Artist Aabid Surti's son reveals what it means to translate his father's books

When do you really become your fatherrsquos son At birth or when your achievements match his or the moment when his vision becomes your own Sitting with veteran writerpainterenvironmentalist Aabid Surti and his producerwriter son Aalif at the latterrsquos airy Andheri West residence this question comes to mind more than onceThere is something characteristically similar about the two their selfeffacing demeanour the soft cadence of their voices how they sit on the couchmdashmostly crossleggedmdashand also the manner in which they sip their tea very slowly If it were not for age it would be difficult to tell them apart except that 86yearold Aabid appears more chic in a Marvel Tshirt completed by a blue muffler The genius behind the Indian superhero Bahadur says his son ldquois a fanrdquoAalif SurtiThe former creative head of Fox Star Studios India Aalif 47 has been keeping himself busy producing movies writing web shows and reading and translating his fatherrsquos work The bookshelf which mostly has Aabidrsquos Hindi and Gujarati novels makes this plain evident The day we meet Aalifrsquos English translation of his fatherrsquos famed Gujarati novel Vasaksajja first published in the early 1970s has just hit stores A biographical account of commercial sex worker Kumud name changed who from the alleys of Kamathipura Bombayrsquos redlight district in the 1960s rose to become an actress in several leading films Cages Love and Vengeance in a Redlight District Penguin Random House is the second book translated by Aalif a former film journalist but the first one he has taken credit for ldquoI think I got acquainted with dadrsquos work quite lateembarrassingly late actuallyrdquo Aalif admits ldquoAnd the reason for this was mostly because there werenrsquot many English translations of his workrdquoldquoDad grew up in abject poverty He used to sell sweets in Dongri and studied at a Gujaratimedium school To his credit the first thing that he did for us children was to buy a one room kitchen in Bandramdashitrsquos all that he could afford thenmdashso that my brother could receive an English educationrdquo His decision to finally sit down and translate Aabidrsquos works he says was because he wanted to reciprocate in kindAabid SurtildquoI am not a professional translator But Irsquove read the fewodd English translations of his work and I know they werenrsquot greatrdquo None of them he says captured the authenticity of his workAabid whose 80odd books have been translated into Marathi Urdu Kannada Telugu and Bangla among others interrupts ldquoSome of the translations of my previous books have been horrible You cannot imagine the kind of work that is out there There is a certain kind of insincerity and because I read English Marathi and Urdu I knowrdquoOne of the problems with translating his fatherrsquos work feels Aalif is his ldquodeceptively simple style of writingrdquo ldquoHe writes these very short simple sentences Andsomehow because of his vast experience of writing that simplicity adds up to something fantastic When you are a translator it can be unnervingrdquoAalif came across Cages five years ago The Gujarati work was written somewhere in the early 1970s when Aabid was researching a piece for a magazine Sarika edited by wellknown Hindi scriptwriter and author Kamleshwar Prasad Saxena ldquoHe wanted me to write a feature on the redlight area of Kamathipura I was living in Dongri then and it was just a stonersquos throw away A taxi driver led me to a broker who introduced me to sex workers there I may have interviewed about 60 to 70 of them All their stories were almost the samemdashmany were forced into prostitution or sold by someone they trusted Among them was this one woman who had a different storyShe told me lsquoThis is my pesha My mother was one and so was my grandmother And whatrsquos wrong with thatrsquordquo Her story stuck with Aabid When he eventually filed his story for the magazine he kept her account aside ldquoThis was a subject for a novel I continued to stay in touch with her and did many interviewsrdquo Thatrsquos how Kumud was born Incidentally Aabid is a character in the book too ldquoWhen you read the book you realise how everybody was using everyone Kumud who was exploited by many was using me to tell her story In a way I was using her for the book and to make moneyrdquoKumud did go on to become a film actress doing several films Her identity was never revealed ldquoI liked the graph of this bookrdquo shares Aalif who recently produced the Tamil film Soorarai Pottru starring Suriya which has joined the Oscar race in the Best Actor Best Actress Best Director categories ldquoThe way dad created the world of this area was fascinating At the top of the hierarchy was the underworld don who gave protection to the brothels Below him was the madam the queen of the brothels Then came the fairskinned sex workers who they called gori chamdi they operated out of the airconditioned rooms After them came the women who did their business out of cages Below these are those who operated on streets The lowest in the rung were those who worked in the dark because they are unpleasant to look at and preferred not to be seen Kumud started working in the dark and then went on to take an underworld don before she moved up the ladder It was an amazing David and Goliath storyrdquoOne of the most important points that his father made in the book feels Aalif was whether sex workers had the right to say no ldquoThat is the linchpin for me Just because she is okay with her profession does it mean that if someone forces himself on her it would not be construed as rape Her Kumud stance on it was interesting To me itrsquos a very modern bookrdquo The translation happened over several weeks and with Aabid coming over almost every weekend to spend time with his son they were able to discuss the best way to tell this story ldquoWe have had our arguments but ultimately my son convinces merdquo he says Aabidrsquos writing journey began by sheer accident Nursing heartbreak while at JJ School of Art he started pouring his thoughts out on paper ldquoI didnrsquot know what I had written because I had never read a book before But jo mere andar ki jhunjhlahat thi woh nikal gayi It helped quell the anxiety I was feeling inside of merdquo A local kabadiwala who used to visit the chawl where he lived got curious about the reams of pages he had stockpiled ldquoHe took it back home read it and told me that this should be publishedrdquo The recycler put him in touch with a Gujarati publisher Swati Prakashan and since then he has never looked back All through his life he took up many different jobsmdashhe was also fourth and third assistant in several films became cartoonist and held art exhibitionsmdashand for the last decade and more has been spearheading the water conservation movement through his foundation Drop Dead In 1993 he was awarded the Presidentrsquos Medal for literature for his collection of short stories Teesri Aankh Aalif who himself never followed a single career path looks at his fatherrsquos journey as inspirational ldquoFor dad creativity is a way of life and thatrsquos what he taught us He told us lsquoWhatever you do do it with a creative eye Find the fun in lifersquo Our creative paths are never fixed thanks to himrdquo