द्विभाषिक रेलवे सूचना: shall और may का हिंदी में बल
You sit in the Rajbhasha section of a zonal railway. A bilingual notice must be issued the same day; the English column is already printed and cannot be reset, so the Hindi column must carry the same legal weight without adding or deleting a single obligation. The English runs: Passengers holding wait-listed tickets are advised that boarding in reserved coaches will not be permitted after the reservation chart is prepared. In exceptional cases the Travelling Ticket Examiner may allow a wheelchair-bound senior citizen to board, subject to availability of accommodation, and such permission shall be recorded in the coach diary. Two constraints come from the operating branch: the examiner's discretion must not read as a passenger's right, and the Hindi must use the terminology already fixed in the coaching manual (प्रतीक्षा-सूची, आरक्षण चार्ट, आरक्षित डिब्बे, यात्रा टिकट परीक्षक). A colleague has already circulated a rival first sentence for approval.
1. Produce the Hindi version of the three-sentence notice and justify four renderings: are advised, may allow, subject to availability, shall be recorded.
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Version:
प्रतीक्षा-सूची में सम्मिलित टिकट धारक यात्रियों को सूचित किया जाता है कि आरक्षण चार्ट तैयार हो जाने के बाद आरक्षित डिब्बों में प्रवेश की अनुमति नहीं दी जाएगी। विशेष परिस्थितियों में यात्रा टिकट परीक्षक, स्थान उपलब्ध होने पर, व्हीलचेयर पर निर्भर वरिष्ठ नागरिक को प्रवेश की अनुमति दे सकेंगे, और ऐसी अनुमति डिब्बा-डायरी में अभिलेखित की जाएगी।
Four justifications:
- are advised → सूचित किया जाता है. The English is officialese for a notice, not counselling. सलाह दी जाती है would weaken it to advice; चेतावनी दी जाती है would convert a rule into a warning and change its legal character.
- may allow → अनुमति दे सकेंगे. सकेंगे keeps the act inside the examiner's discretion. देेंगे would make permission a duty, and अनुमति दी जा सकती है (passive) would erase the authority who decides. The honorific plural सकेंगे matches the manual's usage for the post, not for the individual.
- subject to availability → स्थान उपलब्ध होने पर, placed after the object and before the verb. उपलब्धता के अधीन is translationese that no passenger parses; the conditional clause does the same legal work in spoken-order Hindi.
- shall be recorded → अभिलेखित की जाएगी. Shall here is obligation, so the obligational passive जाएगी is required. होगी would state a future fact and lose the duty; किया जाए would address an unnamed person with an imperative.
2. A colleague proposes for sentence one: आरक्षित डिब्बों में चढ़ने की अनुमति नहीं होगी। Assess it against your version and state which one you would send for printing.
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The proposal is shorter and reads easily, but it loses three things the notice needs:
- Agent deleted. अनुमति नहीं होगी states that permission does not exist, not that the railway refuses it. If a passenger argues that no one forbade boarding, the English column bars him and the Hindi column does not. अनुमति नहीं दी जाएगी restores the refusing authority.
- Register too low for a notice. चढ़ना is everyday speech and, in a coach context, can be read as physically climbing; प्रवेश is the term used in the coaching manual and covers boarding as an act of entry.
- Temporal clause dropped. The English prohibition begins after the chart is prepared; the proposal makes it unconditional, which would wrongly bar wait-listed passengers before the chart is out.
On the colleague's side, one point is worth keeping: the proposal's brevity. If space is tight, compress by using the manual's fixed phrases (आरक्षण चार्ट तैयार होने के बाद) rather than by deleting the agent. Send my version, with the temporal clause intact and the passive retained.