Jab Papi (Poppy) ne lambe aur saanwale akarshak Santino Aeragan (Santino Aragone) ko khush karne ke liye Valentain (Valentine) card bheja, toh Santino ne uske saath prem ki pratikriya ki. Papi apne bass (boss) ke bacchey ki maa banne wali thhi aur Santino uski ungli mein angoothi pehnane ka neshchay kar chukka thha…
Believe it or not, this an extract from the latest Mills & Boon that is out in the market, this time in Hindi. So all those not too well-versed with English but wanted to read these romantic novels can now pick up a Hindi version.
Even though luke becomes luk, Bel becomes Bail and The Boss’ Valentine by lynne Grahm becomes Raaste Pyar Ke, the Mills and Boon (M&Bs) essence remains the same. “The regional M&Bs have used colloquial language to keep in touch with the local flavour, the novels retain their romantic core. That is why we have translated novels by popular authors like Penny Jordan. This way the reader gets to enjoy the best of both the languages,” Manish Singh, country head, Harlequin India Pvt ltd says.
He tells you that regional language M&Bs were in the pipeline when the English version was launched in India a few years back. The fact that there has been a growth in the economy, that women are more educated today and are taking up jobs meant that there is a huge market for M&Bs in local languages. At present, these books are available in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Malayalam.
“We launched Raaste Pyaar Ke and Punar Milan in Jaipur, lucknow and Delhi a couple of weeks back and the print run of these books is more than the English M&Bs. We have launched the Tamil version as well and Marathi M&Bs will be out in the first week of July,” Singh tells you, adding that these books are reasonably priced.
The Hindi version
is for Rs 75, Tamil version for Rs 10 (in a magazine form) and the Marathi version priced at Rs 125.
But, how difficult was it to do translationsIJ According to DI Aravindan, co-ordinator for Tamil translations, the fact that the books don’t have a word-for-word translation was easy to do.
“Our objective was to sustain the crux of the novel without getting hampering by a direct translation,” Aravindan explains.
However, he says that Indianisation would have been far easier but he felt that a European storyline requires some foreign element, which is the USP of the story and the differentiating factor for competing brands. “If we adopt the Indian route, we may end up compromising on the flavour of the original,” Aravindan tells you.
With the books catering to women of ages 16 to 60 and in over 220 tier II and III towns, the M&Bs are definitely going local in a big way. “We want to take these novels to each and every household. By printing two books in every language every month, we hope to achieve our goal,” Singh says.
But what about the translation of intimate scenesIJ “We wanted to avoid anything that sounded offensive in the regional language. We also used our discretion while incorporating the intimate scenes in these novels. That made our task easier,” Aravindan explains, adding that it takes around 10 days to translate one book.