What links Oppenheimer to an Indian lawyer?

The phrase from the 'Gita' he used is found in lawyer-activist Kashinath Trimbak Telang's translation

- Alok Prasanna Kumar

I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." These words have become synonymous with American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who uttered them after he saw the first detonation of a nuclear weapon on 16 July 1945. It is a translation of a verse in the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna has shown Arjuna his full form in all its terrifying glory. Oppenheimer's untiring efforts had given the Allies the atomic bomb during World War II and seeing its destructive potential after the first test may have filled his mind with dread and foreboding.

This verse of the Gita perhaps conveys the sense of awe and fear Oppenheimer the subject of a new film-must have felt when he first saw the power of the atom unleashed in the US' Nevadan desert.

However, if you pick up the nearest copy of the Bhagavad Gita in English, you are unlikely to find those exact words. Oppenheimer was referring to the shloka "kālo 'smi lokak ayakt pravddho lokan samahartum iha prav tta" (Canto 11, Verse 32) but most translators do not translate this verse into English in the way Oppenheimer does.

Of over two dozen translations compiled by David Auerbach, a vast majority use the word "Time" instead of "Death" in translating this verse. Swami Srila Prabhupada, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (Iskcon), translates it thus: "Time I am, destroyer of the worlds, and I have come to engage all people." Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, a philosopher himself and India's second president, translates it thus: "Time am I, worlddestroying, grown mature, engaged here in subduing the world." While neither of these well-known translations were available to Oppenheimer, even the versions in his time largely use the words "time" instead of "death".