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Another International Affair

This Sherlock Holmes thing can be so much fun that I sometimes wonder when the government is going to catch wind of it and make it illegal. Hopefully this will never be the case. In all honesty I do wonder what my local postal inspectors think when they review my mail. Packages are always coming in from remote corners of the world. This is a trend I hope will continue for a long time. If last week is any indication, I have nothing to worry about.

This brings me to the Indian State of Mizoram.

It all started with e-mail from Peter Blau, asking if I had ever heard of a Mizo translation of the Canon. Not only had I not heard of this translation, I had never heard of this Indian state. I quick look in my trusty Webster's revealed absolutely nothing. I did a search on the Internet and found the reference Peter Blau had mentioned in his e-mail.

Holmes Celebrated By Fans in Remote Indian State at Sherlock Holmes Festival was the title of an article dated March 15, 2002, when I searched for "Sherlock" and "Mizo" on the Internet. Dateline (GAUHATI, India) the article tells a tale about India's remote northeastern state of Mizoram where hundreds of admirers of the Great detective assembled to celebrate his exploits.

Is seems that for decades, the Mizo tribe's people have been readers the Sherlock Holmes stories, thanks in part to Mr. P.L. Liandinga, a government social worker who has translated all of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories about Holmes into the Mizo language. Where ever he goes, even in the remotest village, he is known as the translator of the Holmes stories. He began translating the Canon in 1977. He was also the host of the Sherlock Holmes festival held at his home.

"We enacted a play on Doyle's 1890 short story, The Sign of Four. It was fun," Liandinga said Monday from Aizawl, the Mizoram capital.

Mizoram is a predominantly Christian state that shares a border with Myanmar and Bangladesh. The state of 800,000 people has a literacy rate of more than 80 per cent - among the highest in India.

I sent an e-mail message to Mr. Van Neih Tluanga, who the editor of the article. He was kind enough to sent me Mr. Liandinga's e-mail address. I was able to e-mail Mr. "Dinga" as I was instructed to call him.

Here is the letter I received.

Dear Mr Hobbs,

Thank you for your mail. I am ready to provide all the assistance I could give you for your getting a copy of Sherlock Holmes in Mizo. I will try to see that you get the copy if I can. It's nice of you to collect Sherlock Holmes stories. I did the translation during 1977 - 1982. You know why this is such a pleasant surprise for me? When I translated the stories in the beginning, I made out some 600 copies per publication and that too on a duplicating paper (now they call it legal size after computer became popular) and the selling was quite slow. After I published the whole stories in such a form (fullscap size, typewritten and duplicated from the stencil), a second edition was done somewhere after 1986 in a letter press. After that, the third edition comes in offset printing which is the last and current edition. Now you are asking it from there and its such a thrilling moment for me. How do I send it to you? That's my question. Kindly suggest some means if you know any. If you don't have any suggestion, I'll try to send it as I know it. But then, I am afraid its going to take some Indian rupees to send this size and weight from here to there. Anyway, lets keep in touch and you'll get the copy somehow.

Thank you,

Sincerely yours,

P.L.Liandinga

I made the arrangements with Mr. Liandinga to send the Mizo translation. He responded the next day and the books are on their way. They are the 77th language I know of that the Canon has been translated into.

Happy collecting!