DD’s Sanskrit programme Vaartavali had to leave Gabbar Singh’s dialogues out as it “militated against the spirit of the language”.

Imagine Sholay without Gabbar Singh. Inconceivable as it many sound, officials in Doordarshan who picked the most memorable dialogues of the iconic film and dubbed them in Sanskrit, had to leave out the man who redefined “gangsterhood”.

Vaartavali



As the film celebrated 40 years of glorious run and dominated television screens this month, Doordarshan’s two-month-old Sanskrit weekly programme Vaartavali, translated loosely as a bouquet of news, had to leave Gabbar Singh’s dialogues out as it “militated against the spirit of the Sanskrit language.”

Gabbar’s dialogues, written by Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, did not blend into Sanskrit as far as DD News officials were concerned. “It [Gabbar’s dialogues] is too violent,” they said.

Another explanation they offered was that the dialogues were too long to fit into the available two-and-a-half minute slot on prime time, which was the time allotted for the characters of the film.

DD officials hit upon the idea of dubbing the high-octane dialogues of the movie, after a careful process of selection last month, and after obtaining permission from Sholay Media & Entertainment Pvt. Limited. “Most of the actors were quite amused when we played the movie back to them in Sanskrit,” the officials said, adding that they didn’t have to pay to obtain the rights to the dialogues as the titleholders were happy to have the film dubbed in Sanskrit on the national channel.

DD’s half-an-hour Sanskrit programme is an attempt to popularise the language tailored to the vision of the government that has wasted no opportunity to emphasise its importance. Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani, in fact, sparked a controversy when she ordered replacing German with Sanskrit as the third language in Kendriya Vidyalayas.

The programme started on June 28 this year, designated by the government as World Sanskrit Day. To give the language a further push, Sanskrit programmes will be now shown on DD Bharti and DD-India which have an international reach, officials said.

Though DD has a 21-year-old association with Sanskrit in the form of a five-minute daily news bulletin, a concerted push for the language started in June with Vaartavali. It was in the course of their attempts to popularise the programme that they hit upon the idea of choosing the dialogues of Sholay and dubbing them into Sanskrit.

The programme has speed news, a Sanskrit teaching segment, an interview with non-Sanskrit scholars and an entertainment segment.

Film songs

The programme also asks the viewers to translate popular Hindi film songs into Sanskrit. The programme has a team of 16 anchors, reporters and editors and is telecast every Saturday between 7.30 p.m. and 8 p.m. on DD News. “Our anchors are young and defy the stereotypical image of a Sanskrit-spouting panditji,” DD officials said.

Yet, for all the youthfulness and contemporariness of the programme, the officials excised Gabbar to keep Sanskrit chaste.