Talking of The Black Magic Women in translation

It was the day of The Black Magic Women on Wednesday as Chandigarh-based translator and journalist, Parbina Rashid, who belongs to Guwahati, flitted across four bookstores signing her latest volume of translation from Assamese

It was the day of The Black Magic Women on Wednesday as Chandigarh-based translator and journalist, Parbina Rashid, who belongs to Guwahati, flitted across four bookstores signing her latest volume of translation from Assamese.

Chandigarh-based translator and journalist Parbina Rashid (HT Photo)

The latest book is a collection of 10 short stories by bilingual short-fiction writer and translator Moushumi Kandali. The title, of course, is The Black Magic Women, after the lore that if men travelled from other parts of India to the north-east, they never came back as the women there entrap them with their charm.

Translator Rashid, however, says: “The stories revolve around serious gender issues. She brings her characters out of Assam and places them into the mainstream, capturing their struggle to retain their inherent ‘Assameseness’ as they try to assimilate into the larger society.”

Knowing the charming translator well, one could say that she has the makings of a character of Kandali’s. She met her debonair Punjabi Sikh husband in a train journey from Guwahati in her student days and later became partners for life. Who enticed who is debatable?

This volume of Kandali is brought out by Penguin Random House. Rashid has been consistently translating from Assamese the past decade and has several translated works to her credit.