Jurassic India: Where Dinosaurs Still Rule The Roost!

I still recall with laughter my first day at B school. Students introduced themselves dutifully and solemnly till one guy said that he was working for Hindustan Motors, makers of the Ambassador car. Later we ribbed him on this, telling him that his department had an entire year to decide on the shape of the headlights — this being the only innovation in what has been billed as the world’s only vintage car under active production and use. A living dinosaur.

I was reminded of this episode when I read about the recent finding of dinosaur fossils in Tamil Nadu. True to our tradition I waited for a follow up report that would reflect our national ethos of showing scant regard for priceless treasures. The report came in a day’s time with the following line:

“Barely weeks after scientists unearthed a Jurassic age treasure in the form of hundreds of dinosaur eggs in Ariyalur district of Tamil Nadu, local villagers and students are looting and damaging the precious fossils.”

I can only add that it is not correct to blame ordinary people. Even our netas rush to the site of a terrorist bomb blast accompanied by a few dozen minions in tens of cars and stomp all over the scene of the attack pretending to take stock of the situation, even as the whole country knows that nothing will come out of the ‘investigations.’ The terrorists may well be sipping chai at a nearby tea stall and may even garland the beaming neta.

Most countries around the world would cordon off such sites in minutes and even the Prime Minister is not allowed to inspect the site with gay abandon. But not India!

But I have a funny tale to tell. I sent a script that I had written about dinosaurs in India to Steven Spielberg. This was written long before the recent finds in Tamil Nadu. Spielberg refused to even consider my script so I asked and got an appointment with the iconic film director. Unlike Bollywood big wigs he agreed to meet me seeing my enthusiasm.

I began by telling him about the Indian response to his movie Jurassic Park. He was not aware that this film was dubbed into several Indian languages. He asked me if our languages had an appropriate word for dinosaur and I told him about that thrilling scene in his movie when a kid exults when she first sees a dinosaur. The Hollywood original has her screaming: “Gosh There’s a dinosaur!”

The Hindi version, I told him, has her screaming: “Uima chipkali aa gayee!”

When I translated this into English Spielberg exhibited a range of emotions that could have won him an Oscar! He alternately laughed and cried till he was rolling on the floor out of pain and hilarity. Once he regained poise he said that calling a dinosaur a “chipkali” (a lizard) was……!!! Mercifully he left it unsaid.

When peace descended I told him that I had a script for another India-centric dinosaur movie. This time I told him it was about octogenarian and nonagenarian politicians in Tamilnadu itself, not far from the site where fossils were discovered. The highlight of the movie, I told him, was when the egg bursts and a baby dinosaur emerges. He walks to Chennai and encounters some netas with whom he establishes immediate kinship considering the similarity in antiquity.

The rest of my story is about how other netas in India wished to meet this dinosaur only to be told by DMK that some more of its MPs must be inducted into the Union Cabinet as a pre-condition. The adventures of the dinosaur are well chronicled in my script. Spielberg is actively considering the project.