by Subhash K Jha

Imagine the Bachchan baritone being bulldozed into the Bhojpuri bhasha! . That seems to be the purpose of the enterprising Bihari producers Baldev and Kamal who have got together to dub and release one of Bachchan's biggest blockbusters Namak Halaal in a dubbed Bhojpuri version entitled Babua Khiladi Dadua Anari, the babua being Bachchan and the dadua being the late Om Prakash who plays AB's grandfather.

The 1981 mega-hit directed by Prakash Mehra has been released in two small centres of Bihar.

"We've released Babu Khiladi Dadua Anari in only two towns Hajipur and Begusarai. We'll put it out in other centres according to how the film performs," says the film's distributor Ajay Chowdhary.

He admits this is an attempt to ride the sympathy wave that has swept across the nation after AB's hospitalization.

"We've competition from Bachchanji's new film Ek Ajnabee. We don't know how much of the Bhojpuri audience wants to watch him speak in Bhojpuri. But the response so far is encouraging."

The film has been fairly professionally dubbed (in Mumbai) by artistes who try to match the original voices, and often fail. Interestingly all the songs of Namal Halaal, including AB's evergreen Pag ghunghroo and the two Parveen Babi sizzler Jawaani jaan-e-man and Raat baqi have been re-recorded in Bhojpuri for Babua Anari Dadua Khiladi.

Plans are afoot to dub other Hindi films in Bhojpuri to meet the rapidly rising demand for films in that language in Bihar and UP.