New Delhi, Jul 4 (PTI) The fast-paced novel "Dudiya: In your Burning Land", written by Sahitya Akademi award-winning Marathi novelist Vishwas Patil, has been translated into English by Nadeem Khan.
Set in Chhattisgarh, the book, originally written in Marathi, is a story of a spirited young Adivasi girl who challenges conventional norms both within her impoverished tribe and inside a Naxal camp by simply trying to live a life of dignity and independence.
"My rendezvous with Dudiya and her Naxal infested state happened when I went to that Naxal-dominated area as a senior election officer. On one side are the police and government machinery, while on the other are the AK-47 wielding Naxals; and seeing those poor, desperate people of the area sandwiched between these two disturbs me even to this day.
"The meeting with Dudiya still brings back the smell of gunpowder to my nostrils," said Patil, who has written 18 novels and won over 40 awards, including the coveted Sahitya Akademi award and the Indira Goswami National Literary Award of Assam.
The story revolves around civil servant Dilip Pawar -- posted as election observer in the Naxal infested districts of Chhattisgarh -- and Dudiya, a young Adivasi girl whose destiny is trapped between the two blades of a pair of scissors, the state administration on the one hand and the Naxals on the other.
"Having no way out, she joins the Naxals as a young girl and trains with them in the remote and inaccessible Abujmarh mountains. However, she ends up feeling disillusioned and trapped, and surrenders to the police. But now she is a refugee branded as a traitor by the Naxals who are gunning for her life," read the description of the novel.
According to Khan, translating 'Dudiya' was an adventure and gave him the joy that the Marathi reader would have extracted from the original: "the fast-paced narrative, the surrealistic episodes and the sheer variety of characters that people the story".
"The package becomes utterly mind-boggling because nothing is imagined––only recorded the way it happened! The delightful turns of phrase, of course, made it unputdownable. Carrying all this zing into English, however, was a challenge, and therefore, an equally thrilling adventure. How well the challenge has been met? Only the reader is qualified to judge that," said Khan, who has been a teacher of English for 50 years.
The book, published by Niyogi Books, is currently available for purchase across offline and online stores.