses the word ‘bap’; a slang word in Marathi addressed to a father
  2. The narration of the father’s life history by the protagonist himself is in Marathi, but using unpolished language, which is not necessarily a dialect of Marathi, poses a challenge of rendering it into Sanskrit.
  3. Ample usage of untranslatable words and concepts