Episode 3 :Breaking Language Barriers/Transforming Connections
Breaking language barrier, Elysian Conversations Episode 2
Breaking Language Barrier: Childhood in Vernacular
Return me my days of Rain and Paper Boats-The Home we carry
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ये दौलत भी लेलो ये शोहरत भी लेलो भले छीन लो मुझसे मेरी जवानी मगर मुझको लौटा दो बचपन का सावन वो काग़ज़ की कश्ती वो बारिश का पानी
Take away my wealth, take away my fame Snatch away my youth if you may But please return me the monsoon of my childhood Those paper boats, those drops of rain
Breaking language barrier and transforming connections across culture has been the hallmark of literature as news carrying Banu Mushtaq’s “Heart Lamp”, translated by Deepa Bashi , winning the International Booker Prize boldly reveals. The idea of going forward with this episode stemmed from this news piece.
As exophonic writers, we often crave to write and recite in our mother tongue. But we settle with english for its easy reach and comfort which has been our way for several decades now.
Not any more. Breaking language barrier seems to the order in the global literary milieu with not-oft-spoken languages like hindi, well translated in english are finding their way to the world literary circle. Even better winning awards.
In this episode we tried to stitch our love for our vernacular to our longings of childhood through hindi, Urdu, Bengali poems and providing the english translation of the same for ease of understanding for our audience who don’t speak this language.
I was joined by Priyanka Srivastava, Somsubhra Banerjee and for this episode by Lubna Yusuf, all writers in their own right, to explore our childhood in our vernaculars and recite their poetry in with translations in english.
We also spoke about how these verses came into being digging into our childhood, homes, grandmothers and our perspective of the same as we turned adults and how those days come alive in our mother tongue.
And yes, we spoke about treasure boxes from our childhood and what significance it carries for us.
Challenges:
It was not easy to edit this multilingual video, as most studios don’t support other languages than english and vernacular recitations were muted initially through auto-AI editing.
I had to manually get the edit done which took me time and some harrowing hours.
Nevertheless, it is ready and uploaded for you all to enjoy, just the way we enjoyed putting this up for you.
Breaking language barrier with the Home We Carry. Happy watching!
Episode 3: Home We Carry
In a world which often tries to divide us, literature remains the last sacred spaces where we can live inside each other’s mind if only for a few pages
Banu_Mushtaq, International Booker Prize for Heart Lamp
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