On January 10, 1776, Thomas Paine published, anonymously, his pamphlet, Common Sense. I actually didn’t remember this but Washington Post’s very helpful Today in History reminded me.
Which also reminded me that sometimes in July, 2006, I had decided to annotate and translate Common Sense into Urdu. I admit that the only progress I made on this so far is to get the title translated – trust me, it was far harder than you’d imagine. I also read through Paine’s Rights of Man and The Age of Reason.
I honestly don’t know if I can do this judiciously – or at all. But, with 2008 being the year when Pakistan’s resident dictator decides, again, to suspend democracy and freedom – with the help of the White House – I think it will be my fruitless gesture.
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One of my plans for this year is to translate two tracts myself, so am going to cheer you on in this endeavour. But am now curious: how did you translate the title into Urdu?
Me too: what’s the translation for “Common Sense” in Urdu — “Mamoli Hiss”?
More on this soon.
It would be a tough job to translate this pamphlet into Urdu. Since most Urdu readers are not aware of the background, it will be good if you write a preface to the translation with lots of end notes for further explainations.