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Monkey business

Ranvir Nayar

Come September and Hanuman is set to gain a completely new set of followers. Only this time around, the new converts are a set of children about 8,000 km away from India and Hanuman is a simian film star.

As soon as the schools reopen after the summer vacations, department stores all over France will be flooded with cassettes of the film Hanouman. Over a million video cassettes of the film are expected to be sold in the run-up to Christmas.

And to boost sales, the film producers, along with the Indian National Office of Tourism, Paris, have come up with a novel competition. Any child who bears the closest resemblance to Hanuman in the film will win a fully paid trip for four to India.

Says Manmohan Sadana, director of the tourism office, "My job is to promote India as a tourist destination and I will use every opportunity for that. I think children can be a very important factor when parents choose a tourism destination for their vacations. And since this film is shot extensively in India and is aimed at the children and the family, I am sure it will create a large amount of interest in India."

The competition will also provide a huge window for the tourism office.

For, displayed in thousands of stores all over France, right alongside the tapes, will be large cut-outs and banners promoting the 'Explore India in the Millennium Year'. Sadana hopes this will get more French tourists to visit India.

"This is a very subtle promotion and it will appeal straightaway to children. This kind of promotion will prove much more efficient than merely placing ads in travel magazines and newspapers," he said.

Targetted at children, Hanouman is a film about a Scottish archaeologist Tom -- played by French actor Robert Cavanah -- who is investigating the historic sites of Vijaynagar kingdom in Hampi.

Tom comes across a gang of antiquity robbers who have been pillaging the site of its treasures. He tries to stop them and is hurt in a revenge attack by the traffickers of the treasures. At that moment, appears a blue monkey, Hanuman, who saves Tom's life and the two become thick friends. They use their combined strength to drive off the robbers and save the treasures.

An Indo-French co-production, the film has been produced by Visual Eyes in India and the French company Gaumont -- which is owned by Columbia Tristar Productions of the United States.

The film also stars Tabu and Javed Jafferey. The film was also partly sponsored by the Indian tourism ministry, which had also taken care of the crew during the shooting at Hampi.

The film, which was released late last year in cinema houses all over France late last year, proved to be a big hit with the children, prompting Gaumont to launch a large scale and high profile video of the movie as well.