Arz Hain
I want to be a Kisaan – have me own Mango Farm. Because, Mango is King of Fruit, and my favorite fruit. It would make me money – especially in this current environment. If I play it smart. I would be rich. And more importantly, eating Mangoes would make me more creative, apparently. Mirza Ghalib. He liked Mangoes. Apparently, he has tasted over 400 varieties of Mangoes! I only know of two mango varieties – Alphonso & Kesar. And you all know how creative Mirza Ghalib was. But some people say that was due to him having a depressing life. I like to believe it was Mangoes.
Creative Mind. You either have it or you don’t have it. I believe I <strike>have</strike> had that. I feel I recently have lost the creativeness in me life. Cos I did not school it. A plant needs nutrient, water, C02, soil & space, etc; needs to be in the right environment. And I stayed too ignorant cos I did not want to learn. I like knowing/learning about new subjects. But that’s about it – the interest don’t last for too long. I am not disciplined enough – you have to be disciplined in any field to be successful.
I tried to getting into a habit of writing a blog entry per week but I found that too exhausting and did not have any intellectual thoughts. I cannot keep writing crap all the time – there is a limit for that. And cannot fall back on writing something on music all the time. I want to slightly tax me mind, for a change. Write about writing. How it has changed in Bollywood over the decades? The way I see it. A gawaar view.
Dialogue Writers. ScreenPlay/Script Writers. Whenever I saw those two titles together in opening credits of a film, it always confused me. Why do you need two different people? I thought script consists dialogues, no? There isn’t much confusing about it, though. A Desi Angrezi writes a script in English but since the film is in Hindi, so he or she requires a Hidi/Urdu dialogue writer. So who is the real writer – the guy who writes the script or the dialogue writer? What makes a film – ‘Te fillum – a script or dialogues? You can be trained how to write a script – it’s just a bit technical and a bit of conversation – no? – but dialogues – you cannot be taught that, can ya? You’re either talented or grafter or copycat.
You can write a good script by doing all the constructive research but to write quality one-liners/dialogues? The dialogue writers have to be well read, smart, know many languages from insides out.. and keep up with the language. Have always wondered how can Javedsaab and Gulzarsaab keep writing so many lyrics in different dialects? How the hell do they know about this? Is it researched? To some extent. What about rest?
Recently Tony wrote an article on Masala Films of 70s and why today’s Masala Films cannot match that. I did not follow the discussion, though. So excuses me If I repeat some of it here. Those Masala Films were great because of the dialogues – not the script – or the execution. A Masala film would at least have one memorable dialogue which would stick with you – and the audience looked for those dialogues/one liners. Apparently, in ol’ days they had a dialogue writer on the set writing dialogues for the scene which was to be shot. Now that is tough. Where as today’s Masala Films are probably based on scripts rather than dialogues hence they flop. Om Shanti Om. Hated the film. But it had one good scene/dialouge – Picture Abhi Aadhi Baaki Hain. And well, that’s what made the film – ‘te fillum, in my opinion. Same with “Mein Hoon Na”.
There are less dialogues and more straight out of life conversations, in today’s Hindi Films. In realism sort of film, that is good, you don’t want to hear over the top dialogues. But in fictional and Masala films.. top quality dialogues is a must.
Anyway, I shall cultivate mango trees – work only when necessary – and rest of the time – eat mangoes to improve my creative cells – listen to Mirza Ghalib, Kabir, Bulleh Shah, & Rabbi Shergill and become the next… King! Saint!
Veh Pind Ek Aam
Asan Mattan Sachian ‘te
Thalle Aam Utte Aam
Jithey Honhaar ‘Te Qalaam
(I speak no old skool Punjabi – nor am god gifted. Was just listening to Rabbi’s latest album, so the words have sorta stuck in me mind. )
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
without practice a sportsman loses his form…
without practice a writer loses his command…
a photographer clicks 100 photos nd later selects only 5-6 which luk gud
do…do…do…do…do…do…do…do…do…do…do
is the only method…
my known writer also says this
Could you please change all your “hain”s to “hai”s? Repeat after me “arz hai” 50 times. When you are done, repeat “picture abhi baaki hai” 52 times.
pfc site shd invite few guest authors who ll give language tution 2 all…nd they ll check grammar…spellings…etc…
their blogs ll not b on cinema … but lingustic blogs…
erm, I ain’t no Hijda. So I’ll stick with Hain. Besides, there ain’t no correct way to write Hindi words in English Phonetics. Sum-jeh?
If you don’t understand the difference in hai and haay then I probably need to take my suggestion back. You need to start in an earlier class.
You are right, there’s no correct way to write Hindi words in Roman characters, but there are certainly some wrong ways. And writing hai as hain (and vice versa) is one of those.
I can live with the mistakes because I understand that they are not made by a native speaker. But more than the mistakes themselves, it is your attitude to not acknowledge them or care about correcting yourself that I find troubling. I am sure you wouldn’t show such deterrence if you wrote ‘I were saying’ and somebody corrected you on that.
I also get the point that it is not a linguistic board, but we are still using language to put our thoughts across. A little clarity and less annoyance-inducing usage in your language will only make me listen more attentively and understand your better.
@Humhain–since Hindi isn’t my first language, I always get confused with hai versus hain. Could you explain if there is a rule for when to use which word? Thanks!
Amanda ‘hai’ is pronounced as ‘haaye’ and is commonly used by eunuchs and they are identified with this particular word. ‘Hain’, on the other hand is pronounced as ‘hae’. If you say ‘Amanda is here’ in Hindi, it will be ‘Amanda yahaan hain’('yahaan’ means ‘here’ and ‘hain’ is an affirmative expression). I hope I have expressed it correctly. The worry is its a case of a Bengali teaching Hindi to someone.
Oops Nirad I don’t think that is correct.
Hum Hain, can you tell me the difference between “Hai” and “Hain”? An explanation would help.. rather than…. And what is the equivalent of “O My God” in Hindi?
Hain would usually be used for plural/to show rasspactt in Hindi, while Hai for singular.
my do kaudis (2 cents)…
hai … is (in english)… so 4 singular use or wen used 4 infromal way
ek gunda wahan khada hai…
hain… are or in formal or in respected ways nd in plural
do ladke wahan khade hain..two boys r standing there…
rani aa rahi hai.. rani is cuming
raja saab aa rahe hain… king is cuming…
arz kiya hai…is right
arz kiya hain is wrong…
hijdo wala hai is hai hai or sound like haay haay…
hain (haayen) is used by big b in many films nd made popular by rakhi sawant wen she praised it on kwk…
See that makes sense.. But…
In English what is the difference between “Hai” and “Hain” apart from the spelling? Now is it possibilty that ‘n’ could be a silent letter in the word? If in Hindi (Devengari Srcipt), I had missed out the bindi or kana or whatever, then I would have deserved a red cross mark over the word.
Also, if that doesn’t convince you, then how do Goonda speak?
Or, yes, I have misspelt a Hindi word in English and I should correct the words. But I won’t. Thanks.
OR Numerological reason behind.. using ‘Hain’!
Do Hindi Dialogue writer think about this when they write it in English Roman Script? Just imagine if it was a live act.. someone read out a few hindi words incorrectly.. which sounded like swear words..
PS: Comment four was a joke. And I cannot edit the post now cos then this discussion would seem a bit odd. So I will let it be. And I get what you all mean but do you? :-D
@ Goonda –
‘n’ is not a silent letter on the word. There is no linguistic basis for that in hindi/punjabi or in the transliteration of the same using Roman script.
As for missing a bindi in hindi, if you did it by accident, or without knowing the difference, that is fine, and you can correct it. If you do it out of some stubborn “I like it this way” attitude, that is a problem.
“Also, if that doesn’t convince you, then how do Goonda speak? Or, yes, I have misspelt a Hindi word in English and I should correct the words. But I won’t. Thanks.”
Why the stubborn refusal to correct yourself? And Humhain was polite and sincere about it.
@ krishn –
good discourse on hai/hain/haay/haayen
@Nirad, Santosh & Krishn–thanks! i’m less confused about hai versus hain now :-)
I don’t want to correct the post cos the discussion will look odd; it is still odd though. I am not stubborn. Everything is odd. I have corrected myself. I like being corrected. I accept the mistake.
And I don’t think HumHain had explained his reasons behind ‘Hai’ and ‘Hain’ in his original post (I could not find the connection between his name “HumHain” and his reply); it came across as a cocky comment, so I replied with a funny comment, which people did not find it funny. Then, I stayed in that mood of replying..
Anyway, I understand the reasons. You missed the PS bit.
My bad.
@ goonda –
my misunderstanding. mistake went wrong.
This reminds me of a post by Neeraja (or was it a comment to a post) where she felt strongly about the wrong usage of Hindi in Hindi films. Same goes for writing as well (even if one is writing Hindi in Roman script)….