Beyond Borders

Like all translators,Navtej admits the biggest challenge was to remain true to the original,and recreate accounts from “literary Punjabi,which carried nuances of the language spoken in Rawalpindi at that time”. The hero of all these stories is humanity. “The stories are about human contact from both sides of the borders,like the one where a poet returns to his home across the border to find his books intact among strangers. Another one is about a young man challenging the neighbourhood rogue to a horse-riding bet to rescue a captive girl,” says Navtej.

This is not his first work of translation. Navtej has translated Guru Gobind Singh’s Zafarnama (Penguin),which he describes as a humbling experience. “Research,meeting with scholars,reading various texts,poring over various works on the text,it has been a labour of love,” he says. Zafarnama has 111 short verses by Guru Gobind Singh,and Navtej describes the poetry as exquisite.

The author of novels such as The Exile and We Weren’t Lovers Like That,a short-story collection titled Winter Evenings,and other works such as The Book of Nanak and Folk Tales of Poland,Navtej is now working on a book on the Indian connection to Jerusalem. Four years as Indian Ambassador to Israel has given Navtej enough research material and food for thought. He describes this one as a narrative which is personal,not political. 

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