Issues in Translating Traditional Indian Kitchen Utensils with Special Reference to Bama's Sangati

Traditional kitchen utensils of South India are unique. In those days, people used them to cook food, grind rice, millet and grains, and so on. They lived a healthy life by making food items with these utensils. After the invention of electronic machines, people stopped using these utensils. They thought that modern equipment like grinder, mixie and cooker would save their time and energy. But in recent days, people have begun to realize the benefit of using these utensils. Even the people of other countries are showing interest in using traditional kitchen equipment. So there comes the need for them to know their names. Hence the equivalent words for most Indian utensils are brought into the English language. Lakshmi Holmstrom, a well-known woman translator introduced many Tamil authors to the readers of the English language. Through her translations, many words from the Tamil language have been brought into English. The present paper aims to analyze Lakshmi Holmstrom’s translations of such utensils in the novel “Sangathi” by Bama.