This page includes the translations of literary fiction I sometimes do out of my own interest. This is personal and does not involve any official work. Though, I sometimes talk to the authors whose work I am translating.
Keep Your Kingdom (original title सम्हारू अपन राज-पाट) is a short story by a well known Maithili author Ramdeo Singh. This story is sketches the character of a man who worked with a family and gave almost all of his life. The simple character of Gulba, the protagonist of this story, is striking in many ways. First of all, he is noted for his ‘love’ for a family which gave him nothing but just some sense of familiarity. It is beyond logic to approve of this character in the modern times. But, I wear witness to characters like this who abound even now the country side of different parts of the world. Characters like this make us think that it is just one value for which one can sacrifice the whole of his life. Even a one sided love for a group of people far remotely related to a man can be enough to strike a bondage that lasts for long and pays of nothing but misery in the end.
Prestige is a translation of a short story Maan (मान) by Jeevkant, a Hindi-Maithili poet, short-story writer and a novelist. The story unravels the complex relationship of a domestic help and her mistress. This shows where the human values lie and in this way it also unravels the pride of each of the two parties. This story is woven around the feminine relationship.
This story was published in Antika (Jan-March, 1999). This was Antika’s first issue. Jeevkant, born in 1936, has been writing in both Maithili and Hindi and has also received many awards for his literary works.
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बोधात्मक भाषाविज्ञान
गिलेस फ़ॉकनर
पिछले 25 वर्षों में बोधात्मक भाषाविज्ञान का उद्भव भाषा, संकल्पनात्मक प्रणाली, मानव बोध और समान्य अर्थ संरचना के अध्ययन में एक शक्तिशाली दृष्टिकोण के रूप में हुआ है।
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- Category: Found in Translation
A Maithili Short Story
Keep Your Kingdom
by Ramdeo Singh
Gulba! Gulo!! and Gulai!!! He had all these three names. Gulai- the servant of Bisobabu. Names, fit according to the circumstances to call by. When something went wrong, an angry Bisobabu would shout, "Re Gulba.......... ?" To make a tired, fatigued Gulba work, "Gulo.......... !! Hurry up, it's evening already," and, if expecting an angry Gulai, he would say in a sugared tone, “Hou Gulai!!...... " Gulo was so elated at it that he would be Hanuman, ready to fetch the mountain when only the herb on it is needed.
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- Category: Found in Translation
Prestige
----Jeevkant
Again Dumriwalih has not been in sight for some days. When she comes, she is continuous. There are four families around this courtyard. She does the sundry works for all of them. Now she is seen at the tubewell with a pile of utensils and washing them with ash. And now she will be helping at the stonemill, grinding the grains to flour.