Found in translation: Neruda and Paz in Hindi

Translation is the only way to build bridges between different languages and literatures

Although poetry is essentially untranslatable, there is no option but to read poetry written in unfamiliar languages in translation. Pablo Neruda, the great Chilean left-wing poet, once remarked in an interview that the best translations of his poetry were in Italian as it had close affinity with Spanish, and the worst were in English. My own experience is that I enjoy Hindi translation of a literary work written in an Indian language much more than its English translation as the cultural cosmos of Indian languages happens to be a shared one. In a translation, the beauty of a language, its sounds and tones, and its specific ways of expressing human emotions and experiences are very difficult to convey. A translator can only aspire to convey the sense of the original work, not its literary beauty. And yet, translation is the only way to build bridges between different languages and literatures. Having read Neruda in English and Hindi, there are times I wonder how much more beautiful it must be in its original, pristine Spanish version.