Tattle: 'Hari Puttar' prevails in Indian court

HARI PUTTAR brought a little magic to a Mumbai courtroom Monday, winning a suit against Warner Bros and the slightly more famous Harry Potter.

The "Hari Puttar" movie is therefore set to hit Indian theaters this week, although it may take awhile - or an eternity - before the film reaches Philadelphia.

The court said in its ruling that people who have watched the Harry Potter movies and read the books would know the difference between that and a Punjabi film called "Hari Puttar - A Comedy of Terrors."

The producers, Mirchi Movies, said the Puttar movie bore no resemblance to the famous boy-wizard franchise. Hari is a common name in India and Hindi for God, while "puttar" is Punjabi for son.

"It's clearly great to have won this case," Munish Purii, Mirchi's chief executive told the Associated Press yesterday. "We are hoping for a good release although the timing of the Warner case distracted us from marketing."

Well, hurry up.

"Hurry," by the way, is an English noun or verb, meaning to rush or do something quickly and bears no relation to either Hari or Harry.

Warner Bros. slightly sore loser spokeswoman Deborah Lincoln said the company was reviewing the judgment.

"We brought these proceedings because we believe that the proposed title and marketing of the defendants' film infringed our intellectual property rights," Lincoln said in an e-mail.

Lincoln said the Hari Puttar producers wanted to "confuse consumers and benefit from the well-known and well-loved Harry Potter brand."

Tattle aid

* Tyler Perry ("The Family That

Preys"), who grew up the poor son of a carpenter in New Orleans and was homeless for a time, is putting his money where people's mouths are.

He has donated enough food to feed 1,000 families for two weeks in Atlanta, where he lives now.

He spent part of yesterday morning unloading and packaging food at Hosea Feed the Hungry and the Homeless care center, where organizers say a tanking economy has brought more people seeking help.

Perry stood side by side with volunteers and said he felt pulled to visit the center after hearing about it on the news.

"I had to do something," he said.

* Steven Spielberg and

his wife, Kate Capshaw, are following in the footsteps of Brad Pitt, as the latest celebrity donors to join the fight against California's November ballot initiative that would overturn the state Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage.

Spielberg and Capshaw have donated $100,000 to fight Proposition 8, they announced in a statement Monday.

"By writing discrimination into our state constitution, Proposition 8 seeks to eliminate the right of each and every citizen in our state to marry regardless of sexual orientation," the statement said. "Such discrimination has NO place in California's constitution, or any other."

* Bono and Bob Geldof threw their

support behind a European Commission plan Monday to give nearly $1.5 billion to African farmers for fertilizer and seeds to help feed some of the world's 935 million malnourished people.

To think, for just $83.5 billion more, they could have bailed out an insurance company.

Tattbits

* Msgr. William Hodge, a Roman

Catholic priest in Atlantic City, has told officials that he was a victim of scammer Raffaello Follieri, the ex no-goodnik boyfriend of Anne Hathaway.

He says Follieri duped him out of $110,000 by claiming he needed the money to pay nuns.

(Ah, those nuns . . . with their golden parachutes.)

The devil may or may not wear Prada, but he'll soon be wearing a federal prison jumpsuit.

* A sapphire-and-diamond brooch

worn by Elton John in his 1988 music video for "I Don't Wanna Go on With You Like That" is expected to fetch $22,000 at Bonhams auction house in London tomorrow.

Despite the growing global financial crisis, "diamonds have an enduring appeal," Jean Ghika of Bonhams, said yesterday. "They provide timeless elegance in a fast-moving fashion arena and in many instances maintain their worth."

* A New York City judge has dis-

missed Maria Kristina Dominguez's $3 million suit against Vibe magazine and P. Diddy Combs. The suit claimed the mag published a picture of Maria in a topless mermaid costume at a Diddy party without her consent.

The photo of three bare-breasted women was captioned "Mermaids Gone Wild" and was taken at the annual White Party in East Hampton in 2003. It was published in Vibe's November 2006 issue. The Manhattan judge, however, said the photo was related to newsworthy issues of public interest and Dominguez had no right of privacy while cavorting topless except for pasties.

There those activist judges go again - taking away a woman's nipples' right to privacy.

Dominguez, by the way, was a hedge fund money manager.

Given the state of the stock market, we hope she kept the costume.

* Correction: In our item yesterday

about the anything goes nominations to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, we mistakenly mixed up Rockabilly pioneer Wanda Jackson with raunchy R&B singer Millie Jackson. Wanda is actually a more appropriate nominee than most. Sorry, Wanda.

* Shameless self-promoters Heidi

Montag and Spencer Pratt told "Extra," which for some reason felt obliged to listen, that they are joining forces with Taco Bell to raise awareness of global hunger.

They should start by feeding Gorditas to the cast of "90210." *

Daily News wire services contributed to this report.

E-mail gensleh@phillynews.com