Ask Dr D: Arnie's complex in India

You know me, Doc

I am ze Terminator. I vaz in Chennai for a short trip to work for a movie. The movie iz kalt 'I'. It is a name zat I approve of, and is easy to remember. Ze reason I'm writing to you is that I am a little puzzled by a couple of the people I met. Both of them had for some reasons two names.

The first one waz kalt Superstar but he also had another name with four syllables I cannot remember. He waz an elderly gentleman with little hair and an easy, simple manner. I liked him. His name was similar to our German philosopher Kant.

I thought at first I had misheard his name, but the man introducing him insisted I had got it right. His real name was something else but he was ze Superstar. I must confess he didn't look anything like a star, or an actor.

He looked like a gentle retiree. But ze crowd waz going nuts over him. Why Doc? Tell me. Ze udder person waz kalt Amma and also something else with five syllables I cannot remember. It sounded like that famous book by Nabokov, Lolita.

I asked what Amma meant and was told it meant muzzer. But she wasn't a muzzer and I don't think she's even married. I waz told by someone else that she was also an actor, but she also looked more like a retiree.

And ze crowd waz going nuts over her also. So what waz that about? I am used to being mobbed around ze world but never is it that I am overshadowed like zis. Wat's the deal, Doc? I'll be back.

- A Schwarzenegger

Arnie,

In India, movie popularity comes not from looks but charisma. We don't have any bodybuilder superstars like you, but we can imagine, if we try hard enough, that our heroes have bodies like yours.

We have many great stars, Sanjeev Kumar in the north and Ambarish in the south, who look nothing like heroes are supposed to. But that's the whole thing about movies, isn't it?

The idea of the fantastic made believable. The second person you met is, like when you were governor of California, a former actor who is not a successful leader. You may be the film terminator, but for many in our politics, Amma is the real one. And lastly, speaking of complex names, how's Schwarzenegger?.

(The author is one of the leading doctors in the country. He values his privacy, but not of his clients.)

Statutory warning: This humour column is not for the weak-kneed or the thin-skinned.