Sunday, January 13, 2008

Kachi Kaliyan & Subtitles

We watch a lot of Hindi and Malayalam DVDs with the English subtitles on. If the movie gets boring, there is a likelihood of finding something interesting in the subtitles at least.

In the old days, it was star movies with hindi subtitles, where "what the F**K happened here" on the audio became "he bhagwan, ye kya hua??" on the subtitles...

And occasionally you come across some amazing work of translation - the local dialects in OMKARA got translated beautifully to some english slang in the subtitles.

But this one takes the cake - translating a meaningless song without compromising its meaninglessness takes some knack...

(from the song kachi kaliyan na todo.... from laga chunari mein daag)

now, don't go plucking buds
or the gardener will kick your butts

ladies, we beg your pardon
we are here for the whole garden

gardener, your blossoms are too cool,
row after row like a flowery spool

we are hungry bees so lovesick
we'll gladly get our butts kick'd

....

1 comment:

wooster said...

:)

also liked the part in Jurassic Park where they equated a T-Rex to a Chipkali :)