Translation of tales, and Tales of translation

I think most of the people I know will give me an incredulous stare, if I admit that I read Sharatchandra's Devdas this weekend. How did I come to read it, anyway ? Well, my mother bought it because she was looking for something to read and she does not read english novels (which are usually what I have), and she had heard a lot about it (mostly thanks to the 'n' number of Bengali and Hindi films that have been made on this story, the most recent one being Shahrukh and Aishwarya's much publicised one). So, it was lying there, I had nothing else to read, and nothing better to do, so I picked it up.

For the uninitiated: it is the story of Devdas, a rich man who destroys his wealth and drinks himself to death, for a love that he does not acknowledge while he has the opportunity - it is not as if he was a rejected suitor who sacrificed everything for love. What I failed to understand is why has he become a legend, and why has this story inspired so many (7 or 8, I think) films.

This was the third book I read which has been translated from Bengali. The first one was 'Yajnaseni'by Pratibha Ray (translated to english), the second one was Tagore's famous 'Chokher Bali' and the third was Devdas (both translated in Hindi). Yajnaseni (Yajnaseni is another name for Draupadi) was wonderful, and 'Chokher Bali' was pathetic (who am I to criticise the work of Tagore, but well, I am entitled to my opninion). Devdas was okay (on the side of sorry, but not pathetic). I am not sorry, though, that I did read the latter two - they are considered as great classics, penned by literary giants. Perhaps they are not relevant in today's context, as they were written almost a century earlier. Perhaps they do not suit the sensibilities of the current times. But one common complain that I have with all the three is the bad translation. Frequently often, the translation is literal, and loses the intent of the author. At times, it sounds downright funny. Why can we not have a decent translation of books, even from one Indian language to other, when they share a common origin. Having attempted translating a few poems from hindi to english (where else, but in the blogosphere), I realize that translating, specially another person's work, is not easy. But I suppose that the people in charge of doing so offcially, are much more qualified than I am. So when I read a translation, I expect to read a meaningful, thorough one, not like the patchy work that I have encountered so far. In childhood, I read a lot of story books translated from Russian to Hindi or English (and believe me, I am really sorry that Mir publishers are no longer in existence after the division of USSR), and although at times the context of the stories was unfamiliar owing to a great cultural difference, the flow of words was not broken because of translation. A very likely cause is that at that age I was not so discerning. But another reason I can think of is that probably the translators of the childern's stories focussed on translating only the story. While translating serious work, and well known classics at that, the translators take their work a little too seriously, and in an attempt to preserve the literature (thoughts and ideas, as represented by sentences), tend to lose the natural flow of the story.