Writeherewritenow organised a workshop on translation at Disha Foundation,a centre of learning for underprivileged children.
The idea was to ensure that the Writeherewrite now members-most of whom come from very privileged backgrounds could mix with the Disha kids and work with them as a team. Before they were split into groups of three,the Disha children and The Writeherewritenow members (and the new children who attended the workshop for the first time) sat separately,but when they were put into groups, they realised that they would have to work together and began to interact with one another.
The first Creative Writing Exercise was a rather lighthearted one-we called it the icebreaker and gave them words like Nyaka,Paka,Dhishum Dhishum,Chulbuli and Whatever to convert into different languages.
After that,we gave them Sukumar Ray's Ramgarurer Chana to translate.This was a rather difficult poem to translate but Ahaan Ghosh (from Writeherewritenow) and Sujay Tiwari (from Disha) turned out to be the bright sparks in their team and came up with this as their translation:
Ramgarur's Child is a monster
who thinks laughing is a disaster
Telling it funny words is in vain
Everyone laughs at it and yet,it stares
everywhere.
It doesn't want to sleep
and only tells itself
If I ever laugh in my life.
I will beat myself up.
It doesn't go near the woods
as it believes
that the south winds may tickle it
and make it laugh all the time
Its heart is very gloomy
like the dark clouds in the sky
The soul wants to laugh aloud
Yet,it tries to stop itself
With all its might.
At first,the children were apprehensive about translation and we asked them what they thought Translation was. As they were translating, we gave them tips on how to translate.
Next came a Hindi song called Ma from Taare Zameen Par.We ended the session with an Akbar Birbal story.
Mrs Neena Singh and Mrs Ranjana Roy have been tremendously helpful in helping me coordinate and Organise the workshop. A big thank you to Megha and Richa as well calmed my rather jittery nerves (as this was the first workshop that I was conducting.)
Last but definitely not the least,a huge thank you to the Disha kids and the Writeherewritenow kids,for making this event possible.
8 comments:
hey!
well, to start with, congratulations on your first solo workshop. and it seems to have been really successful. the poem's really cute. and of course, getting kids form different socio-economic backgrounds to work together in groups is a really cool achievement.
honestly, it would never have occurred to me to try a translation workshop with kids. i guess most of us take it for granted that young people are comfortable only in one language, which is surely very far from the truth in the indian context. we are all juggling different languages in our speech all the time, although we are mostly unaware of it. and exercises in translation can bring young people close to that awareness.
besides, considering the huge possibilities in translation in the contemporary literary world, getting the idea (and practice) of translation into young lives is definitely a very farsighted idea.
good work :)
er... well... mmm...
i was wondering if you could spell check and grammar check your posts before you put them up?
:)
By the way, Spark-India is looking for people to translate some of their children's books from English to Hindi. If you have someone in mind, do recommend. Thanks.
Chintan
@bishan:yes absolutely.
@chintan:for our workshop,we did everything ourselves but will definitely let you know.
kudos reeti on ur solo workshop
:)
@astraeus: thanks Rohit :) Really appreciate it!
hey!
glad to see these photos. great that you added them. always helps when there is a visual angle to things.
:)
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