A translator is like a midwife, says writer

Sa Raghunath, who presided over the 12th District Sahitya Sammelana, compared a translator to a midwife.

Raghunath, who is also a famed translator in Kannada and Telugu, said, “A midwife will be honoured with a new saree if both mother and the newborn are in good health. A translator is no different.”

He added that a translator should respect both the languages he handles. “He should respect his own language, but, cannot forget to give credit to the language of the work he handles. All of us naturally have a lot of pride in our own language. A translator needs to move beyond as he deals with two languages. Only then can he do justice to his work.”

Reacting to the fact that his translated works have not been topics of discussion in many literary fests, Raghunath merely compared the situation to ‘people looking for seedless tomatoes when they are offered local varieties next door’.

On asked what farmers should do if they lose their land, he said, “In the first place, the farmers should refuse to sell their land. Then they will not face such a situation at all!”
‘Water from somewhere’

Raghunath added that the matter of water shortage too was a similar issue.

“We need to give preference to conservation of our tanks and other water bodies. Then we need not beg others, including the government to provide us water somehow. We should also stop the habit of going to contractors and attempt to solve all our local problems ourselves,” he advised.