Wandering thoughts

There are a few uncorrelated thoughts that keep running in my mind. Here I present a few of them:

Translated literature in India -
Once in my "Literature in Translation" class, Cubba said that Translated Indian Literature is actually "Socially relevant, necessarily serious literature in translation". His statement was not very well supported then, but it is indeed true in my opinion. Most Indian transalators belong to the group of "so-called" intellectuals and they indeed consider it to be their moral responsibility to contribute to social revolution, social change, social awareness, social blah blah .... all that just by transalating serious socially relevant literature. They thought that this is the call of the hour. Not too wrong for 1920, I guess. Pre-independence and till a little later, most of Indian intellectuals were fighting for social causes. People like Gandhi, Raja Rammohan Roy, etc. used to write essays on such issues. Lot of good regional language writers also were writing on social relevant issue(Bashir...). Due to this, the western anthropologists converted their study of Indian society into accounts of social oppression and backwardness. Anthropology became the study of brown men's religion by white man as against its dictionary definition.

But times have changed. Social revolution is still a priority in India, but I guess the urge is not as strong as it was then. The economic growth has triggered the social change. Demographies are changing rapidly and so are customs and tradition. Indian Culture is much more than the catalysts that brought about the current socio-economic distribution where there are glaring gaps. Thus our culture cannot be held responsible for the state of the poor, dalits and minorities. The ones responsible for that are our rulers. We can concentrate on the positive aspects of our culture. Our folklore has much more to give then stories of dalits oppressed by brahamins. Its time we realize that our folklore has a sea of humour and feel-good stories. Ever heard a grim story from your grandparents? Whatever they narrate will mostly make you laugh until you fall off the bed. Plus there are these beautiful local couplets and poetry that is soon going to be lost if we do not record them. These funny poems always have a morale, humour and rhyme. The day we realize this, probably we will see some of good Indian humour being translated. For beginners who want to translate I can give a few pointers - pick up any stuff from Hari Shankar Parsai, Makhan Lal Chaturvedi and many more. You would really want to translate it once you read it. Also look for the Urdu humour in India. It is great. Ever get your hands on the book - "Shrestya Hasya Kathayein" compiled by......i can't remember.'

Men have a birth right to humour -
In a world where women are steeling the baton from men everywhere, it can observed that most of legendary humourist still are men. You didn't see a single lady in Laughter Challenge or a Mahila Hasya Kaviyatri. It is all dominated by men. It is not so because women do not have a taste for humour. They do. But men have had the privilege to speak for centuries and it will take still some time for the human-female to walk into this window. They have always learned to keep stuff to themselves, especially, the one like humour, that asks for attention. Women have mostly been shy of attention(once again I am talking about the average, no offense to the extroverts). Plus a large part of humour also comes from vulgar language or double meaning phrases. Women have kept themselves away from this. With the women revolution happening both these factors are soon dissolving and I guess soon we will see the women on stage as much as men. Beware Sunil Pal.