Translator

She loved words, this was no secret at all

They played in her head, to her they called

Voraciously she read, mostly in a language

She had adopted to be active on a wider stage

 

Well-versed was she in the vagaries

Of English language, loved the imagery

That brought alive in her head tales countless-

Words were magical-she could confess…

**

Words she loved, and longed to write

Yet despite all her insight

Into the world of words printed

She could not conjure a story, instead

She spent her time chronicling reviews

Of books she read, she would choose

With care how she reviewed each one

Yet she felt unfulfilled, this was not fun..

**

One day in a flea market that she frequented

She came across a book, quite nondescript

In her native tongue- it was unusual

To find books in languages regional

In the United States, for who would read

A book with limited readership indeed?

For a quarter, it was an investment quite good

She was its rightful owner, read the book she could

She settled down in her reading nook 

Proceeding, without expectation, to read the book

**

Halfway through the book, she was spellbound

It was a masterpiece all around

A well-spun yarn, though in India based 

The story was universal, it could have been placed

In any corner of the world, it would still resonate

With its readers, this she could confidently state

**

She finished reading, then googled immediately

The author of the book, out of curiosity

Very little existed on her on the web, but she did persist

An idea was forming in her head that she could not resist

What if she translated the author’s work into English?

It would be a way for her to fulfil her wish

While  exposing to a wider platform the regional author-

Yet the first roadblock was how to find her..

**

Consumed with her idea, she traveled back

To India, with some ingenuity she managed to track

The whereabouts of this elusive writer

Then managed to schedule a meeting with her

Turned out she had written much more

Though few read regional literature anymore

The writer was nonchalant about her proposal

At least the idea was not greeted by a refusal

So with her permission she proceeded to translate

The first book, to her it was pre-ordained by fate

**

Words came alive as she continued to translate

Embellishments she added, but did not deviate

From the essence of the story, she was done

In a remarkably short time, THIS was fun!

**

That first translation launched a career

For her in the literary sphere

A renowned translator for her language she became

Her translations brought indigenous writers fame

She still marvels at the serendipitous discovery

At the flea market- that wrote her success story!