Silchar to host translation festival

Special correspondent

SILCHAR, Dec 30: The Minimalist Studio is going to organize the first edition of ‘anuvad translation festival’. According to Tousif Raja Choudhury, director, organizing committee, said it will be on the level of an intertiol conference relating to translation studies and the liberal arts. This is the first time this town of Silchar will play host to an intertiol literary and cultural festival of this calibre.

At a press-meet on Tuesday, Tousif Raja Choudhury explained to the media-persons all about his organization Minimalist and the anuvad translation festival as well as the primary details of the upcoming event.

He took the opportunity along with other members of the organizing committee to share their vision of anuvad and sought suggestions, advice and cooperation from the media. He said the anuvad translation festival will be held for three days starting from January 16 at Children’s Park on Normal School Road here.

 Elaborating further, Tousif Raja Choudhury said anuvad translation festival is to celebrate the diversity of translation practices and cultures. Both of these have been a part of India’s cultural and literary heritages. He admitted since the festival is new, it is primarily experimental. Other NGOs like the Iravati Foundation and Ayiriddhi Sparhamani Foundation are also collaborators in this endeavor. The aim of this festival, as he pointed out, is to create and foster a space. It will be a platform where adept translators and young enthusiastic minds can come together and share their experiences.

 Translation, Tousif Raja Choudhury said is an art and a culture. The idea of translation is not only literary translation or transliteration but cultural translation also. Taking a larger view, he added that there is no question of the barrier of language, region, community or social backdrop since translation involves intercultural communication.

It has become a part of modern Indian cultural spaces. In order to make his point clear, he referred to Dara Shikoh translating texts from the Upanishad or Jhumpa Lahiri writing about an Indian or William Carey’s translations of The Bible into Sanskrit or Bengali.

The festival has been divided into four segments – literature, visual arts, film and photography and music. Experts from the USA, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India are supposed to be participating in the literary sessions.