Why...Kyon?

No, that isn't an anguished existential question. It's the title of a forthcoming film, as listed on the trusty site www.indiafm.com.

Once in a while, when I have nothing better to do (actually, much more when I have something both important and urgent to do), I amuse myself by looking through the list of new/soon-to-be-released/in-production Hindi films to find particularly impressive examples of Bollywood's trashiness/inventiveness, as seen in some of the titles below.

First, of course, there are the ones which have a one-word Hindi title followed by some words ni English. Sometimes, the English bit is an attempted translation of the Hindi word, with the uniquely Bollywood addition of an article, usually 'the', before it. To wit:
Modh-The Turning Point
Gumnaam - The Unknown
Dand - The Punishment
Vardi - The Uniform
Sauda - The Deal
This 'The' ranks up there with my other favourite bit of Hindi film English (okay, there are several: how about the fact that people are always referred to as 'Mr Karan' or 'Miss Pooja' but never by as 'Mr Singh' or 'Miss Ahuja'), which is the sentence 'It's A (.....) Production'. Yup, sure is.

Sometimes, the English bit adds an adjective or two, or somehow further qualifier, to the translation of the Hindi title, for example:


Jadh-The Root Cause
Bekaraar - Restless In Love
Anubhav - The First Experience
Chhal-The Game Of Death

Sometimes, the translation is, umm, less than grammatical (and we're not talknig about the ubiquitous and unnecessary 'the' here):

Fareibi - The Cheater

Some are just priceless and defy classifcation or any attempts to guess quite what those who picked the title were thinking:

Adaa-Will Kill You

(Did they mean that the (heroine's?) 'ada' would kill us? As in 'uski adaa ne mujhe maar daala'?

This one took me some time to figure out:

Dagaa - The Ditch

And this one is truly inexplicable:

Moonlight - Unfortunately Love Story

And then, there's always a couple that are obviously going to be really, really, really trashy:

Masoom Chudail

Or jingoistic:

Kashmir Hamara Hai


And some are just plain funny:


Shaadi Karke Phas Gaya Yaar
Why... Kyon?

All of these, incidentally, are from Indiafm.com, so I really haven't made any of these up. There were less Chudail ones than when I looked one time, about a year or two ago. Then, there was both a 'Qatil Chudail' and a 'Kunwari Chudail'. Wonder if they ever got released :-)