Projects

Our Work

Following various journeys of translation, the Centre hopes to intervene in the sphere of knowledge-making. Our projects aim to diffuse the binary formulations of one source and one target, literary and popular texts, and oral and written traditions. We will move from exploring the dynamism of the Tamil compositions of a medieval saint-poet in modern Punjabi to imagining popular Bollywood melodies in Haryanvi and Kannada to translating Periyar’s forceful notes on self-respect across geographies.

Translating Bhakti

Through this project, we aim to take the compelling words of various Bhakti saint-poets into as many languages of India as possible. Translating Kabir’s selected śabdas (poems) is the first in the series of such initiatives. It is our current project-in-progress. As our translator-collaborators playfully engage with the śabdas and strive to keep their genius alive across languages, we imagine the many shapes Kabir’s “upside-down” language can take in India’s multiple tongues.

Ek Gaana, Kayi Zabaan

Songs circulate freely, disembodied from fixed geographies or linguistic contexts. We explore the joy of listening to the “same” songs in different Indian languages. We are currently ‘singing’ Pyaar Hua Iqraar Hua in ten languages. We hope to travel across different parts of the country—giving new tongues to old melodies.

Women Translating Women

This project aims to share stories by women written across languages in India. We will be commissioning a total of twelve books for translation over two 12-month-long cycles. Supported by the Susham Bedi Memorial Fund, the selected works will be translated by women translators, exploring the multiple spaces inhabited by women in diverse contexts.

The 3CS Media Fellowship

The 3CS Media Fellowship supports reportage on climate change in India to understand how it affects people’s lives, directly supporting journalists from underserved communities to cover such stories. The inaugural module focuses on original reportage done for and by those on the climate change frontlines in peninsular India. The selected Fellows include A B Karl Marx Siddharthar, Goutham Avarthi, Kethegowda M and Sannarangegowda M, Sindhu N, Suprakash Majumdar, and T Appala Naidu. Learn more about the fellowship here.

Of Anti-Caste Literatures

This project aims to popularise anti-caste political writing from across India and centralize its relevance in the national discourse by translating it into several languages. At this stage, we are translating two works by the Dravidian ideologue Periyar EV Ramasamy—one, a long essay on the right to remarriage and another on the Self-Respect Movement. Subsequently, we wish to expand this project to focus on texts/speeches from other regions as well as contemporary anti-caste political discourse.