For Surjit Hans, a well known Punjabi litterateur and retired professor of history, reading Shakespeare in English was not very easy. So he translated the Bard's plays into Punjabi.
The love for his mother tongue drove Hans to take up the tedious task, which perhaps no Punjabi writer had even thought of. "It gives me extreme pleasure to translate Shakespeare in Punjabi. It is something that the coming generations will cherish forever," he quipped, sitting in his library containing collection of rare books of history.
It took 79-year-old Hans more than 16 years to translate 31 plays (done so far) of Shakespeare into Punjabi which are already in print, while six are still in the pipeline.
Hans says he wants to complete the translation of all Shakespeare plays in his lifetime.
When asked as to what inspired him to translate the huge Shakespeare work into Punjabi, Hans said, "I studied English, taught English, but never loved the language."
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