[This issue also is privileged to have the Editorial from Prof. M. Sivramkrishna, who accepted my request. I thank him on behalf of Mother of All T. S. Sastry]
As you must have noticed, this month we begin what we hope and pray continue: English rendering of Amma’s conversations recorded and compiled by Sripada Gopala Krishnamurthy.
I was feeling for a long time that these conversations should come out in English. But then only recently I broached the topic with our dear Tangirala Sastri garu (Who is always eager and enthusiastic and luckily my unfailing source and support!).
He was delighted and said we should do that as soon as possible.
The first result you see in the current issue. From my side, as a translator, let me make a few things clear: I felt that, in the beginning, let us select some conversation and see the responses. How they can be put into English- without in any way disfiguring the grace, clarity, economy and suggestive power of Amma’s words. This is the primary problem.
Often, in a conversation, the language is so brief, concise almost clipped that while a native can easily set the nuances and shades of Amma’s words, a non-Telugu may not… Often the content conditions the communicative needs of a translation. Translation should therefore be free from comparison with the original. Every language has non translatable item : for instance “Samskaras”, “gunas” etc. How do we render them into English?
Similarly, there are cultural specifics and beliefs (eg. one should go and visit a Swami and not the other way round). And above all, Amma’s brevity and economy of words is as richly communicative as it is inaccessible to exact translation. Yet, the non-Telugu readers should not be denied access to these rich, highly illuminating, conversations… That led us to this attempt beginning from this issue…