Interviews

Between the Lines: Smriti Ravindra in Conversation with Ajit Baral

In conversation with Smriti Ravindra author of the Great Nepali novel, The Woman Who Climbed Trees, Ajit Baral, publisher, translator and festival director of Nepal Literature Festival,  talks about the Nepali literary landscape and his process of writing and translating.

SMRITI RAVINDRA: Why did you choose to translate Song of the Soil?

AJIT BARAL: Simply for the beauty of its language. It was this beauty that first hooked me to the book when it was first sent to me for consideration for publication in Nepal, as India doesn’t have a market for Nepali books by Indian writers writing in Nepali. And maybe for its length: I thought I could finish translating once I started it.

Now that you have asked me why I translated Song of the Soil, I would like to roll the question back to you: What made you write this story of a woman who climbed trees?

SR: I’ve wanted to write this story forever…mostly because I’ve seen so many wonderful women in my family remain stuck in difficult situations.  Also, as a Madhesi Nepali, I want to tell the story of the Madhes as I’ve experience it.  It’s such a rich, warm, yet oppressive region.

Is there an aspect of translation that you find particularly challenging?

AB: Translating Faatsung would have been much more challenging had it been culturally more specific. Fortunately for me, it was not. However, getting the beauty of the original across into the English language was the hardest.

And what was the hardest part of writing your novel?

SR: Finding uninterrupted time to write it, because this meant that I would start something, then stop and lose my train of thought, and when I returned to the book I would be in an entirely different frame of mind.  That was frustrating and made writing very difficult!

To what extent is an understanding of the host and the target cultures necessary when translating?  Did you have to work in any particular manner to preserve meaning and/or context while translating Song of the Soil?

AB: It is always better to have an understanding of the host and target cultures. But for that one has to have a multicultural upbringing—and not many have such an upbringing. Having said that one can overcome that limitation, I think, by further research and engaging more in communication with the author.

I am not sure how much of the politics of the Gorkhaland movement is lost on English language readers unfamiliar with the struggle for the identity of the Nepali-speaking people in India, but a little bit of exposition of the political context would have, I think, benefited. But then the question about the fidelity to the text would have arisen.

Writing is a form of translation, especially for those who write in a language which is not their mother tongue. Did you ever find yourself thinking in Nepali first and then translating it into English while writing The Woman Who Climbed Trees?

SR: All the time! And especially when I was putting down a dialogue.  I would have to say the dialogue aloud in Nepali or Maithili and then translate it to English.  I am happiest with the book where I managed this translation well enough, and most unhappy with parts where, for whatever reason, I did not go through this process and simply put down a sentence or a dialogue in English.

While The Woman Who Climbed Trees and Song of the Soil are set in different spaces (domestic and public), the intersection between the novels is how they represent the personal and the political. How did you achieve a balance between the personal and the political in Song of the Soil?

AB: This question should be for the writer rather than the translator.

SR: Another interesting connection between the novels is how they employ natural elements like trees, rivers, mountains to tell their respective stories. Other than working as setting for the narratives, what role do you think these elements play in stories?

AB: Sometimes natural elements act as more than mere settings. Your novel is a very good example of this, where you use trees as a leitmotif for freedom—women’s freedom.

How did you come up with this leitmotif?

SR: To be honest, accidentally.  It came up in the folktales I was writing and for the longest time I did not recognize it…but when I did, it made sense and it stayed.

Both the books rely on the past to situate their respective presents. This experiment with time and narrative retelling of the past is done masterfully in Song of the Soil. What are your thoughts on how fragmented memories, flashbacks and montages come together to form a cohesive story?

These are all narrative techniques, and if they are employed well, they make the writing much richer and more interesting.

In Phirphire, a Nepali novel by one of Nepal’s most popular writers, Buddhisagar, has also imagined short folkloric-sounding stories (stories inside the main story) and has them told by Juthi Amai, one of the characters, who is accused of being a witch. I had found that quite interesting. And they could be read as standalone short stories, like your story of the woman who climbs trees.

Talking of narrative techniques, you have used the folkloric kind of tale to begin and end your story. What gave you that idea?

SR: I had written the prologue, where the first folklore is told, years ago, but the epilogue, where it told again, I wrote only recently.  So, the earlier versions of the book did not have this frame.  The idea for it came from a conversation with a friend who said, rather casually, that it would be ‘cool’ if the book ended with a folkstory, since it begins with one.  And that made instant sense.  I couldn’t quite believe I hadn’t thought of it myself.

Folklores, because of their timelessness, and their succinct ways of making a point, are great vehicles to communicate ideas. And as a Maithil woman, I grew up surrounded with folk stories and folksongs, and so its not surprising that are a part of my storytelling.  

Both  Song of the Soil and The Woman Who Climbed Trees are primarily about the discovery (and concurrent loss) of home and community. What does ‘home’ mean to you?  What does ‘home’ mean to characters within novels that seek to explore the political nature of personal identities?

AB: Home is where your heart is. But where your heart is depends on a host of factors— friends, family, cultural associations, personal satisfaction, recognition. And it is never static. What is home for me today may not be home for me tomorrow. So I find the rigid nationalistic concept of homeland very absurd.

For the characters in the Song of the Soil home is an autonomous place where they can continue to speak their language, practice their cultures, and exercise their political rights.

And what of your main protagonist, Meena? What is home for her? The home that she left behind or the home that she moved to when she got married? Or The top of a tree, metaphorically speaking?

SR: The eternal conflict between maiti (maika) and ‘ghar’!  Both and neither are Meena’s homes.  The top of the tree is a fantasy, though it is the place that would accord her most freedom and extend her the warmest welcome, but to call the tree her home would mean trapping Meena forever in her madness (and to glorify madness in women).  I think she is homeless.  That is the issue.  She has no real home.

Both the novels, Song of the Soil and The Woman Who Climbed Trees also deal with marginalisation by representing the Lepcha and Madhesi communities in their narratives. How important do you think the integration of all communities is in a revolution? And how have revolutions suffered due to caste and class prejudices?

AB: This question is best left to sociologists studying revolutions around the world! But if I have to weigh in with two my cents, the integration of all communities is a must if a revolution is to succeed. This integration results in a critical mass that is necessary to topple a government or a system of governance.  But many a revolution has floundered or has not yielded the dividend they should have because the parties or leaders that came to power following a revolution have failed to address the caste and class prejudices. 

Your novel is about the marginalisation of women—and the “other” women at that.  How can this marginalisation of women be addressed? Or how can a new, equitable social order for women be established?

SR: I want to say economic independence for women, more female representation in governments, more women on streets and parks, more education…but patriarchy is the most complex and insidious of all systems.  When I think of the factors that could help form a equitable social order, my heart begins to bang.  I keep wondering what it is that I cannot foresee or imagine.  When I first read Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale I was so shocked by it.  I was reading about a group of educated, financially independent women screwed over by a government that was largely male, but also about dominance that comes about because of biological factors. That book scared me. So, education, representation, a world more in touch with its ground realities…I don’t know…

Which book, other than Song of the Soil, would you recommend to readers to get an understanding of the call for Gorkhaland?

AB: I am not familiar with the literature about the Gorkhaland movement. So I cannot suggest you anything. But an English translation of a Nepali novel (by Lekhnath Chhetri and translated by Anurag Basnet) about the movement has just come out as Fruits of the Barren Tree. This could enrich our understanding of the movement, which remains dormant for now but can erupt any day.

And can you recommend any book that helps us empathise with the position of women in our part of the world?

SR: Prajwal Parajuly’s Land Where I Free talks of women and their constraints wonderfully.  Would definitely suggest reading it to understand the relationship between Nepal and India, and the women there.  Thanks for suggesting Fruits of the Barren Tree.  Will get my hands on it soon.

 

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