Vasudeva's Family

Vasudeva’s Family

Translation of Vaidehi’s Kannada novel  ‘Asprushyaru’

By Susheela Punitha

Pages: 150   price: Rs 495

Oxford  University Press

Vasudeva’s Family  is the  translation of Vaidehi’s Kannada novel “Aspruhyaru” which literally means ‘untouchables’. The translator, Susheela Punitha, has consciously and purposefully  preferred to rename it as ‘Vasudeva’s Family’ and rightly so. A literal translation of the original title would invoke the title of Mulkraj Anand’s novel ‘Untouchable’. Also, as Susheela Punitha observes, ‘Vaidehi’s novel is a different take on the problem, implicating intra caste hierarchies as much as inter-caste politics based on touch and untouch. To the question, ‘who is untouchable?’ the book replies, ‘everyone!’ A significant feature of Vaidehi’s novel is that it shows how every woman, irrespective of her caste hierarchy, is treated as an untouchable during different phases of her life. A menstruous woman and a puerperal woman is also considered to be impure and hence untouchable though she may belong to upper caste and class. Thus the differene  between the two titles ‘untouchable’ (Anand) and ‘untouchables’ (Vaidehi) is not just numerical. Vaidehi’s novel has broadened the very concept of untouchability. Her feminine perspective is evident in the title itself. The protagonist of this novel is Vasudevaraya. He ‘tries to make the ideal ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbam’(the whole earth is one family) as real as possible in his home. ..And that is how the trans-created title became ‘Vasudeva’s Family’ to hold the positive energies of the novel’.

Vaidehi is one of the finest writers in Kannada. A Sahitya Akademi award winner, she has been conferred with the prestigious Attimabbe award by the government of Karnataka. She has won the ‘katha’ award as well. Girish Kasaravalli’s famous film “Gulabi Talkies’ is based on the story by Vaidehi. She has six collections of short stories, three collections of poems and four collections of prose writings. She has been widely translated into English and other Indian languages. “Gulabi Talkies” a collection of  twenty stories translated into English has been published by Penguin India. Her “Jathre” (Eng Tr.The temple fair) has been published by O U P.  “Asprushyaru” is her only novel. It was first published in a Kannada weekly in 1982  and was awarded a special prize. It has won many other prizes and was prescribed as a text book in Mangalore University.

Vaidehi’s writings are rooted in the cultural milieu of Kundapur in Coastal Karnataka. Her narratives are generally characterized by a judicious mixture of urban and local speech varieties. But many of her major stories, including “Asprushyaru”  are steeped in local culture,  linguistic patterns and even gestures. They create a micro universe and the tales cannot be separated from these. Vaidehi’s characters have no existence without their unique speech patterns and gestures.  This, indeed, is the major challenge for any translator. Susheela Punitha has been quite successful in recreating the ambience of the original in English. She has also been able to maintain the tempo and the flow of the original text. The syntactical patterns of English and Kannada  are so different and any mechanical and literal translation would have killed the beauty and flow of the Kannada narrative. But the translator has negotiated with the original in a creative way and has come out with its English version keeping intact the spirit of Vadehi’s novel. She has also provided a   list of kinship terms and a glossary which is useful for non Kannada readers.

Vaidehi’s novel is a colourful and complex tapestry made out of   two  main plots and many sub plots. At a macro level the novel probes into the intricacies of  Caste ( here, Brahmin-Koraga) relationships. At a micro level it explores the tensions between man-woman relationships. Both are characterized by power equations. However the novelist does not portray them as static, never changeable human condition. There are conservatives, statusquoists, moderates, moderns, reformists and even revolutionaries in the tiny world created in this novel. Vaidehi’s work portrays the inner dynamism of a small community which is struggling to come to terms with the changing times and   the new aspirations of  younger generation.

This  publication is enriched by a scholarly introduction by Dr.K.S.Vaishali and the English translation of Vaidehi’s ‘Autobiographical note’ by Tejaswini Niranjana.

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