Translation/Adaptation and Transcreation

Sambasivan also translates Shakespearean poetry faithfully into songs⁠—in his Romeo and Juliet, the opening scene’s description of love as ‘a smoke raised with the fume of sighs…a sea nourished with loving tears…a madness’ becomes a song with lyrics including ‘neduvirrpin niraviyal …nilapukayanu premam…kannir kadalanu premam… bhrantham premam’. Similarly, the lovers’ sonnet on meeting in 1.5: ‘If I profane with my unworthiest hand / This holy shrine…’ becomes a love song, ‘Vimohaname vishudhayame vilolame karavallikalil onnu thodan oru chumbanam ekan / ninnu thudikkum adharangal tirthatakanayi thrusannidhiyil prarthippu nyan punyavati…’ [Oh beautiful, pure, soft, hands…to kiss them…as a pilgrim in the holy sanctum, with trembling lips, I pray, oh blessed lady].¹⁷Sambasivan’s translations were influential: film director Jayaraj Nair cites kathaprasangam as inspiration for his 1997 Malayalam-language film adaptation Kaliyattam [Othello], stating, ‘I encountered Othello in my childhood through this art form’.¹⁸

Today, Shakespeare remains India’s most popularly translated non-native playwright. The number of Malayalam translations of Shakespeare’s works increased sharply after the 1950s, indicating that in promoting Malayalam Shakespeares, the Keralan Communist literary drive proved even more successful than the former colonial imposition. C. C. Mehta’s Bibliography of Stageable Plays in Indian Languages (1963) contains nearly two thousand Indian-language versions of Shakespeare’s works.¹⁹ Keralites may have become acquainted with Shakespeare, on the big screen or theatre stage, at the railway bookstall or examination hall, local library or the home bookshelf. However, one thing is clear: this visitor from across the seas is here to stay, particularly when he can speak to us about shared human concerns in our own, musical tongue.