Breaking the language barrier

Gone is the era when only engineering and medicine, as career options, were hot and the rest were not. In fact if you still subscribe to thi...

Gone is the era when only engineering and medicine, as career options, were hot and the rest were not. In fact if you still subscribe to this point-of-view, then chances are that you could be labelled a conservative.

For the modern, nothing is taboo 8212; not even making a career out of talking. And Bureau of Interpretation, Translation and Language Studies BITS, has proved that point.

Founded by Sandeep Nulkar in 1992, BITS 8212; a translation bureau 8212; was a direct result of the flood of multinationals, post liberalisation. These foreign corporates brought to Indian shores deals and documents, maintenance manuals and brochures, all in the language of their mother country. Getting them translated into English became imperative and Indian corporates scrambled around looking for qualified people. For someone like Nulkar, a graduate in French with a diploma 8212; DSLF 8212; from Paris, the pickings were rich. quot;I was already into translating from French to English. Before liberalisation, it was one odd job at a time,quot;he says.

His lucky streak continued when he met Vinay Deshpande and Rewati Patankar, both post-graduates in German. And BITS was the natural result.

And even though the need was there, selling the concept of a translation bureau was not a cake walk. While Rahul Bajaj found time for BITS, an obscure company in Pune denied Nulkar even an entrance into its premises.Nevertheless, after a short time, documents began to flow. quot;There was a time when I used to be without a translating job for even two months at a stretch. But not now,quot; says Nulkar. In due course, business altered the profile of BITS. For a long time the bureau catered to translation jobs, in just French and German. But when requests for Japanese translation began to be made, they knew they could not turn business away. So, they looked to hire a person who could do the job. That8217;s when the bureau acquired a new dimension. Today, the bureau can be called a one-stop language shop8217;. The need for Japanese translators was followed by a need for peoplefluent in Spanish, followed by Portuguese, which in turn was followed by Norwegian.

Now, companies can approach BITS for translation jobs in 11 foreign languages. The cost: US 15 to 50 for translation and interpretation.Translation in Indian languages they handle upto 10 languages began when BITS was approached for the interpretation of a police panchnama! quot;A road accident occurred in Karnataka so the panchnama was in Kannada. But the truck was registered in Maharashtra,quot; explains Deshpande. The team has also translated documents of old land deals in the ancient Modi script. The cost: 10 to 50 for translation and interpretation.

But how does BITS track down people to translate the lesser-known foreign languages? Smart entrepreneurs don8217;t reveal their trade secrets and neither does this team. All that they say is, quot;Ants get attracted to sugar.quot;A lot of companies, initially, had doubts about the translated output as the documents contained technical data. BITS8217; aid was the dictionary of technical terms. quot;We convinced companies that we were the medium between what they didn8217;t know and what they would like to know,quot; says Nulkar.To date, BITS has worked for companies like Mercedes Benz, Tata Exports, Seimens, Bajaj Auto, Krupp Industries and Gabriel and Krohne Marshall, to name a few. And from an initial investment of Rs 10,000, BITS now has a turnover of between Rs eight lakh to Rs 10 lakh, per annum. Speaking with a forked tongue can sometimes pay off.