For Better or Verse: The Wondrous Art of Subtitling Bollywood Songs

When dialogues desiccate, a song blooms. A unique feature of Indian cinema, it dignifies and depicts emotions so oceanic, so fluid, that prosaic expressions fall short. If feelings are water, a song is a vessel. How do you, for example, capture the exhilaration of a young woman growing up in an oppressive family, seeing the world for the first time, absorbing not just what바카라�s outside but inside her? Sure, you can use a monologue or a dialogue바카라�maybe even a voiceover바카라�but would any of it hit home? Probably not. So you do this: As her fingers jog outside a truck바카라�s window, a song plays in the background: O jugni o / Pataakha guddi o. And, as if reveling in coded communication, we get it바카라�instantly, instinctively. Because if a picture paints a thousand words, a song paints a thousand pictures. Bollywood songs, as a result, have reinforced what we바카라�ve (intuitively) known for long: that prose can be a prison.

A film song is not just a musical composition. Placed in an existing narrative, it underscores mood, develops characters, propels subplots. If you know Hindi, a Bollywood song will almost always make sense to you바카라�even if you don바카라�t know all the words. But how would a song talk to you if you don바카라�t understand the language? Musically pleasant, yes, but linguistically alien, as if living in a rented house. Or, to summarise an excerpt from a Gulzar song, it바카라�d make you feel as if you바카라�re in 바카라�someone else바카라�s courtyard wearing socks, even when barefoot바카라�.

That바카라�s when translators, or film subtitlers, help diminish the divide. Even though dialogues, too, pose translational challenges, a song is especially tricky because, besides transporting mood and meaning, it demands at least one more layer of interpretation: rhythm, rhyme, and metre. In fact, the task can be so daunting, and silly mistakes so easy, that translational goof-ups have spawned memes, listicles, and a website (Paagal Subtitles). Consider this blooper from a Karan Arjun (1994) song, where Yeh bandhan toh pyaar ka bandhan hai / Janmon ka sangam hai became 바카라�This bondage is the bondage of love, it is the intercourse of many births.바카라�  

The main difficulties, of course, transcend the literal translations, as they pivot on interpretations. Take the recent Besharam Rang song. A literal mould might tempt a novice subtitler to use 바카라�shameless colours바카라�. But Nasreen Munni Kabir, who has subtitled over 800 movies (including Pathaan), used something else: true colours. So Besharam rang kahan dekha duniya waalon ne turned 바카라�The world has not seen my true colours바카라�. Besides bearing similarity to the idiom 바카라�show[ing] one바카라�s true colours바카라�, it also, very unobtrusively, plants a narrative seed in the viewers바카라� minds because it바카라�s sung by Deepika Padukone바카라�s character, a spy, someone whose 바카라�true colours바카라� are difficult to discern.

바카라�If you say shameless colour, the non-Hindi audience won바카라�t understand,바카라� says Kabir. 바카라�And when you make obscure connections in English, you make the audience think about the subtitles바카라�not the shot, not the film, not the story.바카라� Besides tussling with individual words, subtitlers also have to consider the form: Do you rhyme, or do you not? Do you match the rhythm or catch the words? 바카라�I like to stay as close to the original imagery as possible,바카라� she says. 바카라�Because otherwise, you dilute the cultural atmosphere of the song. Sometimes you can work the rhyme, sometimes you cannot. But if you바카라�ve to change the meaning to make the words rhyme then, I feel, you should not rhyme.바카라�

Every subtitler then must bring to their work their own take on translation, especially while resolving the tension between content and form. 바카라�While I make a point of producing a rhymed translation when subtitling songs,바카라� says François-Xavier Durandy, who has subtitled such films as Pyaasa (1957), Slumdog Millionaire (2008), and Titli (2015) into French, 바카라�I don바카라�t necessarily strive to keep all content 100% intact.바카라� He prefers 바카라�target-oriented translation바카라� which, 바카라�more than doing justice to the original author바카라�, allows 바카라�continuous immersion바카라� in a movie. 바카라�My approach would likely be different if I translated poetry to be published in print, but in the case of subtitles, there are no footnotes, no foreword, and no chance to read a line twice.바카라�

The structural multiplicity of a Bollywood song바카라�it can be a poem, a conversation, a story (or in short: anything)바카라�flings further challenges. 바카라�The beauty of a Hindi film song is that it바카라�s truly cosmopolitan and democratic,바카라� says author Akshay Manwani who, in his books on Sahir Ludhianvi and Nasir Hussain, transliterated and translated several iconic songs. 바카라�There are no rules. It바카라�s at times also full of rubbish words.바카라� He reels off such classic examples as 바카라�Eena Meena Deeka바카라�, 바카라�C-A-T cat/ Cat maane billi바카라�, and Amitabh Bhattacharya바카라�s alliterative gibberish genius: 바카라�Paan mein pudeena dekha / Naak ka nagina dekha / Chikni chameli dekhi / Chikna kameena dekha. I mean, how do you translate these lines? Do they even need to be translated?바카라�

As if resolving Manwani바카라�s doubt, Durandy says, 바카라�If I had to translate paan main pudeena dekha, I바카라�d probably try not to bother too much about content and context and straightaway focus on alliteration. I may say something like un cafard dans mon café [a cockroach in my coffee], which has nothing to do with paan or pudeena, but hopefully would serve the stylistic purpose.바카라� So this is how Jahan Singh Bakshi tried to tame a tongue twister in Shakuntala Devi (2020): 바카라�Oont ooncha / Oont ki peeth oonchi / Oonchi poonch oont ki바카라� transformed to 바카라�crazy camels, calm camels, the camel clans clashed!바카라�

I ask Kabir about the Badtameez Dil conundrum. She tells me to repeat the first two lines, so she can note them down. 바카라�You see the trouble is, the majority of the Western audience doesn바카라�t know what a paan is. So you keep it as it is. What do you think nagina means in this context바카라�is it a nose ring?바카라� Perhaps, I바카라�m clueless myself. 바카라�So it바카라�s an imagery that will work very poorly in English.바카라� She laughs. 바카라�You바카라�d have to say something like: The glint of mint in the paan / The glint of her nose ring. So I바카라�d do the whole song, email it to Amitabh, and ask, 바카라�Is this alright?바카라�바카라�  

Like most pieces of translation, Hindi film songs throw two common roadblocks: translating cultures and translating across cultures. Because, in the former, what바카라�s true for one may not be for the other. While subtitling Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), Durandy struggled with zulfon ki ghata lehraai / paigham vafaa ke laai from the song Tujhe yaad na meri aai. It wasn바카라�t the words as much as the metaphor: 바카라�Clouds are usually harbingers of bad news in France.바카라� Kabir finds 바카라�jugaad바카라� and 바카라�aukaat바카라� particularly tough. She says a famous Bollywood line, Apni aukat mat bhoolo. 바카라�But in England바카라�바카라�she lives in London and translates for an international audience바카라�바카라�the class division isn바카라�t like that. So what do you say: Don바카라�t forget your standing, don바카라�t forget your status, don바카라�t forget who you are?바카라�

Translating across cultures requires close attention to shifting styles. Most Bollywood songs of the 바카라�50s and the 바카라�60s followed a different literary mode바카라�more formal, more chaste바카라�as compared to the clipped, conversational lingo dominant today. Which is why, translating Sahir Ludhianvi바카라�s songs, Durandy felt free 바카라�to omit articles바카라�, as it 바카라�makes French sound archaic바카라�. Kabir underscores a 바카라�marked difference바카라� between the songs of the two periods. 바카라�Even though the language of the 바카라�50s was much richer,바카라� she says, 바카라�they were far easier to translate.바카라� Such songs had two main aspects: they told a story, and they used a subtle style to describe emotions. 바카라�What do I mean by storytelling? Sahir, Zindagi bhar nahin bhoolegi woh barsaat ki raat. He바카라�s describing a whole night, and it바카라�s very easy to translate. But today they talk in concepts about love. The words are drowned in music. They are tougher to translate because they mean less.바카라�  

Unlike a pure textual translation (say, a poem or a novel), film subtitles also accompany sounds and images, two more avenues of information, which impose their own restrictions. Kabir says the 바카라�shot duration바카라� and 바카라�dialogue delivery바카라� determine the length of the subtitle. So movies with fast cuts, and quick dialogues, are more challenging to translate, as a 바카라�subtitle should not go over the cut바카라�. Durandy ran into a visual problem while subtitling Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962); the song Piya Aiso Jiya Mein featured 바카라�extreme close-up shots바카라� of Meena Kumari. 바카라�For the first time, I felt my subtitles were like a blot on a beautiful face,바카라� he says. 바카라�They would inevitably land on her chin or lips and there was not much I could do, because I had to use subtitles.바카라� So he split them. A normal subtitle would have looked like the following on screen, a big block of text:

Mon bien-aimé a pris
possession de mon cœur

바카라�But it would have encroached too much on Meena Kumari바카라�s face,바카라� he explains, 바카라�which is why I went for two separate one-line subtitles, looking like this:

Mon bien-aimé a pris
+
possession de mon cœur.바카라�

It was awkward to separate the verses, Durandy clarifies, 바카라�but it would have been even more awkward to hide Meena Kumari바카라�s face.바카라�

Some subtitling problems can be as simple, or as complicated, as the authorial intent. Durandy bashed into one such wall while subtitling Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire (2008). He hadn바카라�t received the lyrics바카라� transcript from the production team and had to rely on online sources바카라�a linguistic minefield, especially when it comes to Gulzar. 바카라�Most websites had Aa ja, aa ja jind shamiyaane ke tale as the first line,바카라� he says. 바카라�But is there any such word as 바카라�jind바카라� in Hindi or Urdu?바카라� Another possibility multiplied his confusion. 바카라�How did the Punjabi jind find its way into the lyrics and how did it relate syntactically to the rest of the verse?바카라� Durandy asked around, then wrote a Twitter thread바카라�nothing worked. He found out the actual word much later: 바카라�jinde바카라�. Eventually, he dropped the 바카라�mysterious jind but still managed to produce a translation바카라�, which he is 바카라�not ashamed of바카라�: Retrouve-moi sous ma tente bordée de voiles / Retrouve-moi sous le ciel bleu brodé d바카라�étoiles (Come meet me under my veils-lined tent/ Come meet me under the stars-embroidered blue sky). Even though he had to sacrifice some text, the symmetric construction바카라�바카라�brodé echoing bordée바카라� and 바카라�twelve syllables with two caesuras: 4바카라�4바카라�4바카라�바카라�pleased him. Trying to unravel the jind-jinde mystery on his Twitter thread, Durandy wondered: 바카라�If only I were Nasreen Munni Kabir and could fine-tune the translation with Gulzar himself!바카라�  

Kabir바카라�s book with the lyricist, Jiya Jale: The Story of Songs (2018), itself emerged from a translation project: She had been asked to subtitle the restored print of Dil Se (1998). She speaks fondly about collaborating with Mani Ratnam, checking 바카라�every line바카라� of his latest, Ponniyin Selvan (2022), with him. 바카라�When the producer and the director [or their assistants] are involved, it바카라�s a much better subtitle because the intention of the dialogues comes across much clearer,바카라� she says. 바카라�So, as a translator, I can refer to them. Mani Ratnam knows both Tamil and English very well, so he understands when I get it, and when I can improve it. To be honest, it바카라�s a great pleasure to sit next to a director whom you deeply respect. Because then you바카라�re part of the team.바카라�