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Bollywood deserves collective Bharat Ratna: Gill

Bollywood should be given a collective Bharat Ratna for popularising Hindi all over the country, according to Chief Election Commissioner M S Gill.

''Hindi films attract not only those within the country but also Indians living abroad,'' Dr Gill said while releasing Bharat ki Madhya Varg ki Ajeeb Kahani, the Hindi translation of Pawan Kumar Verma's The Great Indian Middle Class, at the India International Centre last evening.

Ideas, he said, should reach the people no matter what language they are expressed in. Translation plays a crucial role here, especially in a multi-lingual society like India. ''It does not matter which language you speak so long as you are able to communicate,'' he added.

The book, which discusses the issues facing the Indian middle class, was first published an year-and-a-half ago in English. It has also been translated into Malayalam with a Marathi edition set to follow soon.

''I would have been happier had the book been originally written in Hindi and I had released the English translation today,'' said the author. ''I am a cultural orphan'' who does not even know Sanskrit, he added.

''These Indian Foreign Service officers leave the country as soon as they join the service and after globetrotting return only to stay put in Delhi, but all our problems are told by them,'' Dr Gill said only half jokingly in an apparent reference to the IFS connection of Verma.

The earlier works of Verma include Ghalib: the Man, the Times, Krishna: the Playful Divine , Yudhishtar and Draupadi: a Tale of Love, Passion and Riddles of Existence, and Mansions at Dusk: the Havelis of Old Delhi.

The book, translated by Ajay Shankar Dubey, is published by Rajkamal Prakashan and priced at Rs 200.

UNI

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