18 TheLinguistAPRIL/MAYwww.iol.org.ukFEATURESAamna Kaul,Mariam PashaandZaibun Pasha on translatingThe Taming of the Shrewinto UrduThe problem of marrying off one's children,particularly daughters, and most particularlyolder ones, is a common theme insubcontinental storytelling. So when facedwith translating and adapting The Taming ofthe Shrewfrom Shakespearean English toUrdu, we quickly realised that the basicpremise of the play was entirely concordantwith Pakistani culture. Katherina is wilful andher father, Baptista, despairs of ever marryingher off; Bianca is pretty and has many suitors:the tension of the play is established whenBaptista decides Bianca cannot marry beforeher older sister. We decided to transport the play fromPadua, Italy to Lahore, Pakistan, and to set itin a relatively modern time, given thatPakistan only came into being 64 years ago.We imagined the action unfolding in the1980s, a time when there was a dictatorshipand women were particular targets forrepression, as appears to be the case for thefemale characters in this play. However, wereplaced them with more general figures. So,for instance, Minerva becomes a more vague'goddess of wisdom'. In this way we wantedto avoid making the text too obscure for amodern audience. This is not to say that wedenuded our translation of metaphor; wherethe modern feel of the text could besustained we attempted to either translateShakespearean imagery as is or give it a pop-culture twist. An example of the latter occurs in Act IIIwhen a servant informs Baptista thatKatherina's suitor, Petruccio, is about to arrive.The servant goes on to describe the state ofPetruccio in highly comic terms: he is shabbilydressed and riding a horse that is riddled withdiseases and wearing a strap 'which hath twoletters for her name fairly set down'. In ourversion the 'horse' is a very old car with variousproblems, on the back of which the numberplate is replaced by a couplet of the kindfound on the backs of Lahore rickshaws.These couplets are so popular that there areseveral internet sites dedicated to themunder the banner 'rickshaw poetry'. One suchcouplet, which proved perfect for this play, is (rani, zid na kar,raja ap bara zidi hai). It can be looselytranslated as:'Princess, don't be stubborn,The Prince also is very stubborn'These two lines convey the essentialsameness of Petruccio and Katherina, andhighlight the fact that Katherina is not theonly 'shrew' referred to in the title. This is inkeeping with what Shakespeare shows usabout Petruccio in the course of the play. It should be noted that, although audienceswill be familiar with Shakespeare's original title,Translating the Barddid not want to be too specific andstraitjacket the play into this decade. So weavoided using references that would date thescript too narrowly and tried to make itflexible enough to be adapted to any of therecent decades.Given the modernity of the setting weaimed to translate Shakespeare into modernUrdu, and also to make it relativelyaccessible. In order to achieve this we had toedit or adapt some of the metaphors,particularly those that were myth-based. Inthe first act one of Bianca's suitors says to hisfaithful servant: 'Thou art to me as secret and as dearAs Anna to the Queen of Carthage was'We removed the mythological reference inthis line, partly because we could not come upwith a popular equivalent in Pakistani cultureand partly because myth is not a part of themodern imagination to the extent that it wasin Shakespeare's England. In other instanceswhere mythical figures were referenced, weIt would have beenblasphemous toreplace the Bible withthe Quran. Instead weused the nikah namaON STAGEThe Taming of the Shrewwill beperformed in Urdu at The Globe (left).During rehearsals (below), Omair Rana(Petruccio) is pictured with HamzaKamal (Sifarish Khan/Grumio) and (l)Nadia Jamil (Katherina) ?0/ >('& 2=< ;: 5921 876 53 ('& © JOHNTRAMPER

Vol/51 No/2 2012APRIL/MAYTheLinguist19FEATURESOne vivid example of a non-Punjabi, ruralcharacter is the servant of Petruccio (calledSifarish Khan in our adaptation). As a Pathanwho comes from Khyber Pakhtunkwa, he hasthe tendency to mix up his genders whenspeaking Urdu. This has the dual effect ofbeing comic -perfectly in keeping with hisrole -and injecting ambiguity into hisdialogue. At one critical juncture in the playKatherina agrees to submit to Petruccio in allhis wishes. Petruccio's servant then says tohim, 'go thy ways, the field is won'. Wesimplify this to 'you have won'. However, inSifarish Khan's style of Urdu the verb has afeminine ending suggesting that perhapsKatherina has also won. Although theaudience will understand that Sifarish meansto refer to his master it will not escape themthat he sounds as if he talks of Katherina.Another challenge presented by the textwas in certain aspects of culture, which, ifdirectly translated, could go so far as to causeoffence. A signature line of the play is 'Kiss meKate'. This is said three times in the course ofthe play and is accompanied, at the very leastin the last instance, by an actual kiss. This line and its attendant action areimportant indicators of the state of Petruccioand Katherina's relationship, with changes intone and gesture reflecting a progression intheir feelings. However, in most Islamiccultures there is a clear restriction on showingphysical intimacy in public, and Pakistan is noexception. Hence, Petruccio's repeateddemand to 'kiss me' was like coming upagainst a brick wall, culturally speaking. Wetransmuted this line to a rather lesspassionate (and for us dissatisfying) demandto hold hands. Although we are restricted in what actionswe can show on stage, there are usually nolimitations on language laden with sexualinnuendo or even on direct references to sex.The first time Katherina and Petruccio meetthey engage in a bawdy battle of wits thattranslates extremely well, hopefully preservingthe sexual chemistry of the original. Another area of cultural sensitivity came inthe religious references of the play. AfterPetruccio and Katherina's wedding, one ofBianca's suitors explains that during theceremony the Bible fell to the floor. It wouldhave been blasphemous to replace the Biblewith the Quran so, instead, the nikah namaormarriage papers flutter down. Other elementsof the religious ceremony, such as wine, weresimilarly transmuted.Apart from the linguistic, cultural andcontextual gauntlets thrown down by TheTaming of the Shrew, we also had to dealwith a more mundane one; each of us is newboth to translating literary texts and tocollaboration. We started to work togetherover Skype while divided by continents. It feltvery much like jumping in at the deep end.We all share the sentiments of Lucentio, thesuitor who finally wins Bianca's heart, whenhe confesses to feeling:'.as he that leavesA shallow plash to plunge him in the deep,And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.'In the main, the challenges weencountered have been surmountable and insome instances positively enriching. This is inno small part due to Shakespeare's wonderfulamenability to translation.This adaptation will be performed on 25-26May as part of the Globe to Globe Festival.See globetoglobe.shakespearesglobe.com.As a Pathan, he mixesup his genders. Thishas the dual effect ofbeing comic andinjecting ambiguitywe decided not to use a straight translationhere. Instead we called our adaptation (ilaaj-e-zid dasteyaab hai) or'Cure for Stubbornness Available'. This is areference to the kind of signs commonly seenin shop windows, trying to sell cures for avariety of ailments.Shakespeare's use of rhyme, often withcomic effect, proved incredibly amenable totranslation with the retention of both rhymeand comicality. Urdu is a very lyricallanguage, and the genre in which it has mostflourished is poetry, so this should not havebeen such a surprise. In a scene from Act IIIwe had to come up with an equivalent forthe use of Latin poetry by one of Bianca'ssuitors. This was relatively straightforward asthe relationship between Latin and English isvery similar to that of Persian and Urdu.Persian considerably precedes Urdu and hasbeen a strong influence, particularly in itspoetic contributions. The characters in The Taming of the Shrewhail from several different cities in Italy(Padua, Verona, Pisa). An important aspect ofour adaptation was the choices we maderegarding the origins and ethnic backgroundsof their Pakistani counterparts. In many areasof the country, such as Khyber Pakhtunkwa(formerly NWFP) and Sindh, Urdu is not thefirst language. Characters coming from theseregions speak Urdu with particular linguisticquirks. The added challenge of conveyingtheir different vocal flavours proved awonderful way to showcase the vernacularrichness of the language. Although most of the action centres onLahore, the capital city of the Punjab, most ofthe characters are not Punjabi. This was, forus, a welcome departure from thepredominance of the Punjab as the subject ofmuch of our media's output. Additionally, themix of rural and urban characters inShakespeare allowed us to explore thedynamics between dominant and otherwiseunder-represented communities.0/ .-,+*) ('& %$#"!