Tribute to Prof Purushottama Lal
The Statesman | 4 September 2025On 28th August, the department of English, St Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Kolkata, paid a befitting tribute to Prof Purushottama Lal by inaugurating the Prof P. Lal. Memorial Lecture series on its premises. Inaugurated by the Principal, Rev Dr Dominic Savio, S J; the inaugural lecture “Return of the Rhapsode: The P. Lal Mahabharata Transcreation” was delivered by Prof Lal’s ex-student and an ex-Xaverian, Dr Pradip Bhattacharya IAS (Retd) to the students of the college. In his welcome address, Principal Rev Dr. Dominic Savio SJ, focussed on the outstanding contribution of Prof P Lal to diverse fields of literary studies, as he insisted that “Prof Purushottama Lal,was not only a famous professor, but an Indian poet, author, translator and a publisher of repute”. He further underscored Prof Lal’s role as a publisher, pointing out that besides being a “significant pioneer in Indian writing in English, he was the founder of the publishing firm Writers Workshop in Calcutta in 1958.” As rightly pointed out by Rev Dr Dominic Savio SJ, the workshop served as the launching pad for multiple Indian writers writing in English – Vikram Seth, Pritish Nandy, Meena Alexander, Ruskin Bond and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni to mention just a few. A visiting professor at many colleges and universities in the United States, Prof Lal’s steadfast commitment to teaching was also highlighted by the principal as he had taught for over four decades at the Department of English, St Xavier’s College, Kolkata. However, what is most interesting to remember in the context of St Xavier’s, is his close association with late Father Robert Antoine, who even inspired him to be a Jesuit in his younger days.
The memorial lecture served as a befitting tribute to Prof P Lal. Having authored over eight books of verse, around a dozen volumes of literary criticism, a memoir, multiple books of stories for children, dozens of translations from other languages chiefly Sanskrit, Prof Lal has also edited a number of literary anthologies. Winner of several distinguished awards, Prof Lal was conferred with the Padma Shree award in 1970. As the translator and ‘trans creator’ of the Indian epic Mahabharata Prof Lal had published over 300 fascicules since the early 1970s, which were later compiled and republished in the form of 20 large volumes. Perhaps there could not have a better speaker to offer tribute to him than Dr Pradip Bhattacharya who had shared a close working association while Prof Lal, when he was trans creating the Mahabharata.
Dr Pradip Bhattacharya’s inaugural lecture left the audience spell bound as his erudition navigated not only through epic but also reflected on the magic of P. Lal’s transcreation, on which he himself had frequently corroborated: “The thousand of years that separate us from Vyasa have not dimmed the magic of the art that entranced King Janamejaya and Rish Shaunaka and His fellow sages”. Dr Bhattacharya’s lecture was interdisciplinary by nature, not only focusing on the various translations of the Mahabharata but replete with unique fertile observations and humorous anecdotes. Brilliantly tracing the antecedents of the epic, he drew the attention of the audience to the multiple translations starting with the first Arabic summary “Instruction of the Princes” (1026) by Abu-Saleh. This translation which was bereft of Krishna was followed by an illustrated Persian translation Razmnama(the Book of War), commissioned by Emperor Akbar. Through his elaborately well researched power point presentation, he shared crucial details pertaining to the epic. The first almost complete prose translation of the Mahabharata was done by K. M. Ganguli (1883-1896). As Dr Bhattacharya pointed out, Kaliprasanna Singha first translated it into Bengali. Moving on to focus on Prof Lal’s transcreation of the Mahabharata, Dr Bhattacharya diligently traced the evolving steps that culminated in the voluminous rendition. In December 1968, Prof Lal had published the first 48-page fascicule of his transcreation. Dr Bhattacharya’s lecture, cited Prof Lal’s observation in this context remarkably: “If Yudhisthira were speaking in English, this is the kind of English I think he would be speaking”. Focusing on Prof Lal’s remarkable achievement of shloka-by shloka, Dr Bhattacharya underscores, “Prof Lal transcreated and published single-handed, simultaneously editing the CLASSICS OF THE EAST series and many other publications”. What was unique of Prof Lal’s rendition of the Mahabharata according to Dr Bhattacharya is the fact that “none dreamt of recreating it in English as an oral performance and an aural experience, though it is precisely that”. Dr Bhattacharya’s lecture raised multiple issues pertaining to gender, women’s rights, socio-political complexities and the unique relevance of the epic in the modern world.
(The writer is the head, department of english, St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Kolkata)
