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| Cover photo by Rupinder Pal Singh |
If there is any doubt that some of the best writing in the
world is being done in languages other than English, the latest volumes of South Asian Ensemble (Winter & Spring
2013, and Autumn 2012) quickly dispel this notion. South Asian Ensemble is published in Canada and India. The chief
editor, Gurdev Chauhan, is based in Canada; the honorary editor, Rajesh Sharma,
is located in India. That the journal is a print journal going into its sixth
year of publication is an extraordinary accomplishment. Paper, I read recently,
is one of the greatest invention and technological advancement of all times. From
the energy efficient walls of modern buildings, to toilet paper and articles of
hygiene to clothing to furniture to books to the manuals and packaging of
computers and smart phones, a world without paper is almost unimaginable. Holding
these volumes in my hands, even before flipping the pages, all this, and more,
come to mind: the peculiar paper of India.
Stories, excerpts, poems, essays, photography, paintings,
reviews and interviews all go into making this eclectic publication. The contributions
are not only by, or about, South Asians. The great strength of South Asian Ensemble is the translations
from Indian languages. The outstanding pieces in Volume 4 are the Hindi poems
of Nilesh Raghuvanshi translated by Alpna Saini and the Punjabi poem,
‘Darkness’ by Pritam Dhanjal translated by Gurdev Chauhan. The biographical
note on Raghuvanshi indicates that she is, among other things, a dramatist,
poet and translator. She didn’t translate her own poems. Of the many original
English contributions Nalini Warriar’s fiction, ‘Legends’ is an intriguing,
even if Bollywood-like, juxtaposition of an ancient story and a white, Canadian
in India.
The most recent volume, a double issue, is full or great
pieces. There are translations from Malayalam, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu. K Satchidanandan’s translation of his own
poetry from Malayalam stand out, as do poems by Neeru Aseem (translated from
Hindi by the poet and Gurdev Chauhan). Satchidanandan has won multiple awards
for his poetry. Of the poets writing in English there is much to be thankful
for: Priscila Uppal (a Canadian writer) whose poems have the writerly feel of
the academic and of creative writing schools (‘Rilke and I Exchange Emails’,
‘Neighbourhood Watch’ –“Milk distributed at lunch like the first letters of/
the alphabet…”[?]); Kavita Jindal (‘Matter Grows Thin’ & ‘Chaining the
Ecstatic’ – “white flowers begin to gleam/ fresh against green hedges/ in the
slowpouring darkness”); and Harpreet Kaur (‘Silence Returns’ –“Silence perches
on the awning/ on the tongue/ of the moon/ when speech is threatened/ between
you and me.”).
The prose is as rich as the poetry. The piece by Cyril
Dabydeen is in the vein of Naipaulian travelogue grappling with the quirks of a
trip to India by someone from the 180-years old Indian diaspora of South
America and the West Indies. Dabydeen’s piece is wide ranging, if disjointed
and reading like unedited travel notes. Gagan Gill’s ‘Hour of Father, Hour of
Death’, translated from the Hindi by Kuldip Singh is engaging except towards
the end, after the death of Daarji, when it becomes almost a tract on Sikhism.
The death rituals of Sikhism that has come out of that ancient culture that has
come to be called Hinduism were revelatory. Perhaps, I also enjoyed this piece
for some of the untranslatable Hindi words of my childhood still used in the
Hindu/Indian communities in South America and the Caribbean (and in this
community’s the second and third exiles in North America and Europe), words
such as: Mamoo (mother’s brother), Chacha (father’s brother), Bua (father’s
sister), and that indescribable act of the offerings of water for the departed
and in puja.
There are fine shorter pieces of fiction by Kapil Chaudaha
(‘Gravitational Love’) and Subhash Chandra (‘The Gynaecologist), and essays by Shikha Kenneth on Sartre, Swaraj
Raj on Rushdie and Jagtej Kaur Grewal on Rabindranath Tagore’s approach to art.
The short prose (fiction) piece that stands out is Jaiwanti
Dimri’s ‘The Story That Hung Around the Neck.’ This is a translation from the
Hindi by the author. As the title suggests, this is a story about writing a
story—or so it seems. The playful voice in this story is a reminder that
Indians have been writing stories/fictions since ancient times and that the
institutional knowledge, technique and expertise that come with this lengthy
engagement with this art form is unsurpassed in English Literature. Yes, I did say
that this was a translation. Thus far, South
Asian Ensemble’s great and extraordinary contribution to contemporary world
literature is, perhaps, in its offerings of translations from Indian languages.
