Rebati: Speaking in Tongues

One short story, thirty-six world languages and such critical motifs as epidemics and women’s education at its backdrop. Call it a publishing phenomenon or one which defies formulaic attributes of an anthology, ‘Rebati-Speaking
in Tongues’ has been a sensation of sorts and commendation must go to the publisher Dhauli Books for, first, conceiving the idea and then putting the thought into practice.

Fakirmohan Senapatiacclaimed as the father of modern Odia literature and one who was a trendsetter of several genres of Odia writing in the late nineteenth century – wrote this iconic short story more than one hundred twenty years ago. Written against the background of the cholera epidemic that devastated the family of the protagonist-Shyam Bandhu Mohanty, the human drama depicted in the story far outweighs the epidemiological reason.

The cuss of modern education also comes to the fore rather subtly in the short story. First published in 1898 in Utkal
Sahitya, Rebati is still unspoiled in its treatment of the human tragedy that unfolds alongside the pestilent. Because the story provides a ‘radical and poignant view of gender, modernity, and colonial Indian society’, it has genuinely a timeless existence.

Says the blurb: ‘It is a tragic tale m in which the dream of selfactualization of a young girl through education comes crashing as much because of a rampaging epidemic as because of a mindset deeply hostile to change. Rebati loses her parent and her suitor to cholera.In a strange and ironic quirk of fate that is as baffling as it I brutal, Rebati is seen-and by no other person than her loving grandmother-as having brought on this tragedy upon her family for having denied the undesirable.’

‘The genius of Senapati is to evoke the complex social reality of the late nineteenth-century colonial Odisha, an evocation that includes the inevitability of change, the resistance to it and the human cost of both.If Rebati
resonates today beyond the border of it creator’s home and world, it is because of it narrative wit and penetrating insights into a world in transition. The story belongs to every reader who touches it.’

A massive book of almost seven hundred pages, Rebati: Speaking in Tongues features interpretations of the original story into three dozen languages of the world – 23 scheduled languages, two non-scheduled languages of India and twelve foreign languages such as Ahomiya, Balochi, Bangla, Bodo,Dogri, English, French, German, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Kannada, Kashmiri, Khasi, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Polish, Punjabi
Gurmukhi, Punjabi Shahmukhi, Russian, Sambalpuri-Kosli, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Sinhalese, Spanish, Tamil, Telugu,
Turkish, Urdu and Uzbek.

The respectable part of the endeavor is that , most of the Indian as well as the foreign translators are acclaimed authors
in their respective languages and ,evidently, have given their best to render Rebati.

Says Manu Dash, editor of the anthology (who is also a translator, curator of the annual Odisha Art & Literature Festival):

This is the first such attempt in the publishing history, and, has been prepared, keeping research scholars, professors of literary studies and students of comparative and world literature around the globe in mind. This makes the compendium a veritable collector’s item.

Two things stand out conspicuously in the book: One, showcasing the rich legacy of Odia literature to the national and
international audience and, two, pooling up translators from across continents.

Coming closer to the concept of ‘world literature’ first used by the German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Rebati isn’t a small accomplishment because this piece of writing has now been circulated to an audience outside their country of origin. If dissemination of literature from and to countries across the globe has been more forthcoming after the advent of social media, books like Rebati only adds to that kind of organic phenomenon.

As new trends emerge in world literature and the implications of translations on literature is felt more acutely besides the impact that literature has on culture manifesting itself, restating a story like this one is well-timed. If world literature can be an amazing tool to examine globalization and can provide a marvelous example of how information is shared across languages and cultures, this translated anthology is a fitting tribute to the idea of globose literature in the present times.

With a foreword by Chandrahasa Choudhury, and a scholarly introduction by Prof. Himansu S. Mohapatra and Debendra K. Dash, besides an exclusive cover portrait by internationally renowned artist Jatin Das ,’Rebati – Speaking in
Many Tongues’ is a milestone in contemporary literary publishing.