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Research Journal of English Language and Literature (RJELAL)
A Peer Reviewed (Refereed) International Journal
http://www.rjelal.com RESEARCH ARTICLE
FICTIONALISNG THE BIOGRAPHY: A CASE STUDY OF C.K JANU VIA CULTURAL
TRANSLATION
ANJU ANTONY
Ph.D., Scholar, Kannur University
ABSTRACT
Cultural Translation, an effective tool for examining translations of cultures in texts
in the zeitgeist of postcolonialism, gathers momentum in the present scenario as it
gives voice to the marginalized. This paper, focusing on Cultural Translation as a
counter discourse in the postcolonial context looks at Tribal writing – a biography,
particularly problematizing itsidentity as a construct and their assertion of the self
through writing, especially by analyzing the cultural context of Kerala. But it seems
that Cultural Translation evokes the unresolved question again, that is, whether a
culture can be translated, especially when it deals with tribal literature and how far
it is possible.This paper focuses on the case- study in the translation of the
biography of C.K. Janu and how the text is being read in the society whether as a sudden grown mushroom under the light of media, whether the problems of Dalit Article Received: 26/11/2014 are rightly addressed comparing both the source text and target text. Revised on: 13/12/2014 Key Words: Cultural Translation, Tribe, Adivasi, Source Text, Target Text, ideology Accepted on: 15/12/2014 Copyright KY Publications debatable discourse recently and they represent The process of writing has its own politics. marginal groups in the mainstream society. This It should address the power dogmas and norms of paper focuses on analyzing the biography of C.K writing in the society. It can manipulate the Janu, a Tribal woman leader in Kerala through the normality in perspectives and even construct the concept of cultural translation. dos and don'ts in the society. At the same time the Relevance, Space and Context of the biography of
world of writing is complicated with the transactions C.K. Janu
of the publishers, publishing houses, translators and Life stories and self-narratives are gathering their ideologies. The unwritten rules regarding momentum in the present scenario of Kerala. Being publishing a text is very intricate which may affect written in a particular society and expresses their the powerful writings too. Some can really challenge views through the medium of writing is highly and break the shackles and make a discourse in the political act too. The marginalized groups/ people society, especially when they come from a get attention through their life stories and self- marginalized group, silenced through generations. narratives and it is the most remarkable thing in the Most of the post- colonial texts are the attempts to cultural context of Kerala. C.K Janu (the vibrant ‘write back' by asserting the self and identity mainly leader of the tribal group in Kerala), NaliniJameela, when they are from a marginalized group. In the (a sex worker who is marginalized by the morality context of Kerala a few texts are written making a codes of society), Sr. Jesmi (an ex- nun who was ANJU ANTONY
Research Journal of English Language and Literature (RJELAL)
A Peer Reviewed (Refereed) International Journal
http://www.rjelal.com silenced by the patriarchal norms of Church) and the party operates and marginalizes them within. She like have published their self-narratives recently in does not have an initial and the Literacy Programme Kerala. These words and utterances of these women Coordinator has given the initials at the age of shock the Kerala society at least for a short span of eighteen. The marriage and such practices have less time. Among the three C.K Janu's life story and important in their community and she has got his NaliniJameela's were written by somebody else, man at the age of eighteen, but she does not want saying that they are illiterate or ‘semi-literate'. But to be a married woman and left him. She believes in unlike NaliniJameela, C. K Janu knows how to read the strong bond among women in her community and write, though she is not educated in the and she shares the hope that only through them the traditional sense. In an interview, she openly points changes will occur. She reiterates the need for the out that she is working on her autobiography and land and their inevitable relation with the land she is unhappy that Mother Forestis treated as her throughout the text, but the main drawback of the autobiography. This is the way of direct text is that it fails to establish it reasonably. It seems marginalization of a tribal woman, making her' to give importance to romantic notions and the wild illiterate' and ‘semi-illiterate', and she also allegedly imaginations rather than the real problems faced by points out that her so called autobiography is published by Bhaskaran is a detailed interview about The identity politics of Mother Forest
her life and experiences and she allows him to C. K. Janu has the culture- based identity publish it as a book. But when the questions he and it is the way a human being constructs the asked are removed in the text it gets the' face' of an identity especially from a marginalized culture. And autobiography which has some ironical statements he observes that this identify is a counter one for in it. So in this paper, Mother Forest is treated as her the hegemonic ideology. For the construction of this biography and it analyses how far this work is being identity, a Dalit/ tribe goes back to the experiences read in the society, whether as a sudden mushroom of the past which naturally paves the way for the by the help of the media or the vibrant leader who understanding of forest and nature which in turn has to go miles to solve the problems, and how their makes a positive leap on the study and preservation problems are rightly addressed by making a case of them. Dr. P. K Pokker observes in a different way study. It also analyses the problems of cultural in which it reveals the identity politics of the C.K.Janu's auto/biography explains the A brief content of the biography Mother Forest
identity of an Adivasi who belongs tothe Janu was born in Thrissileri in Wyanad scheduled tribe. Accordingly the tribes who district of the southern Indian state of Kerala. She had to depend upon the forest for their belongs to the Adiya tribe, one among the thirty five livelihood suffer from poverty as their right tribe clans in Kerala which together constitute 3.5 to possess forest has been denied. She lakh of population. Actually the story she has told to remembers her early days and constructs Bhaskaran, the famous cartoonist in Kerala, is about her own identity in the light of her new the history of Adivasis and their futile struggle for understanding. She came in touch with the survival for years and their attempts to get their mainstream life by way of participating in land back. She shares reminiscences about her literacy work and left politics. Later she childhood, how it is deeply associated with nature, deviates from the left to focus on tribal forest and soil and then how the interference and issue, which is only one among other issues transactions of the civilized society have changed for the left. However the social movements everything, and how the Zemindari system makes such as literary work and left labor union the real owners of land mere dependents, what is activities led her to identify her own social the role of political parties in their life, why they are attracted towards it and the ways through which the ANJU ANTONY
Research Journal of English Language and Literature (RJELAL)
A Peer Reviewed (Refereed) International Journal
http://www.rjelal.com The rapid progressive changes in the field When the text is compared with the Target Text, it is of Translation Studies stimulated the formation of a to be found out that how culture of a particular new branch- cultural translation which is a broad community is represented in the hegemonic term in which understanding a Target Text means language like English. understanding a different culture. It gives impetus Cultural Translation as a tool for translation
for the study of marginalized cultures-ethnography. The insatiable curiosity of human minds to know development in translation after the word by word more is clearly visible by the new developments and translation and sense by sense translation. It is an practices in the academic level too. The historical attempt to take the reader to the author. It is not amnesia for a marginalized group can be cured by simply a translation of culture but a scrutinized this new focus if the voice is written. Janu's analysis of the power relations and ideology biography is an attempt to proclaim the space and associated with the production and translation of a identity of Adivasis and this chapter focuses on the text. It also examines how the problems of diaspora, importance of it in the cultural context of Kerala. migrant and the culturally silenced or othered The role of land and language in the biography of
populations of Dalit in general. As it deals with the C.K. Janu
Since land is the inseparable part from the manipulation, it is inevitably linked with present Adivasi life, Bhaskaran, the chronicler, focuses on system of thoughts as well as ethics. It also related the need of the land than the language. In the with HomiBhabha's concept of hybridity and introduction he says: "they are the real owners of ambivalence as it gives room for the experience of the soil. It is the reality we practiced to forget. The all. It has a subjective perceptive, at the same time it retrieval of their land is the only solution because it analyses every nuance of texts to focus the cultural is their rudimentary need" (8). He observes that she specificity and deviations from the Source Text. In calls the struggle fir land to Adivasis not as a political this paper, cultural translation as a tool is limited to one, but a struggle against another culture. She translating a culture and analyzing the changes thinks that the retrieval of their land helps them to occurred in Translated Text. retrieve their culture. He seems to address the A critical analysis of the translation of C.K
Kerala society as a whole which is unaware of the problems of tribal community. "The language (of C. K. Janu's biography was translated to them) seems scattered and protruded as an English by N.RaviShanker in the year 2004. It has to aftermath of its transactions with the mainstream address a wider and broader group of people and society" (9), adds Bhaskaran. It is the same language the problems discussed in the text will be read in Janu speaks, apparently simple and scattered, but different light, because the cultural context is highly political and polemical. And this same different. The changes and differences start from powerful language creates the difference. When we the very title of the text itself. analyze a community, their language and its In the Malayalam Source Text, the title is peculiarities are important understand them C.K JanuvinteJeevithakadha (The Life Story of C.K because language is culture specific. Janu). But when it is translated to English, the title Janu speaks with a particular tone and has been changed as Mother Forest, the unfinished rhythm. Her dialect is specific to her community story of C.K. Janu. The very title seems to give a which has a musical tone in it. The orality of their metaphoric representation of C.K Janu merged into language is part of their tribal identity. She uses the tribal living as well as into the forest. The words like ‘nammal' (we) even in the place of ‘njan' (mis)representations start with giving colours of (I). It indicates the community feeling deeply exoticism, strangeness and wilderness to the life of enrooted in their speech. Bhaskaran maintains the an Adivasi. The attribution of mother forest seems way she speaks in the Source Text, but when the to give the impression that the readers should work is translated it is an enigma for the translator. understand from the very title that the text deals ANJU ANTONY
Research Journal of English Language and Literature (RJELAL)
A Peer Reviewed (Refereed) International Journal
http://www.rjelal.com with an Adivasi/ Dalit. ‘Forest' for the mainstream The orality of the language seems to be the society is the place of wilderness, dense and puzzle to the translator. The tone of the language strangeness, sometimes for fantasies. Since ‘mother' and its rhythm is untranslatable. But the Target Text stands for affection it is quite ironical in the title and should not resemble to the factual narration like any it creates a kind of curiosity in the receptors. It is other biography, since here the Source Text narrates strange for the mainstream society that the forest the things as if she were speaking. To maintain the can be a mother for somebody. That affectionate intonation of her utterances, the translator assumes strangeness can be seen in the very title itself and it a new pattern in which the sentences are more automatically arouses curiosity to read a fantasy, lucid. In the translators note he says: "the upper not with an effect of understanding a human being, cases in the first chapter, in a sea of lower cases, are but somebody else. The ‘otherness' in the title used to indicate the stresses in Janu's spoken seems to be a deliberate attempt to make a division language. The first chapter was treated differently between the ethnic and major cultures. It seems a from the second, because I felt that it was closer to deliberate attempt to create the exotic other. It Janu's inner world, while the second was more indicates that she is ‘natural' as well as aboriginal. polemical and belonged to the outer world" (xii) . In The language constitutes the societies and the the first chapter the translator uses the small letters perceptions of this language may affect the even for beginning a sentence, and ‘I' is ‘i'. (It normality practiced in the society. It is the language reminds one of Alice Walker's Color Purple, where of the mainstream society deliberately creating a Celie cannot assert herself with. It is the technique ‘cultural other' which is inferior and has strange adopted by the translator to indicate the stress she practices. In the text, Janu says: "no one knows the has given in her speech. The attempt is limited in the forest like we do. The forest is mother to us. More first chapter only, since the second is more related than a mother, because she never abandon us" (5). to the outer world as the translator mentioned in It seems that the image has taken from these words the note. It is also difficult for the translator to of Janu, but in the title the focus turns to her and distinguish her usage of ‘nammal' as singular or her life. This is a deliberate attempt to maintain the plural. It is the context determines the meaning; binary between the elite and the tribe. It is essential even then she uses ‘nammal' for denoting herself. in the society, because ‘the othering' seems to help But the translator avoids the usage of ‘we' in the to define ourselves. context of ‘I'. It is the lacuna of English language The power play of identity politics is quite that there is no apt pronoun to indicate ‘nammal' visible in the title. When a tribal woman constructs from' njangal' but only ‘we' to denote the meaning her own identity with her experiences in the past of both. In the translator's note he adds: "I had to mingled with present, the interference of the society settle for using I or we, as the context demanded. makes it ridiculed or keeps it as the other always. It This is the one compromise I had to make with great is a hindrance in understanding and explaining what reluctance, perhaps sacrificing accuracy for clarity" a tribe is. It reiterates the wrong romantic notions of Adivasi. When they indulge in the struggle for There are certain words even their words retrieving the land, the message is misleading that they want to retreat themselves to the forest. That ‘kundankozhi', ‘kudi' ‘gaddiga' ‘erumadam' ‘muttal' kind of isolation is no more possible. So the attempt and the like. Even though the words are explained in to marginalize those people through ‘naming' or the glossary these words are deeply enrooted with labeling should have been avoided. It does not the culture. Even the rituals they are doing are not matter how fluent and transparent the translation described even in the Source Text. For example the is, the ‘invisibility' of the translator is a myth; word ‘kudi' can be replaced by ‘hut' or ‘home' especially when a culture is translated from a according to the context. But the word ‘kudi' is used marginalized group. by the tribal people only. The significance of the word cannot be maintained in the Target Text. It is ANJU ANTONY
Research Journal of English Language and Literature (RJELAL)
A Peer Reviewed (Refereed) International Journal
http://www.rjelal.com quite different from the mainstream society and The invasion and encroachment on the these words are used by those particular marginalized community is there everywhere, not communities. So ‘Cultural Translation' is under only in Kerala. The powerful always keeps the binary erasure especially when it is associated with with the powerless making them as the other or marginalized culture. How far their culture can be diffident. The shame and embarrassment he has represented to another language seems to be a when he writes the Source Text, could have been debatable issue. The untranslatable words and translated because it is pellucid in its aim. rituals cannot be effectively mentioned through the There are some slight variations in the footnotes and glossary. Target Text. When in the Source Text Janu speaks Some instances of Cultural Gaps created in the
about the ‘kunnippayam' they are having in the Translation
forest (12), in the Target Texts it is translated as The author's introduction to the English ‘kanjippayam'(2). The minute details do not get edition describes the brief history of Adivasi in the proper significance while translating. Kerala context. It describes how they are silenced The Source Text says: through generations, how they fell prey to two kinds of slavery (one that existed traditionally and the other after the arrival of his migrants), and about the Adivasis in general. But it is not in the Source Text, since the book is published and limited in the context of Kerala. Since Bhaskaran is the cartoonist, he dedicates the Source Text to the owners of the bodies who stood in front of him as the model for his drawing, but in Target Text he rewrites it "the owners of all those bodies that stood before me during my travels in Wayanad" (viii). He includes It is translated in the Target Text: some cartoons in the Source Text but they are "I had seen many peacocks in our forest; it was nice absent in the Target Text. to see them walk. But only a peacok's feather Sally The author's notes in the Source Text and had. Since the peacocks ate snakes, we never used Target Text are quite different. When the words are to go near them." (10) sharp and poignant in the Source Text, it is missing But it seems that the underlined sentence there in the Target Text. He feels guilty to invade the in Source Text tries to convey the meaning that experiences of them. In the Source Text he says: though she has seen many peacocks, she sees the feather of peacock from Sally. It may also indicate the meaning that she is ignorant of the notion of the people from the mainstream society think that the feather will multiply if we keep it without shown to sky. The dilemma in the words is not carefully translated it seems. In the Target Text, it is meant that Sally had only the feather, not the peacock. But it expresses the cultural difference rather than pointing out what Sally does not have. She also mentions about the story which Sally read for her. It It is not translated to English. It can be translated as: was about the animals in the forest which could "It is really embarrassing and shameful the speak. She says ‘never ever saw such animals in our knowledge whom we are trespassing. At last the forest' (10). The fantasies of the mainstream society mainstream society which is including us intrudes on regarding the unknown are teased by Janu through the experiences of a marginalized community." ANJU ANTONY
Research Journal of English Language and Literature (RJELAL)
A Peer Reviewed (Refereed) International Journal
http://www.rjelal.com these words.There is the preparation of the land for relatively possible translation may not propagate cultivation called ‘punam'. Janu says about it: the idea envisaged by Cultural Translation- the "In the uncultivated forest the trees have to significance of the marginalized culture in a be cut down and the undergrowth cropped. complete sense is missing there. The bushes would be thick with creepers While being translated to English, the Tribal and thorny bushes all to be hacked down Writings cannot properly represent the tribes due to with choppers and heaped up with sticks. various reasons. To recapitulate, the reliability of Then the undergrowth would be set on fire. Target Texts will always be in the shadow of doubt We call it torching the punam". (1) though the Cultural Translation seems to be This word is used as the transliteration, but inadequate when it deals with minority cultures. later the word ‘punam' is completely omitted even though the Source Text mentions about it. Since the PRIMARY SOURCE:
words are culture specific it is important to Bhaskaran.C.K. transport the word associated with the land and the D.C, 2002. Print soil. There is also one sentence missing while ----------Mother Forest the Unfinished Story of C. K.Janu. Tran.N. Ravi Shanker. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 2004. Print. Secondary Sources:
Basenett S. and A.Lefevere.Constructing Cultures:
Essays on Literary Translation.Clevendon: Multilingual Matters, 1998. 6-14. Print In Target Text: "the vendors used to slip the bangles Benjamin, Walter. "The Task of a Translator".The Translation The one line is missing which says "they don't have any problem doing like that". She speaks Routledge, 2002. Print. about these vendors in the context where the Bertens, Hans. Literary Theory the Basics.Roultedge, people who avoid coming near to them and try to London, 2001. 5-11. Print. exploit them mentally and physically. The vendors Bhabha, Homi. The Location of Culture. London and never treat them as the other since they are the New York :Routledge, 2002. 171-174. Print. ‘business people' at the time of festivals. For them Choudhari, Saritkumar. Constraints of Tribal touching an Adivasi for their business- selling Development. bangles- is not a disgusting thing. Moreover festivals MitalPublications,2004. Print. give them opportunities to lighten their time of Joshi, Vidyut. Tribal Situations in India Issues in traumas and strains. There are certain rare Develpoment. occasions in her life that Janu wants to be happened again, and they are related to festivals in Limbale, Sharankumar. Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Valliyoorkaavu. There the vendors do not show any Literature. History, Controversies and difference and she notices it. Considerations.Trans. Alok Mukherjee. New The Mother Forest, the unfinished story of C. K. Janu Delhi: Orient Longman, 2004.14- 31. Print. provides a good reading; the readability of the book Longkumar, Jungmayangla. Change and Continuity is to be noticed. But the cultural gaps which cannot in the Tribal Villages A Sociological Study. be filled up by the languages lead to the conclusion New Delhi: Akansha, 2009. Print. that translating a culture with all its impacts is Pokker, P.K. Dalit as a Post Modern Cultural impossible within the limits of the language. The Phenomenon. comprehension and reception of culture especially marginalized one lies on the familiarity with the experiences associated with that culture. The ANJU ANTONY

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