9/14/2004 » Humor

There’s a wonderful theater in the middle of Times Square which inexplicably shows Bollywood films. When you call Moviefone, the over-the-top male voice talent gamely attempts to pronounce the Hindi film titles. But when you call 800-FANDANGO, they use a computer-generated voice to spell out the letters at blinding speed, just milliseconds per letter. No love.

So I called the theater: ‘About that Indian film...’

The elderly black woman sighed heavily. ‘Yes?’

‘What’s it called?’

She struggled through something that sounded like the wonka-wonka teacher in a Charlie Brown special. I remained mystified. ‘What’s the first word again?’

‘Dill. As in pickle.’

Ah, dil. It’s a clue, Watson. But it’s also the first word in 17 million other Hindi film titles which mix-and-match dil, kya, main, nahin, and pyar. Like the housing developments of Seattle (timber, wood, lake, lawn), no other words are allowed.

It’s magnetic poetry, it’s 800-MANGLE. Last night, I didn’t get my dime bag from the motherland — my search bore neither fruit nor pickle.