GLF: Being a language writer, do you think you are not getting due recognition at the national level?
A. I’m a poet, a translator and an academic researcher in Indian /comparative literary studies in English. I translate so that excellent writing from the language literature can voice itself in mainstream English and fashion a new politics in the production of history, knowledge and creative expression. As in other professions, there is tough competition here as well. Also, there is need for investment, in terms of systematic and sustained effort. It was more difficult say ten years back, but today with literature festivals of all kind and category, mushrooming all across the subcontinent, things have become more encouraging for the earnest language writer. And as someone who has just begun translating from Punjabi*, I’m hopeful for myself too. *Bahi Jaita’s Sri GurKatha *Desraj Kali’s Shanti Parav (A Dalit’s response to lawmakers off the Kurukshetra.)
GLF: Can literature influence social life? Do you think a writer should be socially responsible?
A. Yes it can and should. Literature is part of the larger socio-political script, it catalogs expressions of the spiritual, cultural and political collective. How then can it turn away from social or creative responsibility?
GLF: Can literary festivals make progressive changes to the language literature?
A. Yes they can, provided they do not become platforms that foster elitist trends and are able to push through a combination of the privileged and unprivileged writing talent and work towards the advancement of literature, translation – to foster the overall just representation of creative expression. Considering the Gateway LitFest, Mumbai, engages with regional Indian languages and literatures, it is a welcome enterprise. It not only upholds voices and literatures from the margins, but fills in a lacunae as it pulls in centrestage from the sidelines, thoughtful discourse in the carnival of Indian literature festivals.
GLF: Did you ever felt ill-treated or deprived of your due for being a writer in vernacular languages (vis-à-vis the so called mainstream writers who chose English as their medium)?
A. As I write/translate and publish in English, this does not directly impact me. But yes I believe, our writers who write in vernacular languages, given the general trends, must find it an unfair climb uphill. In the given scenario it therefore becomes all the more imminent that those of us who can, translate from the vernacular into English and thereby build bridges of desire among the mainstream to keep alive their roots with the regional and vernacular language, voice and literature.
GLF: There are numerous glitzy events packed by glitterati being celebrated in the country under the guise of literary festivals in up-market show places. What do you think about `Gateway Litfest’ and how is it different from such up-market events?
A. I repeat here what I wrote above: Considering the Gateway LitFest, Mumbai, engages with regional Indian languages and literatures, it is a welcome enterprise. It not only upholds voices and literatures from the margins, but fills in a lacunae as it pulls in centrestage from the sidelines, thoughtful discourse in the carnival of Indian literature festivals.
GLF: Your views on the dominant plot of storytelling in year 2018.
A. The postmodernist experimental novel that experiments with fiction and non fiction. Shanti Parav by Desraj Kali; translated from Punjabi into English, by Neeti Singh. I propose to toast this yet unread work of fiction as the dominant narrative of the year 2018.