We’re starting it, tomorrow. The first translation goes up. Everything I feel and haven’t put into words is there in this line on top.
Let me try to break it down:
* Will you be as awestruck as I was when I got my hands on these regional works?
* Will you recognise the single most important fact here – that there are voices speaking in different scripts, and we’re only just beginning to hear them?
* Will you appreciate the true hero of this project: the translator?
* Do you know that anyone can be a translator, but very few choose to?
* Do you know that those who choose to translate, do so keeping aside a bunch of apprehensions – including the most important one, which is, that they’ve never translated before?
* Do you know that all these stories and opinions are individual truths and needn’t signify any overarching Truth, with a capital T?
* Have you truly understood the substance behind this project: that what we’re celebrating here is multiplicity, not singularity, whether of thoughts, or sentiments, or stories? Multiplicity and difference.
* Do you realise that the individual is only as significant as her community, and the community only as powerful as the individual?