JCB Prize Winner Author & Translator on Linguistic Legacy & Reaching Far & Wide

Ne'mat Khana is a novel so deeply rooted in culture that the translator had to ensure readers enjoy it as well.

Image: Deeksha Malhotra/The Quint

The recent excitement in the literary world has been the JCB Prize 2022. Khalid Jawed’s Ne'mat Khana translated by Baran Farooqi as The Paradise of Food was the book. As a translator myself, the first thing that always crosses my mind is—what would I have done differently.

Well, it was then that I picked a copy to read, and discovered what a powerful book it is—both in content and language-wise.

Ever since the translation was published, various reviews and articles have been written on the book. Maybe, this one is a little later in the day and hence, focuses more on the author and the translator, and their journey. The advantage being both of them were my colleagues at Jamia Millia Islamia University. Khalid Jawed saab is a Professor in the Department of Urdu while Baran Farooqi was in the Department of English (she has very recently taken a voluntary retirement).  

A Tête-À-Tête with Author & the Creative Urgency To Write

I have known Prof Khalid Jawed for about a decade now. Rather, more apt would be, I have known ‘of him’. Apart from the salam-duas, I have never had the opportunity to sit with him and have a conversation. Now, in relation to this piece, when I walked into his office, I was struck by a lot of things.

The office space, to begin with, had an interesting play of light and warmth, the artwork on his walls adding an interesting dimension to everything. What stood out for me was a framed photograph of his own shadow—tall and looming large—communicating more than what meets the eye. 

We begin with the usual—his writing process with this book in particular. As an aside, I have always been interested in this question that I've asked many writers. If Gulzar saab had responded he works like a government clerk, 10 to 5 on his writing desk, writing or revising an earlier written piece, Prof A K Mehrotra had responded that he begins writing at dawn when there'd be no disturbance in the house.

A day prior to this interview, Amitava Kumar had come to the Department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia to deliver a talk, and he too insisted on writing 150 words per day. I had finally found someone in Khalid Jawed saab whose writing process made me smile and nod in agreement.

His first reaction was that the creative process isn’t conscious but an unconscious one where the writer feels an “internal creative pressure” and pours out what s/he wishes to express.

When asked about Ne'mat Khana, he said that he took around six months to write it but during that time, it was like the boiling point. Jawed saab mentioned an episode when while returning to his residence from work, he had a few thoughts, and jotted them on his palm lest he forgets. He only washed his hands after penning them down on paper once home. Instant was warranted, he said, to retain that chain of thoughts.

He went on to add that when a thought sparks, it is important to record it right then and there, however, one may, while reproducing it later, would not create the same impact. The genius of his creativity and the use of imagery came through in what he said next. In a manner, he expressed his displeasure at the question of the writing process being put forth before a writer. For him, it was like asking a bird about ornithology! 

Moving on from writing to the reception of any piece of literature by the readers and the critics, Jawed saab emphasised the fact that the interpretation of the text lies on the reader. Having said that, he added that a best-trained reader is a critic who finds meanings in pauses. 

Kitchen Is Where a Ploy Gets Cooked!

As one can realise, it was a free-flowing conversation with him, rather than a structured interview, his one-liners, and most empathic ones would drop so casually, that would definitely make one pause and think. For instance, in the middle of something, he in a way, defined a writer, calling him a “victim of alienation”. Again, one starts to think of the writers that we have been reading and re-reading, imagining ourselves to be the trained reader or the critic that he had just mentioned.

On Ne'mat Khana, Jawed saab responded by saying that the book deals with the universal theme of hunger, lust, greed, and anger, and at the same time, throws light on the hidden dimension of existence. ‘Kitchen’, a prominent space in a house, seems reflected differently in this literary piece. Usually, one doesn’t associate ‘danger’ and ‘murder’ with a place so beautiful as a kitchen.

The author sees the place both from a micro and a macro level and eventually, it seems more like a battlefield.

I personally felt that a strong point of the novel was its language and the play of words by the author and his deep-dive approach. As expected, his insight into the job of the author as well as of language was most fascinating. He spoke of how the task of language is not to represent but to create something new— art or a new world.

He questioned why everything should be at face value. A reader should engage in decoding a text and a piece of good literature always leaves scope for interpretation. He further added, it is the task of the author to transform the familiar into the unfamiliar.

A Rewarding Upbringing With Books and Stories As Companions

One could notice traces of a philosophical argument. Not only in this conversation, but also in his writing, which made me want to know his favourite authors, those which he has read and liked more. However, before coming to that fascinating list, I was rather taken aback by his academic journey.

Jawed saab had done his BSc in Mathematics and then an MA in Philosophy! The specialisation in contemporary philosophy in his masters definitely answered my query but the question had now changed to how did this switch happen!

Well, to get to the point where his academic journey changed, let us go back to his childhood in Bareli. Jawed saab talks fondly of his family and the influences that he has had. Again, the writer that he is, one could imagine the surroundings that he grew up in. He was an infant when he lost his mother and his father Mohd Wali Khan saab put all his focus and energy into bringing him up.

Jawed saab adds that growing up in a joint family surely helped as there were family members to take care of him but he emphasises on the fact that his father never remarried, to be able to take care of him.

He affectionately talks of the ritual of all children gathering around any aunt in the family every night and she would read out a story. At times, there were different chapters from a novel, being read out on consecutive days by different women of the family. It was a house that enjoyed literature and it sowed the right seeds in the children of the family.

With a fond glint in his eyes, Jawed saab remembers how his father, a Sales Tax officer, who was also once given the award for being the most honest person, would indulge in a monthly routine. At the beginning of every month, the father-son duo would go to purchase the monthly ration, other essentials of clothes, shoes, and so on and the final stop would be at a bookstore.

I could feel the same excitement in his voice that he would have had when decades ago he would have visited that shop of second-hand Urdu books, owned by one Manohar Singh Kalra. He remembers how every month, he would return with a stack of books! It was a most satisfying feeling to get to know a father who valued books and buying books as important as buying monthly groceries.

Writing Chops & The Art Of Translation

I wanted to know more about his writing journey, and as expected, he did start young. He was only eight when he first published in Milaap, a newspaper but in his later years, Jawed speaks of two of his mentors— Shamsur Rahman Faruqi saab and Shamim Hanafi saab. One could see his reverence for both of them throughout the conversation, as both these names would repeatedly come. It was Faruqi saab who recognised his talent and published him in his journal Shabkhoon, and kept encouraging him.

It was he who suggested and encouraged his daughter Baran Farooqi to translate this book.

Coming back to the shift of the academic journey from Mathematics to Philosophy to finally Urdu was for the most mundane, or if I may say, practical purposes. He found his true calling and very soon got pulled into the world of academia and writing.

Even as he mentioned innumerable authors, I made a mental note to read a few recommended by him. If it is Intezar Hussain and Abdullah Hussain for Urdu, it is Nirmal Verma for Hindi. One can understand the involvement of Jawed saab with the books and authors that he is so fond of, as he moves on from one name to the other, indulging briefly in plots and characters too.

It is Milan Kundera and then Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude followed by Julio Cortazar’s Hopscotch. He also talks of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and then Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. He then ventures into French and Russian literature, and the authors that he has read, to his favourite Polish authors and then goes to speak about Par Lagerkvist’s novel The Dwarf. And, finally he mentions his fondness for Camus and one realises how different topics merge in his writings —be it Philosophy or his training in Mathematics, as he himself claims that it did teach him to look at things in a logical manner. 

The next job at hand was to speak with the translator Prof Baran Farooqi. As we sat down to chat about the book, I did get an insight into her personality, her writing style, her method/process of translation which I was earlier unaware of. It was yet another free-flowing conversation full of warmth over cups of tea. 

It has been evident that ever since Ret Samadhi / Tomb of Sand has won the International Booker Prize, there has been no dearth of writings on not only the book but also about the placing of translations in India on a popular global space.

Theorists have been mulling over various linguistic debates and different terminologies, with translators, academicians and other critics pitching in. A striking thing that I had noticed particularly about this translation, was not retaining a lot of words from the source language but instead locating the right words in the target language.

Like most seasoned translators, she too had the question of who were the target audience for the book and the answer was they were readers not only from different linguistic areas but also from different cultural backgrounds. The book in question was so steeped in cultural nuances that she was sure that one would not be able to find these words in dictionaries other than Urdu!

Substantiating her point, she gave the example of the word, ‘fateha’. She continued to add how she explained not only the word but also how things go about in a fateha— a Muslim practice. Again, Ne'mat Khana is a novel so deeply rooted in culture that the translator bore the onus to take it to readers from different sections, and in a fashion that they could not only understand but also enjoy it.

Is Familiarity a Translator’s Paradise or Dilemma?

Asking an obvious question about the issues that she faced with this particular book led to some interesting insights. The familiarity between the author and the translator helped her immensely. She gleefully adds, “Since I knew the author very well, I could question him and at times tease him too." It's the shared comfort, same age group, similar knowledge and interests that did the trick as she could “translate with conviction”.

When questioned about her growing up years, Baran talked about how she has grown up interacting with authors from India and Pakistan. If on one hand, it gave her an insight into the world of literature, on the other, it also challenged her immensely. She professed that she was too inhibited to be creative! 

Being the daughter of such a leading critic, Baran spoke of how she has attended mushairas since childhood and have always been intrigued by the insistence of the poets' ‘ek aur, ek aur’. The desire of the poets to keep on reciting their poetry, or rather their obstinance, would scare her. However, smilingly she adds, the one thing she was confident about was her command over both English and Urdu—“This was an ace up my sleeve."

Talking of her journey as a translator, Prof Farooqi talked about it getting into translation around the same time that she got into teaching,and thus, realising a childhood dream.

She shared a precious memory when her father would make my elder sister Meher Afshan Farooqi translate Bertrand Russell into Urdu when she was in the 10th standard only. Repeated revisions would follow the translations, chiselling the piece.

Baran, much younger while trying her hand at it, realised that it was easier to translate Urdu into English than the other way round.

When asked her about her earlier works, she spoke of her translation of a volume of short stories by Syed Mohd Asraf titled Baad e Saba ka Intezaar as Waiting for the Morning Breeze published by Sahitya Akademi in 2010. Then, of course, there was The Colours of My Heart: Selected Poems of Faiz Ahmed Faiz that was published by Penguin Random House India in 2017. 

When she looks back, she vividly remembers jokes being cracked in the house. People would be given nicknames and titles in a manner that a wordplay would be inevitable. Giving an example, she recollects this henpecked husband whom they knew and always referred to as JKG (an abbreviation for Joru ka Ghulam!)! One might simply smile and ponder over this interplay of language, a Hindustani idiom being used with an English acronym. 

She reflects it is ironic that in her career span, she has witnessed how the critics have moved from one end to the other where there is no Babu English. To a point where no one writes about poking fun at English, contrary to when only British English was considered the English, with even the accent being copied.

She ponders and feels that it has come a full circle but the question remains if translation has finally found its place under the sun.  

The opening lines of the novel in warm Urdu (in Roman script) and its lovely English translation summarises this enriching chat the best:

Hawa hee woh chashmadeed gawah thi jisne dekha ke woh apne hee ghar mein akele magar udaas kaale chor ki tarah dakhil hua. Ghar pata nahin ki ban raha tha, ya gir raha tha. Ya ke khandar ban raha tha. Yeh bhi koyi nahin jaanta sirf hawa jaanti thi. 

(The wind was the only eyewitness to his entry into his own house like a melancholy thief. One didn't know if the house was under construction or falling or transforming itself into a ruin. No one knew this, only the wind did.)

(A poet, author and translator, Saba Mahmood Bashir is an Assistant Professor, Department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)