Column

This year’s biggest hit film so far has been Spiderman 3. In a particularly grim scenario, wherein big blockbusters like Jhoom Barabar Jhoom and ‘Tara something something’ have all miserably flopped, and film producers are tearing their hair out trying to understand the mind of the fickle audience, Spiderman has swung through the box-office with élan.

And it is not only the traditional urban, English-speaking audiences that have given the film the thumbs up; Spiderman was dubbed in Indian languages — Hindi, Telugu and Bhojpuri.

It is the last version that has done the best business. Unmindful of the film’s foreign setting and somewhat alien concepts — a boy who dresses up in funny clothes and climbs walls — the audience happily took to the story of good versus evil and the fight over a pretty girl.

In addition, there was the bonus of the clever dialogues, tweaked to reflect the local culture. Peter Parker tells Mary Jane Watson in the Bhojpuri version: “Jaan tum to Muzzaffarpur ki litchi ki tarah dikhto ho.” (You are as good as the litchi from Muzzaffarpur).

Voiced by Ravi Kishen, the biggest star of Bhojpuri cinema, how could the viewers in Bihar resist it? The entire cost of the film’s dubbing was said to be upwards of Rs one crore; it probably earned several times that.

Distributors of foreign films are already eyeing the lucrative possibilities; Harry Potter in Punjabi (Hari Putter), James Bond in Bengali (Bond moshai) and Arnold Schwarznegger warning the villains in Marathi about his impending return; the mind may boggle but there is gold in them thar hills.

Is this yet another cultural invasion of our nation? Have we opened the doors too far? Is this going to spell the end of the Indian film industry?

On the last question, our industrywallahs are quite sanguine, claiming that ‘Bollywood’ and its vernacular cousins are too strongly entrenched in the psyche of the average Indian to feel threatened by Hollywood films.

Besides, a large percentage of films made in Mumbai, and perhaps elsewhere too, are heavily ‘inspired’ by western and international cinema, so by the time the original lands up, the audience has already seen the copy and perhaps rejected it too.

But the culture question is worth pondering over. Is the dubbing of Spiderman a success story for the producers or the triumph of Indian culture? After all, the dialogues had to be ‘Indianised,’ a bit like McDonald’s foregoing beef and making a burger with aloo tikki for the Indian market.

Before we gloat, however, let us not forget that the revenues end up in the pockets of American companies. So who wins?

Before we address that, let’s see how the Indian film industry works. It is no secret that the slicker producers of Hindi films have turned their backs to the audiences in India‘s vast hinterland, a section that was once called upcountry and contributed a sizable share of a film’s revenues.

Now, with more and more films being made with urban themes and shot on international locations, the audiences are mainly in the cities and among NRI communities abroad. Who in remote Barabanki would really emphathise with the characters of Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna or Page 3?

In any case, dollar revenues from the US, UK and Canada are far more lucrative than petty cash from interior C class towns.

So, if Spiderman wants to try his luck in the hinterland, good luck to him. We are quite happy with the rest of the world, our producers seem to say.

As for culture, aren’t our films invading western societies? In this era of globalisation, what is culture, after all? Just another commodity.

It is difficult to disagree with them. Narrow interpretations of culture and its off-shoot, cultural nationalism often lead to prejudice and bigotry, as we have seen often enough.

We should welcome this cross-pollination and rejoice at the entry of western ideas and creativity into every nook and corner of our country.

Except that there is a problem. You don’t have to be a chauvinist or a hardcore swadeshi type to see that what we are getting, for the most part, is the dregs of what the world has to offer.

The fast foods we so love are the staple diet of the lower economic strata elsewhere, the movies usually commercial pap and the books, pulp fiction.

All of these have their place in life, but surely we also need high quality cinema and literature too. The economics rarely add up to import such niche products and as we know, the world is very interested in the vast Indian consumerist market. The irony is that it is now impossible to buy really good contemporary literature or poetry even in urban bookshops.

It is no use raging against the dying of the light; that is how the market functions and as we are repeatedly told, the market is supreme. And cultural snobbery, or horrors, elitism, is out of fashion. Let’s look at the bright side — at least we converted old Spidey into ‘Makad manav.’

Email: sidharth01@dnaindia.net