John W. Hood

John W. Hood

For six months every year, he is a native Australian. For the other six, an impeccable Bengali. In hometown Melbourne, John W. Hood prefers to take up a teaching job and soak in the comfort of family life. When comfortably nestled in his south Calcutta apartment, he likes to read the short stories of Prafulla Roy, drum out articles on Indian cinema, or subtitle Bengali films.

As a 19-year-old, Hood landed in Calcutta four decades ago on a study tour for his BA degree. The cursory interest in Indian studies started feeding on him, leading to a research on historian Nihar Ranjan Roy’s Bangalir Itihaas from Melbourne University.

As his fondness for all things Bengali grew, new associations and acquaintances were formed, tempting Hood to fly down from Melbourne once a year. Over the past 40 years of his periodic stay in Calcutta, Hood has developed some curious habits and tastes.

A lazy afternoon would probably find him settling down with Prafulla Roy’s Krantikaal, after a lunch of “bhat, daal and machh”, with the songs of Atulprasad, D.L. Roy or Rajanikanta for company. To his right would be a shelf stacked with books, mostly Bengali titles.

Hood is presently busy translating the second volume of short stories by Prafulla Roy. “It was during a weekend retreat at a friend’s place that I happened to browse the books in the sitting room when Prafulla Roy caught my attention. I picked up a volume and started reading the first story of the book, Manush. By the time I reached the last page, I was seduced,” guffaws the 60-year-old. Prafulla Roy has remained an abiding interest since, but translation is “just a hobby”, Hood clarifies.

The city’s film fraternity has other reasons to draw the Australian out of his nest. For Hood has also proved his proficiency in subtitling Bengali films, with a substantial corpus of film-maker Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s works to his credit. “It started with a casual remark I had made to Buddha, wishing that I could correct the wrong subtitles in one of his films. He instantly offered me work on his next film,” says Hood. Since then, he has written the English lines for Dasgupta’s Lal Dorja, Uttara and Mondo Meyer Upakhyan, plus Raja Sen’s Desh. Next up is Dasgupta’s Swapner Din.

“But subtitling does not mean translating a film. Here, one has to condense a chunky paragraph into not more than 35 words while also capturing the essence of the dialogue,” explains Hood.

Though working on the creative works of others is his passion, Hood’s own experience is rich enough to merit a narrative. “Friends tell me to write a book,” he smiles.