Dubbed Cinema-least celebrated, highest contributor!

From James Bond to Baahubali, dubbed films are in fact a win for the Indian cinema

Those of you who understand modern strategic warfare will be aware of the fact that wars have become more “intelligent”. It is no longer about an army being blindly pushed across the border and winning the war. Winning is now done by a very smart and agile Air Force which is not aided with technology known to the common man as smart bombing. You can pin-point a target and throw a bomb at the exact location now. It is only when victory is certain that the army moves in and scores the final victory – and by no means do I mean to say that what the army is left to do is a formality.

I talk about this because dubbed movies have actually moved in to do the work of the Air Force. They create potentially winning new markets for makers who would have otherwise stayed confined to their old traditional territories of cinema.

Dubbing of movies for Indian markets was first used by the makers of ‘James Bond’ in the mid 80s. This was the time when, at least in the metros we had a Hindi speaking audience which had VCRs at home but could still not follow English. ‘James Bond’ movies were dubbed in Hindi and released on Video Cassettes then. You could actually hear ‘James Bond’ saying, “Aao meri pyaari, pyaar karein”, translated from English. But it failed. The Hollywood marketing gurus were probably disappointed with the try and went silent for a decade.

In 1994 came the real boom for dubbed movies with the release of ‘Jurassic Park’. Yours truly actually went to watch the Hindi version of the same and thoroughly enjoyed it. The fact of the matter is ‘Jurassic Park’ in Hindi minted more money in UP-Bihar-Delhi circuit than some of the better-known Hindi releases of that year. This started a deluge of English movies being dubbed with titles like ‘Antim Yudh’ – ‘Independence Day’ or ‘Andekha Khatra’ – ‘Star Wars: The Phantom Menace’.

The purists and the elites poked their noses at this new movie product. The logic given was that, when deprived of the original language the film was deprived of its soul. It just doesn’t feel right, some would say. Largely watching a dubbed version was considered a down-market thing to do. “Oh, you don’t understand English kya?” a typical well-bred snob would say. But yours truly would now and then make the brave common sense decision of watching these movies in Hindi. My most sound decision till date remains watching ‘The Matrix’ in Hindi. I understood it better than most original version watchers, and for some time grilled those people on particular scenes in that movie – till of course VCDs, DVDs and subtitles came to their rescue. Oh, did I enjoy poking holes in snobbery.

India continued to enjoy its ‘Mohra’s and ‘Dil To Paagal Hai’s, it suddenly started figuring out that Mohra’s background music was lifted from ‘Terminator 2: Judgement Day’.

Some might want to call it diluting of the Indian value system, but it was the dubbed movies which made us open to look at other heroes and heroines who had shades of grey in them. Heroes could get scared or beaten up and a heroine would be willing to sleep with the villain just for the sake of revenge. We became open to a broader and better entertainment.

Then somewhere in 2005, the regional language makers jumped onto the bandwagon and we started getting the taste of south cinema too. As much ridiculed as the titles were, like ‘Mumbai Ki Kiran Bedi’ and ‘Return of Khuda Gawah’, the dubbed versions drove more TRP than a ‘Dhoom 2’ on TV channels. Yours truly actually became an SS Rajamouli fan post ‘Pratighat – The Revenge’, which is one of my favourites for a lazy afternoon. It opened my eyes to the spontaneous acting talent of Ravi Teja. To the information challenged, it was ‘Vikramarkudu’ in Telugu.

Today, if an SS Rajamouli is driving a 20 crore plus revenue for his creative triumph called ‘Baahubali’ only with the dubbed Hindi version, then we all need to thank the guy who asked Spielberg to dub ‘Jurassic Park’ in Hindi.

I raise my hat to the ‘Return of Aag Ka Golas’. Indian movie industry’s much laughed at but biggest contributors in the last one decade, at least in my book, dubbed cinema made us better audiences.