Order Translation

Profile

I've been in this businress for the last 13 years or so, with outstanding results and several clients who continued working with me after the initial project was over.

I am at the moment attached to two different projects : a)translation of medical records and, b)translation of a website offering online spiritual guidance. Both from French to English, which is my language pair of predilection.

Before being a freelance translator (French to English), I was a journalist, part of the editorial board of two leading English-language newspapers in India. I left because I wanted to preserve the independence of my views from editorial lines laid down by management. And before that, I was in France, where I successfully defended a thesis on Samuel Beckett, under the supervision of Julia Kristeva, the well-known French psychoanalyst and feminist. In Paris, I worked for a while, as translator, with Inter-Services Migrants, an NGO which worked with asylum seekers.
I have led a rich, variegated life with lots of nice friendships and adventures on the way. I am now an author of fiction with two Kindle published ebooks in my name.

Where I live

I live and work in Calcutta, a city that I detest from the bottom of my heart. It's noisy, filthy, chaotic, heartless and boastful, all at once. There are some beautiful buildings left behind by the British and the city has its own style of architecture if you visit the traditional middle-class areas. But for every object of beauty, there are a hundred ugly things to see. There are islands of comfortable living surrounded by a sea of grinding poverty and abject, dehumanised existence. No wonder Calcutta was home to Mother Teresa (soon to be Saint). On the positive side, this was the city of Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak, two of the greatest filmmakers that lived in independent India. The city has also a vibrant theatre and fine arts audience, even though the money has gone out of the city over the last 40 years. The city was under communist rule for over 34 years and it shows - there are no jobs, the government barely manages to pay the salaries of its employees who are all ferociously unionised and lazy. An Australian friend of mine was telling me the other day: "In Delhi, if I've got to go the post office, I am in and out in five minutes. In Calcutta, I have spend 15 minutes waiting for the right person to show up at the counter." As for me, I have made up my mind to shift to Goa as soon as I have my finances sorted out and my mother taken care of. Till then, I have to endure living in this disorderly purgatory.

Education

University of Paris 7

Faculty/Department: UER Histoire et sémiologie des textes et des documents

Years Attended: 1985 to 1991

Degree Obtained: 3rd Cycle Doctorate