Abstract
In translating Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy into Hindi, Gopal Gandhi, who, as Harish Trivedi remarks, sees himself as the ‘rightful possessor’ of the story, emphasizes and dramatizes its Hindu-centricity. The authority to do so seems to be derived from the confidence that his translation rescued the story from being de-Indianized (and hence de-Hinduized?) by the English language. Hindi, on the other hand, is projected to be strictly Indian and Hindu, undisturbed by foreign conceptual infiltrations. Therefore, the concept of secularism (projected as a foreign import, with a cosmopolite elite appeal, but no grounding in popular ideology) is distanced from the Hindi/Hindu milieu. Through detailed textual analysis of the Hindi translation, Koi Accha-Sa Ladka, alongside Seth's novel, where I trace both the linguistic and ideological discrepancies between the texts, I argue that Gandhi's translation ultimately competes with Seth's vision of the story.
Published Version
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