Read Only If Your Heart Is Strong

I recall with laughter my first day at B school. Students introduced themselves dutifully and solemnly till one guy said that he was working for the R @D department of Hindustan Motors, the makers of the Ambassador car. Later we ribbed him on this, telling him that his department had an entire year to decide on the shape of the headlights—this being the only innovation in what has been billed as the world’s only vintage car under active production and use. A living dinosaur.

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I was reminded of this episode when I read about the recent finding of dinosaur fossils in Tamilnadu. True to our tradition I waited for a follow up report that would reflect our national ethos of showing scant regard for national treasures. The report came in a day’s time as follows:

TN ‘Jurassic’ site treasure looted by villagers COIMBATORE/ARIYALUR: Barely weeks after scientists unearthed a Jurassic age treasure in the form of hundreds of dinosaur eggs in Ariyalur district of Tamil Nadu, local villagers and students are looting and damaging the precious fossils.

I can only add that it is not correct to blame ordinary people. Even our netas rush to the site of a terrorist bomb blast accompanied by a few dozen minions in tens of cars and stomp all over the scene of the attack looking important and pretending to take stock of the situation even as the whole country knows that nothing will come out of the ‘investigations’. The terrorists may well be sipping chai at a nearby tea stall and may even garland the beaming neta.

In contrast in most countries the site of even a minor theft is cordoned off in minutes and even the Prime Minister is not allowed to inspect the site with gay abandon. But I have another tale to tell –a funny one. I sent a script I had written about dinosaurs in India to Steven Spielbrg. This was written much before the recent finds in Tamilnadu. Spielberg refused to even give a glance at it. . I asked and got an appointment with the iconic film director. Unlike Bollywod big wigs he agreed to meet me seeing my enthusiasm.

I began by telling him about the Indian response to his movie JURASSIC PARK. He was not aware that this film was dubbed into several Indian languages. He asked me if our languages had an appropriate word for dinosaur I told him about that thrilling scene in his movie when a kid exults when she first sights a dinosaur. The Hollywood original has her screaming

‘Gosh There’s a dinosaur’ The Hindi version, I told him, has her screaming ‘UIMA CHIPKALI AA GAYEE’. When I translated this into English Spielberg exhibited a range of emotions that could have won him an acting Oscar—he alternately laughed and cried till he was rolling on the floor out of pain and hilarity. Once he regained poise he said that calling a dinosaur a chipkali—a lizard was …. He left it unsaid.

When peace descended I told him that I had a script for another India centric dinosaur movie. This time I told him it was about octogenarian and nonagenarian politicians some in Tamilnadu itself not far from the site where fossils were discovered last week. The highlight of the movie, I told him, was when the egg bursts and a baby dino emerges, walks to Chennai and encounters some netas with whom he establishes immediate kinship considering the similarity in antiquity. The rest of my story is about how other netas in India wish to meet this dino only to be told by DMK that some more of it’s MP’s must be inducted into the Union Cabinet as a pre-condition. The adventures of the dino are well chronicled in my script .Spielberg is actively considering it.

By the way translations are not new. In the 1960’s a certain cinema hall in Mumbai Central used to put up posters of Hollywod movies with Hindi translations. The dialogues were also dubbed into Hindi. As a school boy I used to patronize this hall and laugh at the Hindi dialogues.

There was this James Bond film in which Bond beats up the villain and looks at his girl friend and says: ‘WHAT NOW MARY?'

The Hindi dialogue was‘AB KYA HOGA RAMKALI?’

I laughed but not so much as when I saw the Hindi poster for the Hollywood film "OPERATION PETTICOAT”.

The Hindi name for that film was [read only if your heart is strong] 'GHAGRE MEIN DHUM DHAM‘

K.R.RAVI

P.s. I request readers to suggest names for my film that may well hit the screen at a hall near you.