the translators ..

Suddenly the candle was snuffed out by an unknown force! BAD omen!! VERY bad omen!!! We looked at each other and acknowledged but no one dared to utter the inevitable. Yes, someone has to depart. Someone will depart. But who? In less than an over it was answered.


Like a voice from the sky ‘Oh my God this can be dangerous, Mahendra Singh Dhoni wanting to play to the crowds has ended up in the hands of Luke Wright just on the boundary line. Another wicket for Bresnan and England … is back into the game. This is incredible!’


I took all of it without a twitch, coz I didn’t know how to react. My sixth sense was telling me that there is no point continuing. India has very little chances of winning. But my seventh sense wanted to give it another shot. So this time, I took out two chilies from the fridge and put it in front of the television. Oh this is nothing, my good friend Rashmi is on fast today, I reassured my bewildered cousins.


Well those chilies did get us few runs but that was quickly followed by few more wickets after which I lost interest in the match. But there was something else that caught my attention. The face behind that voice from the sky, the commentators! Specifically, the Hindi commentators. Or may be I should call them ‘the translators’ after I heard them closely last week.


Cricket being a game of the British origins (as proved by the movie Lagaan) has left a lot for our commentators to work upon. Every year few more terms added to the cricket vocabulary which leads to a frantic search for their Hindi counterparts. When cricket itself has a translation that runs into 60 second in Hindi, one can imagine what must be left of terms like silly mid on, short pitched balls and snickometer.  


But it doesn’t stop at the terminologies. Many English phrases are mercilessly morphed. So when they say ‘kakdi ki tarah thande hain baratiya kaptaan’, all they want to say is that ‘the Indian captain is as cool and chilled out as a cucumber’. And if they say ‘is baar nahin denge lagaan’ please empathize with them, they only mean that ‘India will not lose to England this time’. 


While I have been listening a lot about the edges of the bats and the pitches of the balls, this time I thought I was hearing poetry too, with a lot of rhyming words. Perched precariously on the tip of the bat and the bails on the stumps; ready to getting flicked off any moment; remember ‘Kaptaan’ & ‘Lagaan’!


But nothing matches up to those moments when you feel the world around you has stopped. It happened when England needed 2 runs to win from the last ball of the match. A billion hearts were pounding world over glued to their screens, while concentrating on their home made talismans & charms when un-apologetically, the voice from the sky offered, ‘kya lagta hai aapko Mr. Joshi, kaun jeetega?’ And to my utter amazement, Mr Joshi even replies, ‘kehna mushkil hai, koi bhi team ho sakti hai, lekin England mazboot stithi mein.’ Whatever happened to the ‘Kaptaan’ & his ‘Lagaan’!


I have always believed that commentators help you get into the mood of the game besides educating about the same from time to time and should be pardoned for being a little partial towards their home country. But such unsolicited compositions compel me to think over it again. Brooding over this confusion, I stood up at my place once again, hoping this stance would get us what the candle and chilly could not get. Rest is now history of course .....