KARACHI: Amritsar Aa Gaya Hai, an Urdu translation by Inaam Nadeem of Bhisham Sahni’s collection of Hindi short stories was launched at one of the post-lunch sessions on the second day of the 12th Karachi Literature Festival (KLF).

Poet and columnist Harris Khalique, moderating the event, told the audience, both online and those who were present in the hall, that Mr Nadeem had already done a worthy translation of a Bangla novel into Urdu titled Dozakhnama, which is about a dialogue between Manto and Ghalib.

He then asked the author how he got to know about Bhisham Sahni (1915-2003). The translator lamented that it’s strange that we’re not familiar with Indian writers, whereas we know a lot about their western counterparts.

He said he first got to know about Sahni through his novel Tamas. “We have read a lot about partition of India by writers such as Manto and Quratulain Hyder, but Tamas, albeit a small book, is arguably the most powerful (zordaar) novel on the subject,” he claimed.

Mr Nadeem said he was also an admirer of Sahni’s brother Balraj Sahni, the famous actor, who had worked in movies such as Do Bighe Zameen and Garm Hava. Before reading that book, he had not read any of his material and at that time he couldn’t read the Hindi language. It was during a trip to the US that he befriended an Indian fellow who taught him Hindi (Devnagri script) and he taught his friend Urdu. Later, he tried his hand at translating a Hindi story by Sahni. He, like always, was immensely encouraged by the late Asif Farrukhi, who published his translations in his magazine Duniyazad. From then on he kept doing it and in the process read all that was written by the Indian author.

Mr Nadeem then read two excerpts from the titular short story for the audience.

When Mr Khalique asked the translator about the difference between Hindi and Urdu, he replied that in his opinion the idiom (muhavra) of both languages had changed. They belong to the same region, and there was a time when people used to speak both of them. Gradually, things changed and now Hindi has become an alien language to us. This led the discussion to the language employed in Hindi films. Mr Nadeem was of the view that they are essentially Urdu films.

On the topic of what constitutes a quality translator, Mr Nadeem said a translator should have command over the language that he was translating the original text into (for example, in his case Urdu).

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2021