rupantar. It means 'change of form'. In Oriya,the Mahabharata of Sarala Das (15th century) is accepted as an original writing even though there are innumerable interpolations of indigenised episodes.

This puts paid to Eugene Nida's prescriptions for a 'correct' and 'invariant' version of translation. In a folk version of Ramayana Sita is treated as Rama's sister in my state and the Jagannath temple is the only place in India in which a sister is worshipped with her two brothers. Thus, my culture allows all sorts of variations and all variations are accepted as "correct" and adhered to religiously.

I do not translate into English for an improvement in my status. Nor do I translate with a colonial mission to institutionalise English. In fact I feel that I am doing justice neither to the SL nor to the literary piece by translating it into a language like English. The aksharas (alphabets) in my language are called varna which also means colour. My native alphabets, like in Sanskrit, have a colour, a gender, are positioned in a chakra and are assigned to a Yogini, whereas the English language has a 'phonetics' that describes only the sounds produced by the lips and the teeth and the tongue etc. It does not undergo a process of transformation from the Para Vak to Baikhari Vak for articulation*. Yet, I translate my plays into English and such an effort is perhaps rooted in my inner frustration - the frustration of not being able to share my creative experiences with the Oriya elite reading society. During the forty years of my stage career and This is the author's opinion, which is clearly untenable. No human language can claim intrinsic difference or superiority on such grounds- Editor.with my hundred odd plays I never had any problem with my rural audience. My own plays directed by me for the repertory companies run for 10 to 12 years with 7 to 10 thousand spectators. But I have problems with the so called intellectuals, most of whom are either IAS officer- poets or their sycophant teacher critics who would continuously lobby their way into a project of denouncing the dramatic text as mediocre writing. My intention behind translating play-texts is partly aimed at counteracting such an intellectual prejudice.

My goal in this paper would thus be to study the process of translation that takes place within this individual author- translator, a playwright and director in Oriya and a translator into English. These are three distinctly different positions within the inner space. The focus of my paper would be to attempt a hermeneutical approach to translation and my arguments would be advanced purely from personal experience. I have been working on the stage for the last four decades as a playwright, for more than two decades as a director, and I have been engaged in practical translation for over two decades.