Most foreign films are exported along with a foreign language bastardization of the title: No Reservations (2007) came to France with the title Le Goût de La Vie (The Taste of Life). French mega-hit Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain came to America simply as Amélie. When a film keeps its title in the trip across language barriers, it is usually to keep a sense that would otherwise be lost in translation, such as Y tu mamá también, which, in and of itself is not an offensive phrase in Spanish, but as a response to another offense, it becomes one of the most offensive phrases in Mexican Spanish. The entire meaning of this phrase is therefore difficult to translate, and it was thus left in its original Spanish, even when the film came to the States.

The title of the film Dus Kahaniyaan (2007) means “ten stories” in English. Creator Sanjay Gupta, himself English-Indian, obviously wanted to use this title to draw attention to the fact that his newest film is a vignette piece, a theme that has been growing in popularity in Indian cinema ever since Ramgopal Varma started this trend with Darna Mana Hai. Gupta has taken this trend even further, moving from Varma’s six stories to ten, and using seven different directors to bring the film together. So why would he make the decision not to translate this title? It would have been just as easy to call the film "Ten Stories" for the English release.

Without asking the director, it’s impossible to know with certainty the reason behind this decision, but it seems likely that Gupta wanted to preserve the film’s foreignness. In translating the title, the film might have lost its individuality by being confused with other mainstream Indian-influenced pieces which have been produced with growing popularity in the English-speaking world (Bend it Like Beckham (2000), Bride and Prejudice (2004)).

In preserving its Indian name, Dus Kahaniyaan draws attention to its exoticism, as opposed to a film like The Namesake (2006), which used an English name to attract American audiences to this USA/Indian venture about immigrants.

Dus Kahaniyaan is an Indian film, and it will retain its Indian-ness by refusing to translate its title for Anglophones.

In the end, the decision to keep the original foreign language title retains a sort of mystery about the film. Foreign films always have a bit of romance about them and keeping the foreign title is a self-conscious decision on the part of the producers to market this film as a foreign venture. This choice can attract audiences or scare them away. It’s an artistic decision that must be made knowing that it will affect audience demographics.