Name game: B'wood banks on titles

NEW DELHI: What���s in a name? Ask any C-grade Bollywood producer and he���ll say, everything. For him, a film���s title is like a honey trap, a teaser trailer to an instant world of erotic fantasies that entices the audience to the theatres.
After all, everybody understands that Bhookh: The Hunger of Body isn���t about drought and starvation. And that Topless isn���t the story of a corporate firm that has just lost its CEO.
It���s the name game. And every Hindi film producer, big or small, plays it his own way. Some like it short (Dil). Many prefer it long (Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyun Aata Hai). A small number just steal them from a song. (Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya).
Quite a few titles are also borrowed from the past. Aag has been made three times with Raj Kapoor (1948), Feroz Khan (1967) and Govinda (1994) in the lead. Not long ago, Pooja Bhatt even had a row with ad man Vinod Mukhi over the title, Cabaret. And one desperate producer, rather short on creativity, combined the names of two well-known adult movies - BR Ishara���s Chetna and I V Sasi���s Her Nights and turned it into a brand new forthcoming flick: Chetna and Her Nights.
At the core of a film���s title lies a desire to get its essence across to the viewer. As trade analyst Komal Nahta suggests, "A film���s name also helps draw the audience into the theatre on the first day." And in a film industry where only one out of 10 films has made money at the box-office in the past few years ��� 2005 has been a relatively better year though ��� the imperative to gather eyeballs is immense. Which is why a film���s title also needs to be innovative. A forthcoming Manisha Koirala starrer is named tanman.com.
Sociologists opine that a film���s title is also a social inventory of sorts. It tells us what���s stock-in-trade and what is hip and hot. Even a few years ago, who would have imagined the names of some Bollywood films being canned now ��� Mobile Phone, Home Delivery, Farmhouse, Bar Girls, RDX. A just-complete film is even titled, Missed Call.
Others like Pyaar Mein Twist are indicators of the mixed Hindi-English lingo that much of the urban middle-class India speaks nowadays. "Such titles indicate the changing nature of the audience. Both the diaspora and the dabbawallah are important today,"says social scientist Shiv Viswanathan.
Some titles, says film distributor Sanjay Mehta, also bring out the nature of the nation���s urban-rural divide. "A film with a title like C U at 9 or Page 3 is a non-starter in small-towns," he says.
According to Mehta, the recent Arshad Warsi flop Sehar, meaning morning in Urdu, was a good film with a bad title. "What���s the point in having a film on organised crime with such a name?,"he asks. Ironically, even a misleading title can work for a good film. Many thought that Nagesh Kukunoor���s Iqbal was a Muslim social. But the well-made ���Sportie��� flick over-rode that limitation.
Trade analysts proffer that selling titles is also a part-time profession. "A title in demand can fetch up to a lakh of rupees,"says Nahta of Film Information. There are exceptions though. When Sanjay Leela Bhansali went to register the title, Black, he found the name was already booked by Kumar Gaurav. When the down-in-dumps star heard the film���s story, he gifted Bhansali the title. That���s why one finds a thank you message to Gaurav in the film���s opening credits.
Science research set to get govt boost
By Akshaya Mukul/TNN
New Delhi: Call it a coincidence. But within a week of the release of "India Science Report"which painted a dismal picture of science research in the country, HRD ministry has finalised details of Indian Institute of Science and Educational Research, to be turned into mecca of high brow research in basic science.
Though Union cabinet���s in-principle approval has come, HRD ministry would be going back to it with specific details of the institute to be set up in Kolkata and Pune. The PM���s Scientific Advisory Committee had suggested setting up of IISER.
Though IISER would be run as a registered society to begin with, government eventually wants to bring a Bill in Parliament so that it has the autonomy that other institutions set up under Acts of Parliament enjoy.
Though striving to acquire the excellence of IITs, IISER���s focus would be to encourage research in basic science. Students can join these institutes after the plus two stage. Though the ministry is yet to finalise the mode of the entrance examination to IISER, in the first year, i.e 2006-07, the joint entrance examination for IITs could be used to give admissions. Though eventually 2,055 seats would be on offer in Kolkata and Pune, the ministry is working on the number of seats that can be offered from next year.
The courses to be offered would include integrated M.Sc, Ph.d and post-doctoral. The five streams to be taught are physical sciences, material sciences, chemical sciences, computer sciences, environmental and earth system sciences and mathematical sciences.
According to an official, the most distinctive feature of IISER would be its inter-disciplinary approach like in the West. For instance, a student of physical science would be allowed to take up a course in environment or vice-versa.
While doing the groundwork for IISER, HRD ministry discovered the appalling state of scientific research in India. On the other hand, China is ages ahead. Between 1995 and 2003, while the number of Ph.d students in China jumped from 8,139 to 48,740, India saw a meagre upward movement from 3,000 to 5,000. In 2004 alone, 57,378 scientific papers were published in China against 23,338 in India.