Hyderabad, July 13 -- I must admit at the outset that it has been a truly rewarding and enriching experience to go through Prof. Anisur Rahman's trailblazing The Essential Mir. The marked feature of this translation is its complete fidelity to the original text.

Translation from one language to another is a daunting task because of certain intricacies relating to cultural ethos, unfamiliar idioms and the linguistic nuances of the source language, in which these attributes are inextricably rooted and not easy to decipher. The translation of verse is even more challenging than that of prose and fiction on account of these considerations.

However, despite all these impediments, and despite the remarkable tradition of translation establishe...