Traditionally the two F's have dominated translation practice. These are Fidelity and Faithfulness to the source language text and its fluency in the target language. Male practitioners and theorists of translation have often expressed their frustration with these twin demands made of translation as a near impossible task equivalent to finding a woman who is faithful and yet beautiful. In this age of gender-sensitivity and the need to be politically correct, such sexist comments perhaps are less likely to be put stridently in print. However, their unstated presence however looms large in translation reviews in the popular print media. I shall choose to discuss the cultural and ideological implications of 'fluency' because publishing houses continue to prioritize this as a marker of a good translation above everything else. For the average reader this seems like a reasonable demand that a good translation is one that reads as if it were produced in the target language itself. However, it’s pernicious effect works both on the status of the translator as well as the translated text, whose ideological/cultural-political implications have been discussed extensively by Lawrence Venuti.

  “A fluent strategy aims to efface the translator's crucial intervention in the foreign language text: he or she actively rewrites it in a different language to circulate it in a different culture, but this very process results in a self-annihilation, ultimately contributing to the cultural marginality and economic exploitation which translators suffer today. At the same time, a fluent strategy effaces the linguistic and cultural difference of the foreign text: this gets rewritten in the transparent discourse dominating the target language culture…. In this rewriting, a fluent strategy performs the labour of acculturation which domesticated the foreign text making it intelligible even familiar to the target-language reader, providing him or her with the narcissistic experience that extends the dominion of transparency with other ideological discourses over a different culture”.

            Venuti's analysis of the politics of 'fluency' and 'transparency' that end up in 'domesticating' a text and perpetuating the cultural hegemony, the 'imperialism' of the target language is a theoretical position that can be profitably used to understand the role of translation in the post-colonial context. It is crucial to continually remind ourselves that with the lure of a global market for translated post-colonial texts the temptations of fluency and transparency can be immense. But to do so would be to participate in a cultural-linguistic imperialism that perpetuates the dominance of Anglo-American cultures. As academicians practicing translation we need to rethink our roles in politics and build up a resistance to English language-culture hegemony. Thus practicing translators need to be aware of the links that exist between the ideological premises of translation studies and post-colonial studies.

             Recent theorists of post-colonialism and translation have pointed out that 'colonialism and translation went hand in hand'. Apart from the translation projects undertaken by Orientalists who often removed all signs of cultural difference scholars have traced the analogy between a work of translation and a colony.  Both are copies of a source or original that implies an immediate devaluation of status and a position of subordination to the original. With post-structuralism and deconstruction radically revising the notion of original and questioning the status of authority/authorship recent translation theory has destabilized the relationship of power between the original and the translated text. In this context it is important to consider the radical potentials of the term uttarupaniveshbad (Hindi/Bengali for post-colonialism). As Harish Trivedi has pointed out, the term contains within it the notion of an active dialogue (the Sanskit prefix uttar means both 'after' as well an 'answer and opposition to') with colonialism and its legacies.

             Translating post-colonialists aim at providing such an answer and opposition to colonialism through a translation practice that is committed to maintaining the nuances and markers of cultural/linguistic difference of the translated works. This is in Venuti's term 'foreignize', meaning a text bringing home the point so crucial to post-colonial studies that we are encountering a cultural 'other' and not attempt to efface it or render it invisible. As practicing translators we have to be conscious of the dangers of domesticating the vernacular text and resist a form of fluency that would convey the impression that it were written in English. The greatest stumbling block on the path of such radical practice is to run a risk of the critical common place of one's work being termed a 'a bad translation' which invariably translates as it does not read like an English text. I am of course not attempting to make a plea for or uphold works of translation that are carelessly executed and are grammatically and syntactically sloppy or uneven. The crucial point is that we need to revise and monitor the kinds of expectation that we bring to a post-colonial translated text, which through years of our experience as the colonized we have internalized as 'natural' and legitimate. Perhaps a more fruitful way would be to recognize that a translated work can neither occupy the position of an original in the target language nor can it wholly be an unchanged version of its original source language. Rather it is a hybrid product that occupies a third space, a place of in-betweenness.¹⁵

            I now venture into the promised second section of my paper. About two years ago I found myself as a member of a committee set up to draft a new syllabus for our undergraduate and postgraduate English courses. For most of us in the department this meant a registering in the syllabus of the tug of the discipline of English towards culture studies. We wanted this change to be made at the postgraduate level by an inclusion of a compulsory paper called "Post-colonial Studies". This was to be divided into two sections. The first would attempt to familiarize the student with post-colonial theories and the second section would be a selection of post-colonial texts, primarily fiction. We wanted to resist the tendency to identify post-colonial fiction solely as the preserve of English language texts and wanted to include translated texts as examples of post-colonial writing. It was only then that we realized the non-availability in English translation of some of the Bengali texts that many of us would have liked to include. To give an example, Bibhutibhusan Bandopadhya's novels Aranyak and Chander Pahar (these titles would translate as Of the Forest and The Mountain of Moon respectively) we felt were interesting examples of post-colonial texts that had never been translated.  There has been since then an excellent translation of the first novel as Aranyak, done by Rimli Bhattacharya and published by Seagull Books, Kolkata.  Incidently on the occasion launch of the book, Seagull arranged a symposium inviting some of the prominent academics, critics and litterateurs of Kolkata to draw up their own list of what they regarded as the ten best novels in Bengali. The rational of such a discussion was that it would provide the publishers a shortlist of Bengali fiction, which could be taken up as a translation project. Interestingly almost none of the novels mentioned were part of the mainstream popular fiction and many of them were long out of print. The reason why I mention this is that if we are to extend our knowledge of the range and variety of post-colonial fiction then these novels will have to be discovered anew and translation ventures with specific ideological and cultural aim of dissemination will have to be undertaken if they are ever to find a Benjaminian 'after life'.

             It was grappling with the task of drawing up a list of Bengali texts available in English translation that the complete omission of writing from Bangladesh in any discussion of post-colonial studies occurred to me as a distressing gap. One reason for this was perhaps unlike India that has witnessed the rise of fiction in English the narration of this nation has happened almost entirely in Bengali. Indeed it is possible to say that translation, as dissemination is particularly pertinent in the case of Bangladesh . This is because of its identity as a post-colonial nation is integrally linked to Bengali, which is also the language of West Bengal , the Indian state with which Bangladesh shares a border. Bangladesh came into existence initially as East Pakistan when the British on the eve of their departure from India decided to partition India on the basis of religion. Like sections of Punjab in the west, a portion of Bengal in the east with a Muslim majority population was made a part Pakistan and named East Pakistan . The Bengali Muslims of East Pakistan, however, felt they had very little in common culturally and socially with West Pakistan and the first protest came against Urdu being imposed as the official language. The Bhasha Andolan as it is popularly called was a rebellion fought against the linguistic domination. A bloody and violent struggle ensued which led to the death of several thousands and 21^st February came to be recognized as the day for the identity of the people of East Pakistan . The landslide victory of the Awami League, a party based in East Pakistan, led to attempts by West Pakistan, primarily under the leadership of General Bhutto, to wrench political power from the hands of the leaders in East Pakistan.

            The rebirth of East Pakistan as Bangladesh came in 1971 with Mukti Juddha or the freedom struggle where Bengalis of East Pakistan fought against the military (popularly referred to as the Khan Sena) from West Pakistan . This twice-born nation has ever since zealously maintained its unique linguistic identity. Unlike India , Pakistan and Sri Lanka that have witnessed the rise of literature in English, the narration of this nation has happened almost entirely in Bangla. Given the monolingual nature of the State where all people have access to Bangla, it is little wonder that there is no felt need within the country to translate their literatures into English. Thus this amazing treasure trove of post-colonial literature produced in Bangladesh has remained largely ignored by critics and is seldom included in the curriculum of Post-colonial Studies either in India or in the West.

             My first acquaintance with fiction from Bangladesh was through a translation project whose aim was to bring out an anthology of contemporary Bengali women's writing. I was intrigued by the distinctiveness of the writing by women of Bangladesh in terms of theme or content as well as the use of language. My curiosity in fiction from Bangladesh was further whetted by a piece of gossip concerning Humayun Ahmed³ one of the most popular contemporary Bangladeshi writers. Ahmed, we were told had bought a small island and the source of his wealth was not inheritance but royalty from his books. This sounded like utopia. I began reading Humayun Ahmed rather skeptically with the preconceived notion that the popularity of a writer was directly proportional to the lack of serious cultural and ideological commitment in his work and was thrilled to be contradicted by what I encountered. It taught me a lot about the reading public and the literary culture of Bangladesh .

             This brings me to the last section of my essay. In this section I shall use extracts from my translation of one of Humayun Ahmed's short stories, 'Fazlul Karim Saheb's Relief Work' to drive home the twin points of the need to translate powerful vernacular post-colonial fiction into English to provide a corrective to the myopic vision of post-colonial fiction in the contemporary Anglophone world and also to demonstrate the possibility of evolving strategies to counter marker pressures of transparency and fluency that obscure 'otherness' and perpetuate a form of cultural and linguistic imperialism.

             Ahmed's forte is terse, cryptic and black humour and in this short story he uses irony to explore the predicament of a post-colonial nation reeling under the weight of poverty, international aid and bureaucratic red-tapism. The author's strategy in telling the story is to sue the point of view of Fazlul Karim, a self important and inefficient minister who is deeply suspicious of his bureaucratic officials and team of relief workers, and feels that he is thwarted in his heroic attempt to go in search of flood victims to whom he has to administer foreign aid. A narrative voice of mock sympathy is used to underscore the fact that Karim is a pusillanimous being and quite incapable of getting a grip on the situation.

 The minister is waiting in the steamer but the journey is delayed indefinitely:

          "So what are we waiting for?" he asked in a disgusted tone.

          "The sareng hasn't arrived Sir."

          "Why hasn't he come?"

          "I do not know Sir. He was supposed to come at nine o'clock "

     Fazlul Karim Saheb looked at his watch. It was twenty minutes past eleven. He himself was supposed to come at eleven and was bang on time. The personal assistant, however, had only arrived at ten past eleven . They could afford to do such things simply because he was a mere deputy minister. "There is a chair on the deck Sir. Please sit down and rest. Someone has been sent to fetch the sareng".

     He sat down on the cushioned cane chair looking displeased. Quite a few chairs were empty but everyone else remained standing. In a magnanimous tone he said,

“Why are you standing? Please take a seat. One never knows when this steamer will leave. Bangladesh is a country where nothing happens on time”.

         "Only the flood Sir, is quite regular”?

     Fazul Karim Saheb was thoroughly displeased. This was a comment from the fellow with the dark-glasses. It was a good repartee. He did not possess this gift. Witty phrases came to his mind but usually long after a conversion had ended.

     After they finally embark upon the journey, the minister expresses a wish to take stock of the material on board:

            "Who has the list of the relief material that we are carrying with us”?

           "I have it, Sir”.

           "Well, go on tell me what we have”?

           Hamid Saheb opened his file and brought out a list.

          "Five hundred bottles of distilled water. Each two litres”

          "What are we going to do with distilled water”?

    "I wouldn't know, Sir. Seems like medical supply. We also have two bundles of boric   cotton”.

         "We may get beaten up if we arrive with all this stuff”.

  "That is quite likely to happen, Sir. Quite a few relief teams have already been beaten up badly. Their clothes were stripped off and they were sent back naked”.

"Are you trying to act smart with me? Is this some kind of a joke”?

"No Sir, this is the truth. One group. Probably some teacher's committee had gone with children's school texts, exercise books and pencils. They suffered this fate”.

 Fazlul Karim Saheb became very serious.

      The fear of an imminent storm forces the party to retrace its course. They find a family afloat on a makeshift raft of banana stems and after a lot of coaxing and cajoling they condescend to steer the raft near the steamer. The minister orders that they be given the regulation supply of clothes and also a tent:

     In a small voice Hamid Saheb enquired what they were to do with a tent.

     “Let them do whatever they please. Just follow my orders”.

     “The raft will sink under the weight of the tent, Sir”

     “It will not sink”.

      The family was not willing to take the tent. Instead they came on board. There was a young girl who vomited as soon as she stepped on to the steamer. Fazlul Karim Saheb was petrified. Did that indicate the girl had cholera he wondered. It was awful. He went into a foul mood and spent the rest of the journey locked in his cabin. He had fever.

     The following day leading newspapers carried accounts of the relief work done by Fazlul Karim Saheb. The reports stated that the deputy minister of the Human Resources Department Janab Fazlul Karim Saheb had undertaken relief work under extreme adverse conditions and thus reinforced the pledge of the government in pulling out all stops to combat the flood situation. Following the super-human effort that he put in for twenty-four hours in very foul weather Fazlul Karim Saheb had fallen ill and had to be admitted to the Medical College hospital. The minister for Human Resource, Janab Ekhlas Uddin visited him in the hospital and garlanded him. In a tremulous voice he said that in the present situation people like Fazlul Karim Saheb did not hesitate to lay down their lives for the suffering and the poor. He rounded up his speech by quoting two lines of a poem written by Rabindranath Tagore in a voice choked with emotion “Ke ba age pran koribek dan tari lagi karakari”. ("There is a tussle now amongst people to be the first martyr”.)

             In this brief extract I have retained original Bengali words, Sareng and Saheb and Janab because they are culture specific words whose nuances would be lost in English equipments. A sareng is a sailor in charge of a steamer and responsible for setting the course and steering it. Its closest equivalent would be 'captain' or the archaic 'boatswain' which I deliberately avoided because it carries a typical English connotation and would fail to convey the visual image of the working-class Bangladeshi Muslim that is immediately evoked by the mention of the river journeys in the country furrowed by countless streams and quite distinct from the association that a sailor or captain carries. Saheb (whose equivalent would be Mister) is similarly retained because it is a form of address specific to the Muslim community and indicates a middle class gentleman, an esquire. In a Non-Muslim Bengali context the equivalent of saheb would be babu and saheb which came into circulation in the 19^th century to signify a white English or European would be used in contemporary Bangla to refer to a bureaucratic official of a particular rank, primarily the head of an office. Janab is derived from Urdu and is used to refer to a gentleman who is highly respected. Once again it is term specific to Muslim culture and peculiar to the Bangla of Bangladesh.

             Retaining words of the source language that have certain cultural specificities and providing a glossary is indispensable for 'foreignizing' a text and serve as a strategy that will resist the temptations of fluency and transparency. I have kept the original Bangla of Tagore's poem and am providing the translation in parenthesis primarily because these two lines are very famous and serve as a kind of metonym for the nationalist struggle for Independence .

             The other problem that is encountered as a translator of a Bangla text is the stylistic peculiarities of the language that seems to facilitate a present or a present continuous tense in narrative. This coupled with very short sentences that often appear to be fragments or incomplete sentences but works perfectly well in Bangla, creating a sense of unfamiliarity that most translators wish to eliminate since it becomes an immediate stumbling block for the English language reader because this is seldom the practice in English. I do not claim to have been able to deal with this problem entirely since charges of syntactical errors are far more difficult to handle than issue of lexical peculiarities. However, I have tried not to smoothen but the rough edges altogether so that the reader of these short stories is able to experience that s/he is encountering a translated work.

             As a translator I realized that despite my access to the Bangla language I had to be continually conscious of the cultural differences and ideological imperatives that informs the usage of Bangla in Bangladesh . It was this constant process of re-learning and negotiation with Bangla that I shared, yet at the same time was distanced from that, created the unique sense of experiencing the unfamiliar within the familiar. I would like to express this as an experience of in-betweenness, which is indispensable to the post-colonial translator.

 Notes

1. Rushdie claimed that the post-47 Indian writing in prose “both fiction and non-fiction is … proving to be a stronger and more important body of work than most of what has been produced in the eighteen 'recognized' languages of India, the so-called 'vernacular languages’ at the same time”. (Meenakshi Mukherjee: 2000)

2. I have in mind of course the encyclopedic work edited by Susie Tharu and K. Lalitha (see Tharu and Lalitha 1991) not to mention a large number of autobiographies and memories that have been translated by feminists in recent times.

 A note on Humayan Ahmed: Born in 1948 in the Maimansingh district of Bangladesh, Ahmed studied Chemistry and received his Ph.D. from North Dakota State University , US for his work in polymers. Ahmed is a faculty member of the Department of Chemistry in Dhaka University . His first novel was published in 1972 and in that sense his birth as a narrator coincides with that of his nation. A prolific and powerful writer, Humayun Ahmed has received the Bangla Academy Award for his contribution to Bengali Literature in 1981.

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