Mind Your Language

8220;Hope And A Little Sugar is not a Hindi movie; it has no lip sync songs and will appeal to a larger audience,8221; says Tanuja Chandra, who made Sangharsh, Zindagi Ka Safar and Sur. Chandra will start shooting her first English film in December, offered to her by an overseas distributor. But Hope8230; has all the ingredients of a Hindi film. It brings up prejudices in its story of a Muslim photographer obsessed by a married Sikh woman who loses her husband in the 9/11 attack. 8220;I am used to movies in Hindi, but I think in English and the dialogues came easily,8221; says the director.

Chandra is joined by other young auteurs who have already laid a stamp in the Hindi film industry. Manjrekar8217;s It Happened8230;, the English version of his own Hindi film Astitva, should be ready for release in June 2004. Prakash Jha is working on his supernatural script End of the Circle Devgan will be part of it. And Sanjay Leela Bhansali has already signed Bachchan and Mukherjee for Black based on two hearing-impaired people.

8220;I8217;m making an English film because the market here is going to shrivel up,8221; predicts Manjrekar, 8220;This was a subject that appealed to a crossover audience. If a Chinese film dubbed in English can do so well, why not this?8221;

The trend was encouraged by Mira Nair8217;s Monsoon Wedding, Aparna Sen8217;s Mr 038; Mrs Iyer and the box-office triumph of Gurinder Chadha8217;s Bend It Like Beckham that even broke into the US. Hindi directors got the larger picture of universal situations and wider audiences. Most of all, English has opened up a vista of creativity. Hindi themes were repetitive and limiting, but directors can feel the freedom of experimenting in English. 8220;It8217;s an area to think of unusual stories,8221; says Chandra.

So Jha will delve into Indian mysticism and the life beyond in End8230;, 8220;The main character had to have an intelligent look so I thought of Devgan, but it also stars one Indian girl and two American women.8221;

Yet there are those who feel these exercises in testing English waters have slim chances of succeeding. Ashish Bhatnagar of iDreams that marketed Bend It8230; says, 8220;I don8217;t think even Gurinder anticipated a response like this. But no other English film has since made money because the multiplex market is very limited.8221;

Plus there is still a wistfulness towards the Hindi language that the directors have to struggle with. As Chandra puts it, 8220;There is warmth and beauty in Hindi. English is one step away from home and has a slight artificiality.8221; Whether their stories will suffer, only time will tell.