Tintin in India

The last time Tintin and his friends were confronted with Hindi, they looked pretty baffled. In Tintin in Tibet, published in 1960, Captain Haddock faced the wrath of a Nepali porter whom he bumped into accidently in the street. “Kya dekhte nahi ho?” the man yells in a rebuke rendered in Devnagari. However, the next time Haddock in confronted by an angry coolie, he’ll have developed the vocabulary necessary to snap back at him. Only, instead of barking, “billions and billions of blistering blue barnacles”, he’s likely to holler, “Karodon karod kasmasate kaale kachhuve” – millions and millions of squirming black turtles.

That alliterative phrase will make its debut this month when Om Publishers releases eight Tintin books in Hindi. To begin with, Hindi readers will be able to savour the boy reporter’s adventures in Tintin in the Congo, Tintin in America, Cigars of the Pharoah, The Blue Lotus, The Broken Ear, The Black Island, King Ottokar’s Sceptre and The Crab with the Golden Claws. The remaining 16 comics in the series will come on the stands at the rate of two every two months. “I have always been a fan of Tintin,” said Ajay Mago of Om Publishers. “We wanted to bring this comic to the people of India who couldn’t possibly have read it before as it was in English.”

Full report here Timeout Mumbai