TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

When I met Jean-Claude Carrière at his home in Paris, it was to discuss his coming to Delhi where he was going to do a workshop for us, for my Asian film journal Cinemaya , on script writing. It was a major event which was to be held at the Cultural Centre of the French embassy which, in those long-ago days, had a small auditorium where we had shown films and held different workshops over a number of years. Jean-Claude Carrière agreeing to come and do a workshop was a huge achievement.

When we met and discussed this in Paris, he presented me with his book A La Recherche du Mahabharata . I had not seen the 9-hour play Carrière had written and Peter Brook had presented in France. The film had not yet been made.

I read the book while I was still in Paris and went back to say to Jean-Claude that it MUST be translated into English. He just laughed and said, ‘Why don’t you do it, Aruna.’

It was quite a challenge but I thought ‘why not. It should be read in India and elsewhere by English-speaking people because it is such an inspiringly written account of something most people outside India, do not know about.’ And within India it gives such a moving insight into the role of the Mahabharata in our lives.

I returned to Delhi a few days after meeting Jean-Claude, and started the translation immediately. I finished it within the next couple of months. When Jean-Claude arrived in Delhi a few months later to conduct the workshop we had planned, he read it and said, ‘It reads better in English than in French.’

Incorrigible as I am, my response was, ‘Of course. I know English better than you know French!’ It got published very quickly and launched by the then Ambassador of France in India, Bernard de Montferrand, at a lovely ceremony at the French embassy.

It was a very happy moment for me and the book did get good reviews and good sales.

Now I am delighted a new edition is being published by Speaking Tiger all these years later. Jean-Claude Carrière had done a number of sketches for the first edition but now, he has done new ones for this edition which give a new life to his story and the story of his travels through India with Peter Brooke, in search of the Mahabharata, in a very evocative and appealing manner. Hopefully, it will also lead to the film being shown again.

ARUNA VASUDEV
New Delhi, October 2018