My attempts at Translation

One evening I was sitting and just browsing the internet for "free" ebooks of classical English novel. I found few sites that have various books. Having read few times earlier, I was particularly interested in "A Tale Of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens

Then it struck me that I can get many books from local library. This country (US) has wonderful public library system. One just need to have an ID to get library card. I searched my local library website and couldn't find that book. Then searched local library network and found few copies in the nearby library. I requested the book to be delivered to local library.

I wanted to start translating "A tale of two cities" to Kannada as an effort to keep up with my Kannada knowledge. One evening I received an email stating that book is available for pick up. Though it was muggy and cold, I at once drove to local library. I was bubbling with the urge to start translating this book right away. Alas, I had requested wrong book. The book was a critical examination of Charles Dickens work. I wanted the real novel, not some edited stuff.

This time I delegated the work of getting that novel to my wife. She did a good job of getting that book in few days. And she did a good thing, I got a book in large print (Did she think I have grown old. We have a standing joke, when do you know you have grown old? When you start reading large print books ;-)

With all earnest enthusiasm, I started reading the first page with pen and paper in hand.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness....so goes the first line. I could translate that to Kannada. First stumbling block was 'it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity' . Honestly I didnt know what this epoch meant. Next thing was to google this word and found that its something related with period.
Kannada is a rich language (like any other living language) and has numerous words for period.
Yuga, shake, manwanthara etc. I chose shake.

By this time, I was losing interest. That was close of the day, folks.

After few days, I again got that urge. This time I thought may be I should try translating to Tulu as that is my mother tongue and there aren't many books written in that language. While translating few lines, I figured that my hold on Tulu is even worse than Kannada.

So my maiden attempt has only produced 4 lines of Kannada and 2 lines of Tulu ;-) In this era of internet and community based activity, I am trying to search if there is any community that is devoted to translate vintage English classics to Kannada or Tulu. Initial searches aren't encouraging. But still searching...