Obese or not, people love their fast-food favorites. That's why we're going to take a look at 10 of the biggest selling fast-food menu items in America on the following pages.
It’s simple and at times colloquial Hindi combined with a liberal sprinkling of English.
No shudh Hindi, no bombastic words, no poetic phrases to make you consult a Hindi dictionary. Instead, it’s simple and at times colloquial Hindi combined with a liberal sprinkling of English that defines today’s Bollywood lingo.
It’s simple and at times colloquial Hindi combined with a liberal sprinkling of English
No shudh Hindi, no bombastic words, no poetic phrases to make you consult a Hindi dictionary. Instead, it’s simple and at times colloquial Hindi combined with a liberal sprinkling of English that defines today’s Bollywood lingo.
Be it Jiah Khan saying Take light in Nishabd or Ash asking Hrithik Are you, like, checking me out? in Dhoom 2 , these dialogues have become popular thanks to their informal and everyday tone. Besides, these phrases form an important part of the vocabulary of the youth today.
While some dialogues are made popular by the films , others are modelled on lingo that’s commonly used in college campuses or corporate set-ups. So you no longer have the hero using phrases like ‘lehrati zulfein’ and ‘chamkili aankhen’ to woo the lady.
Films abroad don’t have actors speaking in flowery language, so why do we need that in India? This trend was set by films like DDLJ and Dil Chahta Hai and has been well-accepted.
The Circuit and Munnabhai dialogues were also loved by all. But I found the way Ash spoke in Dhoom 2 stupid. People here don’t speak that way.
Slang has also become an intrinsic part of the dialogue. The audience doesn’t turn red-faced if the hero mouths the occasional expletive. For instance, Saif Ali Khan’s character in Salaam Namaste was stuck on the word ‘c**p’, while Rani Mukerji was seen saying ‘s**t’ in Tara Rum Pum .
Saif’s character in Salaam Namaste was based on Indians abroad, so he had to speak that way. But films like Omkara and Lagaan wouldn’t have dialogues like that. It all boils down to the script’s needs.
Clichéd dialogues like ‘Main tumse nafrat karti hoon’ and ‘Main tumhare bachhe ki ma banne wali hoon’ are also being replaced by less dramatic and more relevant ones. But today, it’s impossible for the hero to say ‘I love you’ since it’s become so clichéd. The dialogues we use are only a slice of life.
But this applies only to multiplex audiences and might not work in the rural sector. Lyricist Javed Akhtar, who wrote dialogues for films like Lakshya, says, Language of the popular media has to be contemporary since it addresses a large segment of society.
Believe it or not, this Hinglish gem dates back to a 1947 song Meri jaan, meri jaan Sunday ke Sunday’. Bollywood and English have a very purana naata. There was a time, when Kishore Kumar and Nutan swayed to ‘C-A-T CAT (cat maane billi)’ and ‘R-A-T RAT (rat maane chooha), arre dil hai tere panje mein toh kya hua’ in Dilli Ka Thug.
Years later, Amitabh Bachchan introduced himself as ‘My name is Anthony Gonsalves’. Mithunda grooved to ‘I am a disco dancer’ while Atul Agnihotri got his feet wet with ‘Rain is falling chamacham cham’.
Fast forward to the present. Hinglish is no longer just the occasional number. It’s hip, hot and everywhere. Last year, 25 of the 48 titles released had English words in their titles. Remember Jab We Met, Sorry Bhai, God Tussi Great Ho and Kismat Konnection . Radios belted out chartbusters like ‘White white face dekhe, dilwa beating fast, dil dance maare re’ and ‘Zara, zara touch me’. At discos, all the hot girls put their hands up and sang Om Shanti Om.
Languages are work in progress and Bollywood reflects that, say linguists. It’s contributed a great deal to loosening linguistic corsets and bringing Hindi closer to aam bol-chaal ki bhasha.
‘‘Language is not static and Bollywood songs show how it has evolved,’’ says Amitabh Bhattacharya, who has written the song ‘Emosonal atyachar’ for director Anurag Kashyap’s upcoming film DevD.
‘‘Earlier, lyrics were very poetic but now people are writing the way they speak. And spoken Hindi is peppered with words from many languages like Urdu, Punjabi and English.’’
In Bollywood though, Hinglish does get a new flavour. Some might call it ‘emosonal atyachar’ but most are loving it.
Esther Howland, the woman who produced the first commercial American valentines in the 1840s, sold a then mind-boggling $5,000 in cards during her first year of business.
