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| Home > Book Reviews of Literary icons > Godan
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| | Godan of Munshi Premchand
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 The dominating shadow of the original concept looms over the English. The Hindi word, or rather the concept, Godaan, is so culture specific that there is really no English equivalent to it: daan is not just charity, nor donation. Neither can it be translated merely as "gift". The English title passes off because the original Hindi title immediately registers with the reader. But then, why would a reader who knows Hindi go to this translated text. Hopefully, the original title on the cover may intrigue even a non-Hindi reader who would then wish to comprehend the concept!
Both, Vasudha Dalmia and Roadarmel present the literary and the social context of the novel in their introductions. Dalmia offers a critique of what she calls the two major narrative frames of the novel, the economic and social codes of Awadh on the one hand and the colonial and the nationalist politics on the other, through which different characters live the story of unremitting suffering. While Dalmia perceives the novel as "eminently political" and progressive, Roadarmel discusses Premchand`s depiction of "changes of heart" as the most potent force for change in society. Quoting Premchand himself, Roadarmel pinpoints the interface of the didactic intentions with the author`s literary sensibility: "Idealism has to be there," says Premchand in 1934 "even though it should not militate against realism and naturalness."
With the protagonist Hori in the centre, the novel Godaan tells the epic story of a wide range of characters situated in a complex social reality, rural as well as urban, filtered through a progressive consciousness and yet committed to an authentic portrayal. It is rightly said that a classic literary work gains in meanings and relevance as time passes. This is amply demonstrated by the new Introduction to the novel. Vasudha Dalmia makes a very pertinent point when she discerns how Premchand presented in his fiction an understanding of the social reality decades before academic scholarship could "squarely face it." She suggests the use of some essays from the volumes of Subaltern Studies published in the early eighties for a greater comprehension of Godaan through a political and social history of Awadh. Similarly, the Bakhtinian term "parodic stylization" applied to some of Premchand`s masterly strokes in the novel gives added meaning to the double-edged tone of the author in describing the so-called authority figures in the society, such as Pandit Nokharam, Jhinguri Singh or Brahmin Datadin.
The 2002 Introduction indicates the complexity of thematic issues emerging through the narrative of Godaan, thanks perhaps to the sophisticated and advanced critical tools and knowledge accessible to the contemporary reader. Dalmia identifies the immense tension between the dharma of Hori and the social and political pulls away from it, and describes the rebellion (vidroh) of Gobar and Dhania as progressive strains within the novel. She shows how the novel unravels both, helplessness of major characters in the face of social practice and notions of piety upheld by most people around.
Roadarmel`s Introduction of 1968 addresses the readers of the West in establishing the significance of the novel in Hindi literature. "Novels in English dealing with India" he says "usually spell out the unfamiliar cultural details for the Western reader"… this statement can indeed be contested today in the light of any significant Indian novel written in English after Rushdie`s Midnight`s Children. But Roadarmel demonstrates extraordinary postcolonial sensitivity when he says "One of the attractions of novels written first in an Indian language is that one can explore the situation from within the local context, not feeling that the author is catering to the English readers, that he is dealing not with the curious or the exotic but with matters of concern to those within the culture." To the translator of Godaan then, thankfully, the distinct cultural specificity of the text is important. He does not give any explanatory notes in the text, nor does he give any footnotes. He does all this consciously and deliberately, so that he may not intrude or disturb. Exercising his choices as translator, he works out his own strategies and does well in involving the reader in the reasons for the choices he makes.
Roadarmel has done some fiction editing in the process of translating the novel if only, as he declares, to take care of the "chronological and other inconsistencies" in the novel. Since the objective of the translation is to make the same joy available to the English reader as that of the Hindi reader, generally Roadarmel has attempted to remain as close to orginal text as he could. But he does point out the cause for deviations and the problems of idiom and style in having to move from Hindi to English. Dalmia speaks of the languages of heteroglossia intersecting each other in Godaan which is what makes the novel difficult to translate. In fact she gives examples of how Roadarmel could not escape some of the pitfalls created thus for the translators, even though there is no denying the durability of his translation of the novel.
The acid test for the success of a translated text is its readability which, I believe, depends on how autonomous it is. It has to become another original without compromising the spirit. The Gift of a Cow is not parasitic on Godaan, nor is it merely its shadow; the spirit of Godaan vibrates in the form of The Gift of a Cow.
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