Complexities of modern life
 The development of a literature depends on interaction of cultures.
This is where translations of worthy books have come to mean a valuable
contribution from one language to another and from one culture to
another. In this direction we need books selected in the right way and
translated without distorting the original work.
This has come to mean a kind of cultural understanding and needs
re-scrutiny from several points of view. Most books translated into
Sinhala come from English language and perhaps with a misunderstanding
of the original work written in another language. Several examples could
be cited. But translations are received well in the book market
depending on its use as cross cultural communication purposes.
Lost in ocean
At this juncture the novel written in Hindi by a well known Indian
writer named Kamaleshvar, titled in Hindi as ‘Samudrame Khoya Hua Adami’
(The Man who got lost in the Ocean) comes to be translated into Sinhala
as ‘Samudraye Aataramanvu Minisa’. The translator is Professor Upul
Ranjit Hevawitanagamage, the head of the department of Hindi Language at
the University of Kelaniya.
 It is a welcome variant to the existing pattern of translations in
the contemporary literary scene. The translation comes from the original
language Hindi. Then it is an unusual representation of a work
acknowledged by the critics of the day in the country of its birth,
India, as a significant contribution which had caused discussion as a
new trendsetter in the portrayal of life with complexities.
In the narrative there lies no made up storyline with a trick ending
or a plot as such. All what happens is that a man named Biran, who was
working in a ship, is lost in the ocean while he was engaged in a
certain research on behalf of a particular group of people who employ
him as a fact finder or a minor category. When the news of his being
lost comes to be heard, the family members seem to be at a loss to
perceive how it had happened. Are there any eyewitnesses for his loss?
What factors have gone into his disappearance? This then is the
experience that is expressed in the book running to 21 short chapters,
mostly centred round sensitive discussions ensued between people who
matter in the life of Biran. Then comes the grave expectations of his
return.
Living up to expectations
Kamaleshvar makes the reader feel that everyone linked by some means
to his protagonist is expecting the return of Biran. The police
officers, the army and the navy authorities interrogate and the
neighbours ask questions of varying types unanswerable. The documents
are rummaged and the people around are seen busy at times saying what
others have to say and what others say as informants. But all in all,
there is vigilance of a feeling that the man, the protagonist who had
gone to the sea, will return at some given moment.
There are several layers of human experiences in the narrative. The
first layer being the story of a lost man in the sea while engaged in a
function for which he was looked after by a group of employers
presumably who underrated his actual talents. Then comes the story of
how he happened to be lost as expressed by several representative
groups. This is followed by the stormy aggrieved nature of the family
members as to what really happened to him and how to know about it.
Can the social units in their surroundings help them alleviate the
pain of mind caused by this terrifying loss? Will the givers of his
employment pay back his compensation? What evidence is available to
gauge whether he will return to their homeland? The human standpoints of
the narrative seem to be a never ending series of episodes interlinked
to each other representing the disarrayed nature of the human minds
themselves.
The reader observes the severe pain mind caused via this loss and he
becomes a part and parcel of the tragedy of Biran, the man who got lost.
The characters that centre round Biran’s tragedy include his father
Shyamlal and his mother Rammi, the two sisters and a sweetheart. They
are consoled by others who come to see them. But in reality nothing
happens it is another reminder of the human entrapment caused by the
humans themselves.
Fantasies and magic realism
The narrative is sensitively readable and humanistic from all its
standpoints. There are no gimmicks of the so called fantasies and magic
realisms. The translator Professor utilises a sensitive language in his
process of translation where the reader observes a sense of poetry and
vision blended. He should also be commended for presenting a profile of
the writer as additional material which helps the reader to gauge the
commitment of the original work in terms of a modern day classic and its
creator highly creative in varying forms.
This translation is an eye opener to most of the local award giving
institutes of our country where false and pretentious judgments are made
on banal and denatured works deceiving the masses over and above the
actual down to earth creations of this type. The reader of this Hindi
novel is titillated by various issues of cross cultural experiences
springing up from socio political and socio cultural issues common to
us. The vast ocean here is symbolic of the human life itself which is
well depicted in oriental literary works. At the same time the ocean is
symbolic of the more modern types of life enmeshed in depths of dismal
darkness.
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