Bridging the language gap between the North and the South: A lesson from a Kannada movie

For those of you who don't know, India is a land of many languages (no, they don't speak ``Hindu''), so not everyone speaks Hindi (of course, if you ARE someone who doesn't know about India, I don't think this page will help you much). Those of you that DO know will know that sometimes it is difficult for two Indians to have a conversation. Especially if one of them is Hindi intolerant, meaning they stubbornly refuse to learn Hindi or they were taught in a school where they could opt out easily and then bully their juniors if they talked in Hindi (alright I'm bitter, so SHOOT me!). What do you do if you are in the following situation:

You recently moved to Bombay with your parents and your sister, after a while are falsely accused of bombing a supercop's car (said supercop stays next door), and are framed, and are jailed and are tortured in your underwear (complete with ketchup on your nuts). You escape, determined to prove your innocence, and after a while, manage somehow to kidnap the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. You think that if you are able to explain your situation to him, and also explain that there is a huge conspiracy against the law by a very well-known bad dude, you will be able to convince everyone else. The main problem: you don't speak Hindi, and he doesn't understand your mother tongue (which happens to be Kannada).

In the immortal words of Dennis Hopper from Speed, What do you do?

What do you do?

Like I always say, I don't really care what YOU do, I'm gonna talk about what Shivraj Kumar does in the movie AK47. A little about this movie before all that. AK47 (1999) was advertised as ``50th movie of [sic] hat trick hero'', said hat-trick hero being Shivraj Kumar, of course. Maybe someday we can also talk about this movie when we talk about stealing producers logos from other people. So, anyway, in this movie, Shivraj's family (including a really irritating Srividya as his mom and the magaaan Girish `Kitply' Karnad as his dad - someday we will also talk about how he revolutionizes the concept of Oota cut in the movie) moves to Bombay, and Shivraj starts college (YAY!!! It was ***MY*** college! The Guru Nanak Khalsa College of Arts and Sciences, motto: The Essence of Wisdom Is Service To Mankind, sidemotto being The Essence of Getting Rich Is Renting The Campus Out To Cheap TV Series Crews, And If We Get Lucky, Some Vernacular Films, If We Are Luckier, B-Grade (College Girl was shot in my college! Amita Nangia gets raped in the classroom I used to learn chemistry in!) Hindi Films, And MAYBE SOME DAY SOME A-Grade Hindi Movie (``Gupt was shot in my college'' was my Int.Ph.D. introduction!)), and walks in during a lecture about the many phases of water :

Prof: Water when heated turns to steam.
Steam when cooled turns to water...
SK: Excuse me, Sir?
Prof: Yes, come in?.... (looks at the note) Oh, new student? Oh! You are from Karnataka?!
(immediately some piano happy-music, as some student in the class - who later frames our man - smiles at him)
Prof: (continuing in monotonous droning voice) Water when cooled turns to ice.
Ice when heated turns to water.
(Brrrrrrringgg....saved by the bell...)
Prof: OK, students, next class.

The students start going down the stairs (and at this point, I remember getting up from my seat in the theater and screaming, ``Hey!! Bhavtosh! Yeh to Khalsa hai yaar! Yeh to mera college hai yaar!'' and applauding as soon as I saw the too-familiar chandeliar on the ground floor) and all that.
Anyway, so Shivraj is eventually framed (for the assassination of aforementioned supercop, who goes by the name of Yeshwant Sinha in the movie, and who in reality is the ultra-cool entity Om Puri - you might remember him from the Jack Nicholson starrer Wolf, where one of his lines is, ``There must be something vild vi-thin!'') and captured and tortured by the Bombay Police (in some weird abandoned warehouse, for some bizzare reason) in his white underwear (white sans a few ketchup stains which are supposed to be blood). One cop kicks him in the balls, and immediately there is an aerial shot of his face, and as he screams, the female chorus goes....``Ammmmaaaaaaaaa.....'''
I don't know how you would do it, but Shivraj escapes from prison (after adorning the statue of the Mahatma with some much-needed clothing, said clothing comprising of the Indian tricolour, which Shivraj originally uses to dodge bullets - according to this movie, *NO* true Indian Police Force officer will fire at anyone who has wrapped the tricolour around themselves), and eventually kidnaps the CM of Maharashtra (who is called Ram Manohar Joshi instead of Manohar Joshi - they didn't want to make it too obvious!!), played by the magaaan (you might remember him as husband of Seema Dev - Kakaji's mooh-boli behen - in Anand) Ramesh Dev. So, we are back to the question: how do you communicate? Here's the dialogue, at least as much as I understood and can show without switching into Kannada mode:

RD: (very poliltely) Are you a terrorist?
SK: (very controlled) No...
RD: Naxalite?
SK: (controlling, but losing it slowly) No!
RD: ISI (for those of you who don't know, that's the Pakistani Intellegence, or so they tell me)?
SK: (loses it completely!) NOOOO!!!!!! (RD is taken aback, and SK repents and starts to cry and starts to speak in a heavily accented Southie, in English followed by one sentence in Hindi)
I yam an aardinary man. Yake mamooli yinsaan! (blah blah in Kannada, explaining in metaphors how he was framed... this is a long dialogue)

RD: (after SK's outburst, still very polite, smiling now) Bete, mujhe tumhari bhasha to samajh mein nahin aayi, lekin tumhari bhasha mein jo aasha hai woh samajh mein aayi. Chalo, main tumhari madad zaroor karoonga! (which basically means: I didn't understand your language, but I understood the hope in your language - which is bullshit he just used hope because it rhymes in Hindi with language; being a politician gives you some talent at bullshit speeches, I suppose - I will definitely help you)...

See how it works? Next time YOU are in such a situation, don't forget to be calm first, then totally lose control, start crying, speak one sentence each of English and Hindi (heavily laced with a Diga accent), and then switch to your life story but in Kannada... don't forget to explain it all to someone who doesn't understand Kannada at all, preferably Ramesh Dev, or better the Chief Minister of Maharashtra.

How to build your own cheap android

So, let's say for the sake of argument that you have to build your own android (not the OS, but any humaniform robot), how would you go about such a seemingly mammoth undertaking? Well, this is how the costume designers and ``tech'' (sic) people associated with Space City Sigma (a cheesy 80s TV show on Doordarshan, many of whose episodes were ripoffs of old Star Trek episodes) went about it:

Recipe: Android
Name: Shakti

Materials required:

Human (whole, no inner or outer body parts need to be removed) - 1.
``Futuristic'' costume (viz., coloured clothes possibly resembling Indian Army uniform -- in Spandex?) - 1 set.
Oblong sticky plastic thingie - 1, about as big as human's ear.
Pencil - One (HB).
Paint - At least one shade, preferable three (primary colours preferred), small quantities of each.
Brush - At least one.
Makeup - small to large amounts, depending on episode.

Method:

Use the pencil to trace the semblance of wiring and circuitry onto the the oblong sticky plastic thingie. Paint over some of the lines using the brush and any combination of the paints. Stick sticky side of oblong sticky plastic thingie onto human's cheek, just below the right eye. Make sure thingie fits well and gives semblace of actual circuitry seen inside human's skin (I guess this rule is not so hard and fast, otherwise these people would have followed it).
After the sticky thingie seems to have dried, add some makeup on the human face. Serve lukewarm, garnished with synthesizer music.

One thing necessary for this recipe to work is that the human in question show some signs of having a half-robot body, which may or may not include what is thought of as robot behaviour - rigid body movements, an emotionless face and voice and some serious deadpan dialogue delivery. But the big shots at Doordarshan had the perfect men for the job (Shakti Singh, playing Shakti the android), and they picked the best. In fact they didn't have to work much on him to make him convincing. He already had a deadpan (what Subroto would call plywood, hence Kitply, but that is a Trademark name reserved for Girish Karnad's acting. What is the secret of V.I.Ply? The secret is Bond. Phenol Bond.) dialogue delivery, and underplayed the role majorly. His body movements were naturally rigid and unhuman, resulting in an excellent portrayal of a rudimentary android. What was the problem with Space City Sigma then, you ask? All the actors and actresses in the show shared his acting ``talents''. Speaking in robotic voices, they underplayed and sometimes included violent bursts of ham acting, the captain (Captain Tara, played by Krishnakant Sinha) had a plywood face and dialogue delivery that would force even sharks to sleep, their alien nemesis Zakhaku (engineered by the technicians by coating some human's face with a lot of shit) was more good looking than some of the men and women in the show (including the aforementioned ship captain). All this made for some very entertaining and hilarious viewing.

That concludes our cooking class for today. Before we say goodbye and go for a commercial break, LET US NOT FORGET ANOTHER MAGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN YINSAAN (who starred in many Delhi-produced TV shows and some TV movies, and now can be found floating somewhere in the backwaters of satellite TV soaps, denied his shot at the throne of Arbitdom) who was on this show: he went by the name of Earth Command, and he is the GREAT Lalit Parimoo (credited as "Lalit Parimu" on the show). You might have seen him in Himalay Darshan, another 80s TV show, and we will soon refer to one of the episodes of this show when we talk about taking care of your livestock in the 21st century. Right now, let's take a break from Hindi stuff (don't want people to complain that I *only played Hindi and English music on the excursion*, you know what I mean? Or DO you?), and visit the South. Our next lesson is about bridging the gap between the North and the South.

Update, 12/09/2011: Found this link. Thank you very much for the screenshots! For one thing, Shakti doesn't look as terrible as he did in my imagination! ZakhaKoo still looks like a piece of shit, though.

The art of tactfully changing the subject: A lesson in diplomacy

Tired of people asking you uncomfortable questions? Worried that answering these questions will affect your relationship with them? Well, here's some advice that might help: switch subjects. If done tactfully, it actually works. Either that, or you can tell them on their face that you are uncomfortable about answering the question. I guess that works sometimes....
But if you are still interested, let's go into the first piece of advice. Changing the topic. Let me give you the best example I know of.
The movie: Namak Haraam, a classic film from the '70s just before (or maybe during) the era of Unemployment Films. Why "classic"? Thanks to two magaan yinsaans. No, not Amitabh. Not Rekha. Rajesh Khanna? Oh hell no.
Story in brief: Class war comes between two close friends (jigri dost), one an industrialist's son and the other a son of the streets (if you can ever imagine Kakaji in a convincing role as the son of the streets, without that toothbrush moustache he had in Aaj Ka MLA Raam Avtar!). The motto of these movies was "the good guy is the dead guy", so the good guy was always Rajesh Khanna, developing Lymphosarcoma of the taint. Side effects may include perpetual 4 o'clock shadow, shawl overgrowth and the tendency to stay annoyingly cheery. I'm talking about movies like Anand, Amar Prem (well he didn't die in it, but he was in love with Sharmila Tagore, which is just as bad), Aaradhana, Safar (as Subroto quoted Javed Jaffrey, ``Kakaji Safared so much in that movie...''). But Namak Haraam is different because (like Anand) it had Amitabh Bachchan, and (unlike Anand) he didn't have anything to do with Bengalis. And it also had this great scene that I'm gonna talk about.
The industrialist father orders his men to beat up Somu (Kakaji's character), because the latter has been screaming Union/Strike from the tallest tree. The deed is done, but the son (Amitabh Kya-Yeh-Aapka-Final-Answer-Hai Bachchan) finds out. He's mad at the dad, and if you are a dad, you don't want your son (especially if he's the Big B) to be mad at his dad. The father is played by a magaaaaaaaan yinsaan (literally, I guess, it would translate to great human, but that's not it at all!) - Om Shiv Puri. My brother and I refer to him as Genda Murgi (Genda - Rhino, Murgi - Chicken), and if you have seen him, you will know why. Anyway, so he's in the old office, which is dominated by this huge model ship (jahaaz) protected by a glass case.
Amitabh (aptly named Vicky, since he's the stereotypical Hindi movie rich kid) walks in, angry (yeah weren't those the days he was called the - suppress laughter - Angry Young Man?) at what his dad has done, and demands to know why his friend Somu was beaten up.... What would you do in such a situation? Well, here's what OSP does: calmly and very thoughtfully strokes the glass case, and says in a very intimate voice, ``Dekho yeh jahaaaaaaaaaz'' (See this ship)... and in that soft voice, continues to inform AB that the ship is a gift from Indonesia, constructed entirely of cloves.
Amitabh repeats his question.
OSP asks his son to look at the ship (dekho bete, yeh jahaaz) again, this time including the fact that the ship, the clove-sailors, the ropes, the oars involve delicate craftsmanship.
At this point, it would have been apt if, without waiting to ask Om Shiv Puri, ``Is that your final answer?'', Amitabh had bashed the glass case and the ship into tiny bite-sized pieces of clove, ready for inclusion in garam masala. We are, however, denied the spice-raising pleasure.
As I said, a lot of tact is required if you are trying to change the topic. OSP seemed not to have it in him, but don't let that tiny detail bother you. Your son ain't gonna be another Amitabh, right. So, go ahead, anytime you are in a situation where anyone asks you an uncomfortable question, reply with ``Dekho, bete, yeh jahaaaaaaz..'' We do. That was our mantra in the late '90s. It's also the name of this blog, in case you haven't noticed.
Not convinced it will work? Oh well. Can't say I didn't try. In that case, you can always go for the second technique. This method was employed quite efficiently by Naseeruddin Shah's character in Maalamaal, the Bollywood version of Brewster's Millions. What would you do if you were given thirty days to spend Rs. 30 crore, but were required to keep the reason for the expenditure (viz., you inherit ten times as much which you will immediately use to build a whole housing colony for your jhopadpatti friends) a secret from your best friends - and, cleverly including, any girl that might at the end of the film become your girlfriend? Here's what Naseeruddin Shah does. He spends the money as best as he can. Satish Shah and Poonam Dhillon (his friend and his soon to be girlfriend, in that order) keep asking him why the hell he's bent upon wasting his new-found wealth away.
Our friend Naseeruddin (who, in a movie two years prior to Maalamaal, immortalized his irritation over his crippled hand with the words - yeh haath!) doesn't use the dekho bete, yeh jahaaaaz routine. Instead, he simply and frankly tells the questioning friend and soon to be girlfriend that he will not feel comfortable discussing it with them, and all this with just one word: ``Pardaaaaaaa!'' (curtain)...
So go ahead, knock yourself out. Now you know how to deal with people (this from a person who feels really comfortable listening to robotic voices telling him what button to press, and visits online stores instead of having to deal with people and smiles and Hellos and Have A Good Days).
Our next lesson will be on how to build a cheap android.