Vikram Seth, who revels in the pleasures of both religious poetry and translation, called his translation of the ‘The Hanuman Chalisa’ a labour of love. He has dedicated it to Bhaskar, a character in his epic novel A Suitable Boy (1993). In the novel, Bhaskar learns the poem before he is five. When he is older, he resists the co-option of this poem and other religious texts by those with vested interests. “I learnt the ‘Chalisa’ because I had to know what my characters were seeped in,” Seth says. “How do you write about them from the inside without understanding the religious and linguistic texture of their world?”
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Full interview will be out soon. Stay tuned.
Follow us:
Website: https://www.outlookindia.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Outlookindia
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/outlookindia/
X: https://twitter.com/Outlookindia
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#HanumanChalisa #Book #Translation #Language
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NewsTranscript
00:00There was a condition for this interview.
00:02I said, it's a firecracker from Patna.
00:04If you don't get me a bottle of Dheekha,
00:07it has a spark in it.
00:08Yes.
00:09I think it's a little raw.
00:11No.
00:12No, it's cooked.
00:13There are 40 pieces.
00:15There are two in the beginning.
00:17Yes.
00:17And in the end...
00:18In the end, there are one or two.
00:19No, we don't know that much.
00:21We only remember one line.
00:22Which one?
00:22Don't come close to the truth,
00:23when you hear the name of Mahavir.
00:24Why not?
00:26Because in horror films, you know...
00:27Right.
00:28As translating was concerned,
00:31I did it partly for my aunt,
00:34who lives on the ground floor here.
00:35She's 90 years old.
00:37And she recites the Hanuman Chalisa twice
00:39before she goes to sleep.
00:40I dedicate this translation to Bhaskar,
00:43who learned the poem before he was five,
00:46but who spent his fifties
00:48fighting the chauvinism and intolerance
00:50to which this and other such
00:53well-beloved religious texts and rituals have been put.
00:58The Hanuman Chalisa is a tribute to Bhaskar.
01:01It is dedicated to Bhaskar,
01:03who was killed by the Hanuman Chalisa
01:05when he was five.