The translator does not talk about her experiences in particular, but a reading of the Preface along with the two texts, original and in translation, enables one to make some observations. In her Preface Bardhan quotes Boris Pasternak who said "The translation must be the work of an author who has felt the influence of the original long before he begins in work”. She talks about how she had wanted to translate this novel for a long time and it had left a deep impact on her that she wanted to share with the English language reader. "I felt in the presence of a marvelously told tale of a people’s capacity for joy and love, music and poetry, transcending their utter lack of material wealth and power, a tale of being human and in harmony with nature, of a community's vitality in ethics and aesthetics… The flowing narrative weaves scenes and viewpoints, events and reflections. And the amity portrayed between Hindu fisherman and Muslim peasants affirms and honours Bengal 's trans-religious folk culture”. (Bardhan 1992:Preface, ix).

             Bardhan does not talk directly about the problems she faced while translating this novel. However from the Preface one gets the impression that she researched intensively on the author's life, the community, the time and location and the songs, discussing the novel with the few surviving friends of the author who were involved in its publication. Bardhan says that a translation puts the novel translator to make it more palatable for the western reader. A novel like Titash would lose its inherent spontaneity and joie de vivre if liberties were taken with it. The translator realizes this and does not attempt to universalize the specificities of the text or blur its focus. One is not very happy with the songs in English but it is amazing that they have been translated at all; one would have thought they were untranslatable. Also one looks at the possibility that the novel might be translated again in the future, may be improved on this translation. It is worthwhile to remember that translation is always an ongoing process. No translated text can be taken as the ultimate rendering of the source language text.

             Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak has translated a number of stories by Mahasweta Devi. As an academic/translator based in the US her translations, one feels, are mainly for the western reader, though she maintains in her 'Translator’s Preface to Imaginary Maps’ that she caters to both, her words, "This book is going to be published in both Indian and the United States. As such it faces in two directions, encounters two readerships with a strong exchange in various enclaves. As a translator and a commentator, I must imagine them as I write. Indeed, much of what I write will be produced by these two-faced imaginings, even as it will no doubt produce the difference, yet once again”(Spivak 1995). How does she negotiate 'these two-faced imaginings’ or, more pertinent to the issue under discussion, does she gloss over the specifically indigenous, in an attempt to universalize the appeal of these stories, which in Bangla have a sharply etched tribal context?

             To some extent one feels that the issue of tribal woman and the injustice done to her in a story like "Draupadi" has been changed to the issue of the woman activist in a patriarchal set up, as a result of Spivak's "reading" of the story "influenced by 'deconstructive' practice" to quote from her In Other Worlds: Essays - in Cultural Politics. While this has been done with the author's consent, the implicit dangers in such a trend should be considered seriously, in an effort to make the translated text stand on its own and appeal to the first world reader, the translator might do away with what he/she considers problematic/irrelevant areas, which are actually crucial according to the author and help to place the text in its right context.

             One has perceived this trend in fields other than literature, the tendency to stereotype everything from developing countries with the result that they lose their identity and appear second rate. In literature too, there are writers (mainly of Indian origin) who portray Indian as the western reader would like to see it - exotic, mysterious and of course disorganized, in works that are projected as "post colonial" literature. There are writers like Chitra Devikarani who are "translating" culture in works like The Mistress of Spices for the benefit of the western reader. I was told that this novel was sold with a sachet of Indian spices to get the packaging right. In such a scenario when local / regional identities are often glossed over, one is highly apprehensive that the multiple layers of meaning, symbolism etc. of texts in Indian languages would be lost in English translation if the translator is only concerned with the market and salability of the translated text in an attempt to fit it into the category of global literature, an insidious term which has gained currency of late.

                   Reading for the purpose of translation is extremely demanding and not influenced by external considerations like market forces, if done in the right spirit. To quote Sujit Mukherjee, " Reading for translation may be placed at the highest level because not only must the translator interpret the text reasonably, he must also restructure his interpretation in another language while striving to approximate the original structure. He cannot subtract from the original. And he adds only at great peril”    (Mukherjee 1981:139).

 translator with these priorities firmly fixed would not succumb to current fade and let his/her mindset be dictated by forces that are swayed by a tendency to globalize everything. While translating a literary work from one Indian language into another is usually free from such influences, translating something into English is not, and the person/s undertaking it has / have to be very careful in order to let the translated text retain the identity it had in the source language text.

             Since knowledge of both source language and the target language, along with the socio-political-cultural nuances and connotations is essential for quality translation, a team of translators, rather than an individual would be a better option, provided that the team works in consonance, the members complementing each other's efforts. This sort of team especially when it includes persona with a sound knowledge of the source and the target languages, the text and its context, would avoid the pitfalls of translating literature with an eye on the global market. The latter often a commercially viable proposition though not an authentically literary one, unfortunately appears to be the easy option at times. Of late, translation has become an important literary / academic pursuit and many universities in the west have an entire department of translation studies. On some counts it is an encouraging factor that the study of just one literature is never enough: it breeds an insular outlook. Only when one studies literatures from different countries / regions of the world, one can put them in perspective. So translation (done in the right spirit) is an important instrument in making post-colonial literatures accessible to readers worldwide. However, this can be achieved only if the translators resist the temptation to universalize/globalize a text that is firmly rooted in its socio-cultural context.

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