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Sunday, June 28, 2014
July 1st, 2015 marks the official release of the English version of what is generally referred to as "The Third Children of Mahima", "The Qutub Minar", or "The Real Story Behind The Great War" in translation by Rahul Aggarwal. Before this book reaches the shelves, I think it is fair to say that some people are already trying to get their hands on the book and are already finding copies. We, the translators, will of course not be able to keep copies for ourselves as this would constitute a grave breach of our professional ethics.
While I am happy that my friend Rahul has translated this book and I am happy that people who like my stuff are getting to read it, I am not quite happy that the book seems to be now available in quite a lot of places including Amazon. It is not that I have an objection to these companies selling the book (although some of their sale practices are something that we need to look into). It is just that I think that we do not need to help the scamming of such companies by allowing them to make money out of this book by placing it on various websites. I do not think that the book has to be put up on any site for anyone to have access to it. A translation website should be able to put up the book and the copyright owner (author) should be paid for the translation of the book.
"This is great," a friend of mine (who has not translated anything before), told me, "and we will be able to read it as well." I don't think that this is really necessary. As long as we have the book, we should be able to read it. Once we stop translating the book, it will stop being available for the people who are looking to read it. So, I hope that you have been able to read the book before July 1st.
On the subject of all the copies of the book that are being sold on various sites, I have not found any paper trail that says that it has been copied. In my own case, the book was available as an eBook at a price of Rs.149.45 on Flipkart. So, if anyone is aware of any e-book distributors (print on demand companies) who are selling a copy of the book to someone, please let me know. If you do find something, the information could be useful for the criminal courts to act on it. 01e38acffe
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