Translation of Poems from English to Sanskrit

Background

Bhim Sain Khurana was an Indian filmmaker and a pioneer of animation in the country. He gave the country classics like Gharaonda, Ek Anek Aur Ekta, and Dooriyaan and has won over 70 national and international awards for his work. During his art college days in Lucknow, Bhim Sain painted beautiful landscapes and sceneries including the enthralling Lucknow railway station. “Beyond Paintings” is a compilation of his best work in a coffee-table book with poetry by his daughter Ritika Khurana. This book is a tribute to Bhim Sain by his family and an attempt to preserve his withering paintings in digital and print format. The poems, originally written in English, needed to be translated to Sanskrit to bring out the essence of the paintings in a language that is considered the oldest in the world.

Challenges

• Poetry translation - much beyond mere language translation Ritika, Bhim Sain’s daughter, penned in her poems the emotions and meaning she found in every stroke of her father’s paintings. It was as much an emotional journey for her as it was for her father. It was therefore important for the translator to connect with both the paintings and poems and bring out the essence of Ritika’s thoughts and not just the text.
• An expert in Sanskrit language and literature People are more interested in European and Asian languages today, a result of globalization. For this reason, though Sanskrit is one of the oldest languages in the world, it draws very few people to learn and use it on a daily basis. Ulatus has a large team of Sanskrit translators; however it was a necessary to find one who could also bring in the flair in his/her writing.
• Tehzeeb's emotional bond with the book Of all the paintings Bhim Sain worked on, very few are still with the family. Most of them were given away as gifts or are lost. After Bhim Sain’s death, the Khuranas felt a great loss and are left with very few physical things that are his memory. Beyond Paintings was an attempt to preserve the great Bhim Sain’s paintings. So it was important that the translator feels the emotions of the family while working on this special project.
• Beyond translation – layout, and design This was an extremely unique assignment for Ulatus. This book preserves years of Bhim Sain’s work and is a compilation of Ritika’s emotions towards her father’s paintings. Hence, it was of utmost importance that the layout and design resonate with the objective of the book and the emotions attached to it.

The Ulatus Solution

• Connect with the Khuranas on an emotional level This assignment wasn’t a language translation project of official documents and technical research. It was a book of poems and paintings that defines the sacred bond between a father and a daughter, and a daughter’s effort to understand and preserve her father’s hard work. In order to impeccably translate this book, we had to connect with the client emotionally and understand her perspective and expectations.
• Finding a translator with a flair in his/her writing This project required a translation of poetry from English to Sanskrit. Hence it was important that we select a translator who not only had a proficiency in Sanskrit, but also who had the ability to translate poems without altering its essence. With a stringent linguist selection process and by sharing samples of different translators with Tehzeeb, we finalized the translator who was deemed an ideal fit for this assignment.
• Involving Tehzeeb to ensure quality and consistency Multiple set of translated poems were shared with Tehzeeb for review. This was done to understand what style of translation was resonating with the Khuranas. All changes suggested by her were accommodated and considered for future translations to ensure consistency across the book.
• An exclusive layout and design expert Since this book speaks of such an important bond, we didn’t just stop at providing mere language translation service; we also contributed to creating the perfect layout and design in order to give it a shape that reflects the beauty of the book. Tehzeeb sent us samples of the designs and we sent our suggestions for improvement with regards to font and style, which were later implemented. We finalized on a design that we believe is the perfect match for the book.