My one-word review of Aamir Khan’s latest film

तलाश

Seriously, I should’ve known better. Clearly I didn’t learn my lesson 3 years ago.

Thank goodness we were watching Talaash in a Dutch cinema hall, which means that when I lost all interest in the movie, I could kill time reading the subtitles. The translations of Hindi song lyrics in Dutch sound very dry and read like factual instructions for using a drain cleaner.

Here is a sample of original Hindi lyrics followed by Dutch sub-titles and their literal English translation:

आ पास आ और जी ले ज़रा
kom dichterbij en leef een beetje
come close and live a little

Dutch, wikipedia informs me, “is capable of forming compounds of potentially limitless length”. This is evident in translations of lyrics too:

ग़म के बादल
pijnwolken
painclouds

The words I learn this way do tend to stick a little longer, so may be it is not such a bad strategy for adding new Dutch words to my vocabulary.

P.S. Given Aamir’s association with programs that carry a strong social message, I wonder (perhaps too harshly) if he should have censured himself from doing this movie. The last thing India needs is people taking this movie seriously and developing a faith in psychics and related paranormal phenomena (as if we didn’t inherit enough superstitions already). I am all for artistic expression but where does one draw the line between cinema and real life?

Date

December 1, 2012

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