Zero Degree at the University of Rochester Translation Site

One translated book I recently had to add to the 2008 translation database is Zero Degree by Charu Nivedita (translated from the Tamil by Pritham K. Chakravarthy and Rakesh Khanna), which was published by Blaft Publications earlier this year.
I have to admit that until reading Rakesh Khanna’s comment on an earlier post, I had never heard of Blaft, but I really like their mission statement:

Blaft Publications is a new independent publishing house based in Chennai, India. Our releases so far include an anthology of Tamil pulp fiction, a translation of an experimental Tamil novel, a book of drawings, and a book of English short stories.

However, in the future, Blaft has much wider goals. We are planning to eventually branch out into translations of fiction from other regional languages of South Asia, English fiction, comic books, graphic novels, children’s books, non-fiction, textbooks, how-to-manuals, encyclopedias, and kitchen appliances.

All of their titles are available in America, but apparently only through Amazon.com, which is unfortunate. After reading the first half of Zero Degree, I’m pretty sure there are a number of booksellers out there who would be into this book—it’s the first Tamil title I’ve encountered that includes a dedication to Kathy Acker and a reference to the Oulipo. . . . Rather than summarize the book—I plan on writing a full review in the near future—I thought I’d share the translator’s introduction:

We would like to let Zero Degree speak for itself, after taking just a moment to disavow our personal support for any political agenda that this book or its characters may have, and also to point out two idiosyncratic difficulties the book posed for the translator.

First, in keeping with the numerological theme of Zero Degree, the only numbers expressed in either words or symbols are numerologically equivalent to nine (with the exception of two chapters). This Oulipian ban includes the very common Tamil word å¼, one, used very much like the English one (“one day”, “one of them”, etc.). The way Charu Nivedita works around this constraint in Tamil is a notable feature of the original text. However, Tamil has some better substitutes for this word than English does. For instance, there are two pronouns each for he and she: Üõ¡/Üõoe [Ed. Note: I can’t figure out how to get the script to appear correctly online—sorry about that.] (roughly “that man”/“that woman”) and Þõ¡/Þõoe (“this man”/“this woman”). The lack of single-word English equivalents sometimes results in less graceful constructions than Tamil makes possible. We have done our best to make these sentences easily readable without using the forbidden numbers.

Secondly, many sections of the book are written entirely without punctuation, or using only periods. This reminds the Tamil reader of an ancient style of writing, before Western punctuation marks were adopted into the script. However, in English, omitting punctuation, besides being confusing, would fail to give this effect. Therefore, we have inserted punctuation marks in many chapters, except where it seemed important to the meaning of the text to leave them out.

Zero Degree was first published in Chennai in 1998. It is the author’s second novel, and features many of the same characters that appeared in his first, Existentialism and Fancy Banyan. It did well enough for a second and third edition, and was also translated into Malayalam by Balasubramaniam and P. M. Girish. In Kerala, the book generated a great deal of . . .

[The remainder of the translators’ note was destroyed by a computer virus.]

Pritham K. Chakravarthy
Rakesh Khanna

No Jokes On The Palm Leaf - Article at Outlook India

Back in Delhi, I am told, Mani Shankar Aiyar is famous for his witty ripostes, sharp one-liners and punch lines that have audiences in splits. So I set out for Mayiladuthurai expecting to be vastly entertained. Only to find that in his constituency, the venerable Congress candidate cuts a very different figure. The starched white kurta-pyjama that the cabinet minister wears in Delhi has been replaced by the local garb of dhoti and shirt.

Aiyar's Tamil isn't fluent enough for him to pun or play on words the way he does in English. In fact, for locals, Aiyar's Tamil is a subject of ridicule—it reminds them of Subramaniam Swami.

And it's been a long time since Aiyar made a joke here, at least in public. That last joke was in 2003, when Jayalalitha, on the advice of her astrologers, gifted an elephant to the Guruvayur temple in Kerala. Aiyar found the image this conjured up irresistible. He remarked, no doubt in an allusion to Puratchi Thalaivi's elephantine proportions, that she could just as well have gifted herself to the temple. Alas, the queen was not amused, nor were her loyal supporters. Just a few days later, Aiyar was waylaid and attacked by AIADMK men near Nagapattinam, slippers were thrown at him in his own constituency, and his office ransacked.

That incident taught him a salutary lesson about the perils of shooting his mouth off. But another reason why Aiyar is uncharacteristically solemn and sober in his speeches in Mayiladuthurai is, quite simply, that his Tamil isn't fluent enough for him to pun or play on words. In fact, for locals, Aiyar's Tamil is itself something of a joke—they describe it as a bizarre mix of Brahmin Tamil and the halting Tamil spoken by foreigners. "It reminds us of Subramanian Swami," people in Mayiladuthurai tell me. "He's another one who speaks this kind of strange Tamil." Another thing the locals find strange is that Aiyar affixes his caste to his name. "Which politician does that in Tamil Nadu, especially if you have a Brahmin surname!" they say incredulously.

Mani Shankar Aiyar's mantra, ever since he first contested from Mayiladuthurai in 1991, has been: "I shall make Mayiladuthurai the Dubai of India!" Some may wonder why on earth Mayiladuthurai, a bastion of Tamil culture, would ever want to be Dubai. In this constituency stands the magnificent 12th century Chola temple of Darasuram in Kumbakonam. Here, too, is the ancient port city of Poompuhar, home of Kovalan and Kannagi, the protagonists of the great Tamil epic Silappadikaram. M.V. Pillai, author of the first Tamil novel, Prathaba Mudaliyar Chariththiram, written in 1857, hailed from here—he was the village munsif. Literacy and education levels have been high here for a long time.

No, Aiyar hasn't quite brought glittering Dubai-style shopping malls to Mayiladuthurai. But there's no denying that he has brought development to his constituency. The roads here are of a smoothness to rival Hema Malini's cheeks. The villages look prosperous and clean, with drinking water, electricity, toilets, community centres, even well-tended graveyards. I get a shock when I enter the toilet at the city bus stop. "I have to pay Rs 2 to take a leak here?" I ask incredulously. The man at the toilet door apologises: "I feel horrible having to do this." Must be a Dubai custom, imported to Mayiladuthurai.

Among Aiyar's other gifts to Mayiladuthurai are a gas plant, a thermal power plant, and yet another power plant fuelled by sugarcane waste. There's also an impressive Rs 20-crore stadium, better than any in Chennai, much used by local students. But there aren't enough employment opportunities for the local population. Many go abroad to seek their fortunes. "This brain drain is one of the reasons why this place hasn't yet become Dubai," Aiyar tells me, looking rather dejected. His characteristic ebullience is definitely missing. And with reason.

His opponent, O.S. Manian of the AIADMK, is a well-networked local man, who people say participates closely in their daily lives and problems. Manian emphatically points out that when more than 90 children died in a fire in a Kumbakonam school, he was right there to help and console, whereas Aiyar was unable to reach immediately. "When we local people approach Aiyar with a problem, he pushes us away, saying such local matters don't come under an MP's purview," complains Manikandan, who runs a small stall at the Mayiladuthurai town bus stop. Many others echo similar views.

But what seems to have made this election battle a really uphill one for Aiyar is the wave of public sentiment against Karunanidhi, whose DMK is the Congress party's alliance partner in Tamil Nadu. Karunanidhi's five-hour after-breakfast to pre-lunch "fast", with his first wife sitting at his feet and the second wife at his head—a scene aired repeatedly on Sun TV and Kalaignar TV—has earned him widespread ridicule. Aiyar has also been hit by the Congress's own stand on the Tamil Eelam issue—it is seen to be looking the other way while thousands of Eelam Tamils face death and disaster. After Rajiv Gandhi's assassination by the LTTE, local Tamils had distanced themselves from the Eelam cause. But that was 19 years ago, and now it's again an emotive issue for them. "So many Tamils are being killed in Eelam—what's Aiyar doing about that?" a municipal sweeper asks me heatedly.

Jayalalitha, meanwhile, has done an about-turn. "Support our alliance and I shall fight for a separate Eelam till my death" is her new trumpet call. Her election rallies show her at her histrionic best. Referring to the DMK taunt that she knows nothing about children or family, she turns to the crowd, arms stretched out, and pleads, "Aren't you my family? Aren't you my children?" The crowd roars back, "Yes! Yes!"

A popular AIADMK slogan in Mayiladuthurai these days mockingly asks: "arukku naadi paarkalaamaahat do the palm leaves say about Aiyar?)" The palm leaves refer to Mayiladuthurai's famous Vaitheeswaran Kovil, famous for its centuries-old palm leaves with astrological predictions written on them. You go there, give your name, and you will be shown a palm leaf on which your destiny is written. Even if your name is Obama, I'm told, you will find your palm leaf.

As I wait near a bus stop, baking in the sun, while the photographer goes in search of the shots he wants, three women approach me. They're middle-aged, heavily caked with powder and paint. "You want to come?" they ask. "Forget about my coming," I answer, "what do you think of the coming election?" "First attend to us, then we'll tell you about the election," they laugh. Unfortunately, just then, the photographer comes back and hurries me off to our meeting with Mani Shankar Aiyar.

"Write this in bold letters," Aiyar instructs me, as his parting shot: "Dubai is collapsing, but Mayiladuthurai is growing rapidly." I do not ask him if he has consulted the palm leaves.

About Charu Comments from Vivek Narayanan

There’s a great deal of writing both by and about Charu Nivedita on the internet; most of it is in Tamil. Nivedita also has a translator who is on hand to instantly translate the articles that he writes regularly for the Malayalam press! In English, alas, there are only one or two scattered things, including the first chapter of Zero Degree, his only translated novel. Readers should keep in mind that ZD is only one—the second—of four novels that he has written, and that the novels are all quite different.


Existentialism and Fancy Banyan, his first, appears to be a coming of age story; Raasa Leela, his third book, is an intricately plotted political fable; Kamaroopa Kadhaigal—his most recent book, considered by some to be his best—is a troubled love story. Kamaroopa Kadhaigal, by the way, was first published in serial form on his blog. We’re excited to hear that for his slot on the evening of March 20, Nivedita will be reading new, unpublished translations by Pritham Chakravarthy from this book.

Zero Degree—an intense and seemingly anarchic pastiche of crude pornography, violence, conversations, letters, heartbreak, Oulipian omissions, possibly autobiographical snippets, multiple narrators, theory, numerology, classical Tamil, mytho-political histories, translations, melancholy, lyrical poetry, name dropping and whatever else—must have been quite a surprise when it first appeared in Tamil in 1999; yet, the fact is that there is no book remotely like it on the Indian English landscape either. Thus, just as the Tamil original has gathered a huge cult following over time, the English translation too is now finding many admirers in India and probably elsewhere as well. In world literature, the writer that comes most immediately to mind as a comparison is Kathy Acker, who partly extends the techniques of William Burroughs. The English translation is dedicated to Acker; Nivedita is indeed a serious reader of Acker, although it should be noted that he began to read her only after the publication of Zero Degree.

The English success owes a lot, obviously, to the quality of the translation, done by Pritham Chakravarthy with Rakesh Khanna: it conjures a truly organic speaking voice in Indian English, something many writers working originally in the language seem to struggle with! Moreover, the translation is also wise about what it chooses to leave out, what it does not attempt to find an equivalence for. I have begun to find my way into the Tamil; one of its special features is how it runs and collides an incredibly wide range of languages and registers together, going from classical Tamil to the medieval Tamil of the poet-saint Andal to the jaggedly eloquent swearing of the Madras street or fragments of pop-scientific language, officialese, flashes of Hindi and, certainly, plenty of English, used un-self-consciously in unexpected ways and places.

For all its feints and hijinks, what is striking about Zero Degree is its emergent seriousness of purpose, its truth of feeling, its search for a sense of completeness. At one point early on, it is claimed even that the chapters have been shuffled in random order; however, there is a very telling and ultimately transformative emotional arc if you read the book from beginning to end.


I think we should take it not just as a playful, ironic “postmodern” novel but as a novel of oppositions and contradictions: a deeply autobiographical novel where the self has been scattered, an ironic pastiche novel that speaks to raw experience, a defiantly cosmopolitan novel than nonetheless pins a very particular kind of schizophrenic rage that perhaps—I could be wrong—any Tamilian will immediately recognise.

Nivedita was born and brought up in a Tamilnadu village very near the border of the formerly French union territory of Karaikal. On this side, he told me, Tamilnadu was under prohibition; on the other side, booze and Western classical music. He lived in Delhi for twelve years, where he worked for the rations office, picked up excellent Hindi, gave himself an education in literature, music and world cinema and witnessed the 1984 riots first hand.

Now, living in Chennai with his wife and two very large dogs, he writes full time. His link to the world is partly through a very active presence on the internet, continually writing film reviews, political commentary and the like. Loyal Tamil readers located all around the world purchase and post him all the obscure books he requests; his special interest at the moment is Arabic literature in translation. “In Tamilnadu people get very sentimental when it comes to writers, actors and politicians,” he told me, chuckling. “At a book signing by an Indian English author you will see people quietly queuing up. At my readings and signings, they sometimes break down crying.”