The Writer as the Reader: Meditations of Two-Face
Sachin Ketkar
One of the deadliest enemies of Batman is Two-Face. Harvey Dent, a
District Attorney and a close friend of Batman, became Two Face after half of
his face was disfigured and he became criminally insane plotting crimes around the number two, such as
robbing Gotham Second National Bank at 2:00 on February 2
and so on. But then Batman is himself double faced, living a double life as
Bruce Wayne, billionaire, playboy and philanthropist in the daylight and Batman in the night. The Reader
too is the Writer's double, his alter-ego,an accomplice and a
collaborator in his crimes, his other, his lover and his enemy. As every
serious writer knows that the activities of reading and writing are not
mutually exclusive and separate activities and that the division between the
writer as a producer of discourses and the reader as a the consumer is not
merely superficial but commercial as well. When I write I also read and when I
read I also produce the text. Neighter can I write without learning how to
read, nor can I learn to read if nothing is writen and the question of which is primary becomes the hen and the egg question. When
the writer recognizes and identifize his image in his Mirror Stage, it is seen ‘in
the place of the Other', outside of the self. The writer imagines himself as
the Writer, separate, autonomous and self sufficient , precisely at the moment
when he realizes that his identity is dependent
on the other, that is, when he reads the marks he is inscribing on the
page or on the monitor. The reader is the writer's unconscious- the Other
within. The writing, itself becomes the
discourse of the Other.
The disapperance of the Writer, his death, is a
myth, and most probably a Christian myth. The writer who disappears at the time
when writing writes itself is merely reborn as the Reader. When the Reader
reads she allows the writer's consciousness to pervade her soul, she allows the
Other to intrude her self- that is she translates. Translation, like reading, is acknowledging
the presence of the Other as the Other: the other language, other culture,
other text, other writer, and so it is more ethical than many other
practices.
Translation is both reading and writing and a
critique of the division of the distinction between reading and writing. Effacing this illusionary distinction, it
reveals that there can be no writing which is not based on reading and there is
no reading that is not dependent on writing. Translation reveals that text even
if it carries the signature of the writer- the father, also bears the signature of the reader-the
mother. It reveals that both reading and writing are founded on there respective
other. It shows that the either category of a binarism is dependent on its
opposite. The Derridian philosophy reveals that the position a text overtly
claims to take is a translation of the position it opposes and the more
polemical a text is , the more literally it translates its counter position.
These are the things that responsible for the othering and the marginalization
of translation.
Translation is both reading and writing ,
reading as writing and writing as reading. It practices the diffrence which
veers towards sameness; it practices the opposites , yoked together, in
a mythical schizoid economy. Etymologically, the term Yoga is derived from the
Sanskrit ‘yug- joining, a mythopoetic yoking together of the dualities,
the Self and Other, the human consciousness and the cosmic consciousness, the
male and the female principles, the yin and yang, the Purush and Prakriti, the
day and the night, the good and the evil, the krushna (black) and the shukla
(white), and knowledge (vidya) and
ignorance (avidya). But then translation is also bhoga, the apparent opposite of the Yoga. But the term bhoga
is etymologically derived from bhuja which means to relish, enjoy, eat
and the word bhakti too is derived from the same root. Bhakti means to
enjoy, relish, eat and be one with the Other and like the Yoga is an attempt to
efface the dualities. But you cannot efface the dualities without recognizing their difference and the
distinction. But why is there disticntion and difference in the first place?
Narsinh Mehta has his own ideas:
Only to taste the nectar of being manifold,
You created the jiva and the siva and
countless other forms!
In this entire universe, you alone exist, Shri Hari,
Yet, in infinite forms you seem to be!
The presence of the Other is dependent on the
presence of the self and Narsinh Mehta knows this full well:
Only because I truly exist, you
exist! Without me, you cannot be!
You will exist only as long as I exist!
If I no longer exist, you too will cease to be, and
become ineffable,
For who will name you if I cease to be?
Call it whatever you like advaita, schizophrenia,
madness, poetry , samadhi, orgasm, bhakti or
translation, it really makes no
difference. Therefore, when I ask myself
who am I ? The writer or the reader? I can only reply: I am a translator, I am
Two-Face, yogi, bhogi, bhakta, schizophrenic, and Batman. Translate me as you
will.
Notes
Jacques Lacan, From Wikipedia, the free online encylopedia
Narsinh Mehta, translated by Sachin Ketkar, ‘Akhil Brahmandma Ek Tu Shri Hari' and ‘ Hun khare tu kharo, hu wina tu nahi,…..'
from Shivlal Jesalpura ed. Narsinh Mehta ni Kavya Krutiyo, Sahitya Sanshodhan
Prakashan, Ahmedabad, 1989, page 289 and 290
From: " (Trans) Migrating Words: Refractions towards Indian Translation Studies', Vdm Verlag Publishers, 2010
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