Translating Chitra Mudgal’s novel – Post Box No.203, Nala Sopara: theory and praxis

This paper aims to make a study of my translation of Chitra Mudgal's award winning Hindi novel -Post Box No.203 Nala Sopara into English as part of a Sahitya Akademi translation project.It is an epistolary novel about the life of a transgender.It opened up a whole new world for me, widening my perspective, sensitizing my indifferent self to the issues of trans identity, emotions, problems and politics on an intellectual and emotional level.As a translator the text held its own challenges of translating from a Hindi which is cosmopolitan, drawing heavily from Gujrati, some Marathi and Punjabi into English.English has such a wide readership that it is impossible to fully negotiate the culture and vocabulary of it as the target language.After a text is translated, a scholar may evaluate it to see which theories or methods the translator has applied.Translation is a complex process.Critics have formulated many theories about translation over the ages.Richardson dives deep into the nature of translation, "there remains a gap between what I want to say and what the language will let me say (or even think)."(Richardson 267) He dwells upon the impossibility of accurate communication, "We can never understand anyone's meaning in its pristine state."(Richardson 267) He looks upon written or spoken language as an act of translating what we think.He argues that reading is also an act of translating as "we are translating the text into our experience."(Richardson 267) He compares a translator to an anthropologist, "both are entrusted to interpret the experience of other cultures for those who lack knowledge of them."(Richardson 267-268) Thus, the role of a translator is difficult as well as problematic.