ABSTRACT
Translations in India travel in unknown and mysterious ways. They come differently, in different avatars in gaily dressed adaptations, lyrical transcreations, confident originals, or sometimes simply as translations of works that never existed. They also acquire circuits and lives of their own. It is true that institutionalized translation activity in India, carried out through state institutions like the Sahitya Akademi and the National Book Trust for purposes of nation-building, does not engage in anything other than what people call 'translation proper'. Another instance of such 'unofficial' translation is a Gujarati translation of Catoplus Terror, allegedly written by Sidney Sheldon. This principle was laid down in the light of a 1997 suit filed by Kings Features Syndicate against Sunil Agnihotri for creating a series called Betaal, allegedly a Hindi version of The Phantom. Betaal, like the Phantom, was a ghost who walked and lived in a jungle and wore a mask.
