Return to roots

With few children picking up Bengali books, publishers decide to translate them into English lest the fables and characters are lost forever.

Gone are the days when grandmothers would narrate tales of Tepantarer Math (the mythical horizon where the sky meets the land) and Pakhiraj Ghora (the fabled horse with wings). Rarely do grandmothers and grandchildren live in the same house anymore. The growing reach of the Internet and television, and the focus on English have also widened the gap between young Bengalis and vernacular folktales. But there is hope yet. Publishers are now translating popular Bengali comic strips and stories into English to take young urban readers back to their roots.

“With parents sending their children to English-medium schools and books like Asterix and Tintin gaining popularity, young Bengalis are drifting away from popular vernacular classics,” says Tridib Chatterjee of Bee Book Publishers. “With the aim of attracting children, we have translated Nonte-Fonte by Narayan Debnath into English,” Chatterjee adds. The English translation of Nonte-Fonte was launched at the last Kolkata International Book fair, and the publishers say they have already sold 10,000 copies. “A bigger marketing strategy is under way and we plan to launch it in a bigger way after the exams,” Chatterjee says. Bee Books has also translated two books of Smaresh Majumder and Prafulla Ray, Utsharita Alo and Ramcharit.

Publishers and booksellers say Bengali books for children constitute an important chunk of their total sales. “There is a constant demand for children’s classics; 10 per cent of our total sale is of children’s books,” says Arabinda Das Gupta of Dasgupta & Co. “But due to poor print and graphic quality because they are cheap, Bengali books suffer when faced with superior quality English comic books like Tintin, Asterix and Tinkle.”

Booksellers are, however, optimistic that the English translations would give an impetus to the sale of children’s books outside West Bengal. “Bengalis living in other parts of the country and abroad have always requested us to publish Bengali children’s book in English so that the second generation gets to know what their parents grew up reading,” says Chatterjee.

Bengali books have a substantial demand abroad. “About 25 per cent of children’s books in Bengali are sold in the foreign market,” says Uday Goswami, manager, Chuckervertty, Chatterjee & Co. Books like Thakurmar Jhuli (Grandmother’s Tales), Gopal Bhar and Khirer Putul remain popular.

Geetanjali Sengupta, mother of two schoolchildren, makes the extra effort to encourage her kids to read Bengali fables so that they get to understand the essence of Bengali literature. This, she believes, will draw them to Rabindranath Tagore and Saratchandra Chattopadhyay in the future.

“I remember listening to folk tales from my grandmother in the afternoon after coming home from school, but now because of the competitive educational system and the absence of grandparents in the nuclear family setup, children miss out on this extremely rich heritage,” says Bharati Majumder, a school teacher.

While she’s confident that the English translations will help draw children towards Bengali folklore, Sengupta hopes these will also retain the Bengali flavour of the vernacular fables.