In the City a Mirror Wandering
Page 38
An extra special thank you goes to Urdu translator and scholar Dr Aftab Ahmad, who has put up with far too many questions from me and answered all with great generosity. Jasdeep Singh possesses an amazing depth of knowledge about Punjabi language, literature and folklore and I am deeply indebted to him for all his help. Musharraf Ali Farooqi and Dr Mohammad Taqi know seemingly everything there is to know about Urdu and Persian, and both have been very generous in their thoughtful replies to my cries for help. Once again, Dr Allauddin Mian came through in a pinch when I sought arcane bits of medical knowledge from 1930s’ Punjab. Anupama Kapse helped me understand the passages on early Indian cinema. Other helpful friends from Twitter and elsewhere: Salman Hussain, Awais Athar, Alok Ranjan, Saurabh Gupta, Sadhana Gupta, Nalini Sahay, Rahul Asthana and Jesse Knutson. Many thanks to my IRL friends and family for their help and support as well, particularly my husband, Aaron, my daughter, Serafina, and my dearly departed cats, Otto and Ignatz. Though Jenny Linsky, Madama Butterfly and Princess Leia were not familiar with Ashk’s work and had never assisted in a major translation before, they’ve quickly learned the ropes and helped shepherd the book to completion.
Last, but by no means least, immense gratitude to Neelabh, Ashk’s son, who sadly passed away as I was completing the translation. Neelabh, who was himself a gifted poet and translator (this is the man who translated Arundhati Roy’s first novel into Hindi, with the brilliant title Māmūli Chizon kā Devtā), was the greatest expert on Ashk’s work, having worked with his father and edited for him for many years. He told me in the year before his death that his father had been his literary mentor, and that he missed him every day, despite Ashk’s irascible temperament. While completing the manuscript for the translation of the first volume of Ashk’s series, Falling Walls, I had the good fortune of sitting with Neelabh for several days, going over countless questions that truly, only he could answer. He was full of anecdotes about the books, and about his father, while always exercising his right to distance himself from the work. Apprenticing with someone of such an immense literary ego was not easy for him, and he sought always to differentiate himself from his father, developing an irascible temperament of his own along the way. Nonetheless, he was always willing to help me, willing to ponder my endless questions, and happy to discuss thorny problems of translation. In my email drafts box sits an unfinished message to Neelabh with a fresh set of questions for this translation. It’s an email I never sent, but still can’t bring myself to delete. Such messages are not the same as yellowing leaves of stationery inscribed in pen and ink, but such is the digital age. This translation, then, is dedicated to Neelabh’s memory, in gratitude for his help and encouragement.
THE BEGINNING
Let the conversation begin…
Follow the Penguin Twitter.com@penguinbooks
Keep up-to-date with all our stories YouTube.com/penguinbooks
Pin ‘Penguin Books’ to your Pinterest
Like ‘Penguin Books’ on Facebook.com/penguinbooks
Find out more about the author and
discover more stories like this at Penguin.co.in
PENGUIN BOOKS
UK | Canada | Ireland | Australia
New Zealand | India | South Africa
Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
This collection published 2018
Copyright © Adamya Ashk, Sukant Ashk, Shwetabh Ashk and Anurag Ashk 2019
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Jacket images © Fred Bremner, Making Brassware, Punjab, The National Galleries of Scotland Author photograph courtesy of Neelabh Ashk
ISBN: 978-0-143-42599-1
This digital edition published in 2018.
e-ISBN: 978-9-386-65159-4
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.