AN INTERVIEW WITH PROF. FARIDA KHANAM

responsibility upon myself to collect all the original quotes. Though I had passed the course and was no longer a student of the university, I was still allowed access to the library without an ID card. I started visiting the library daily and collected the original quotes. I managed to find most of the quotes with references. Then I gathered courage to translate the book myself into English. The English translation of the book Mazhab aur Jadeed Challenge was published as God Arises in 1985. I think that was the first time my father realized that women can also work in spheres beyond the home and hearth. He had never thought so before. He had received his education in madrasa, where all tasks were performed by men. The most a woman had worked outside the home was as a teacher in our family. No woman from the family had ventured on any such missionary work. He had never imagined that I would succeed in getting all the original quotes. This was my entry in this mission. I realized only now that this was my training to do this task of translation and editing at a later stage. Who guided you during your initial days as translator? I was lucky to find a British lady, Mrs Anna Khanna, who was married to an Indian, Prem Khanna, an IAS officer. Her articles appeared in the Times of India. She conducted English classes for diplomats for which she would give advertisements in The Times of India. Dr Saniyasnain Khan, my younger brother contacted her. We both started visiting her. I learned the nuances of English style, grammar and usage from her. Then I started translating Maulana’s text from Urdu to English. I would then submit my work for her scrutiny. She painstakingly taught me where I had made mistakes. She pointed to me where my translation was affected by MTI (Mother Tongue Influence). I was also impressed by her sheer honesty. She charged for her efforts hour-wise. She kept a watch in front of her while working. Because she worked from home, sometimes she had to leave the work and attend to some important household responsibility. While going out, she would stop the watch, and noted how many minutes she had worked. She revised and edited all our books. She used a red pen to mark mistakes. I would look at these red marks very carefully and tried to understand the mistakes I had made. This journey of learning lasted for more than 3 decades. She died in 2020. Through Mrs Anna Khanna, God trained me to translate Maulana’s Urdu material into the contemporary English idiom. Today we have translated or compiled nearly 100 books of Maulana in English and we have a full translation-cum-editing team which I oversee in CPS.