Bambaiya Hindi ne language ki vaat lagaa daali

Two Mumbaikars debated the issue of Indian languages at the ongoing Kala Ghoda Arts Festival. But while Gujarati author Dr Dilip Jhaveri wants to preserve old languages, script-writer and actor Atul Tiwari insists, a language must modify is it wants to survive. Anjana Vaswani brings you a face-off

Hindi film star Anil Kapoor became synonymous with tapori roles after playing a boorish slum-boy in Yash Chopra's Mashaal, where his dialogues were peppered with Bambaiya Hindi. "Jhakaas!" (superb) turned into his favourite on-screen exclamation.

Writer-actor Atul Tiwari arrived in Mumbai, like so many do, with dreams of making it in the Hindi film industry. That was at the risk of sounding like something out of a time-worn Hindi plot twenty years ago. At the time, he had completed his schooling between Delhi and Germany, and worked in German theatre. His very first assignment in Mumbai, was to write a script for Sudhir Mishra. "I wrote it for the 1987 Naseeruddin Shah-Pankaj Kapur movie, Yeh Woh Manzil To Nahin," he says, proud to have worked with the same director on much-acclaimed Dharavi in 1991.

Mumbai IS India

Tracing his Mumbai connection back to projects he worked on years ago, Tiwari shares that you can't get a more Mumbai-centric film than Dharavi, or even Chot, directed by Nabh Kumar Raju in 2004.u00a0 The city's special brand of Hindi, now called Bambaiya, has gained pre-eminence thanks to its usage in Hindi films, he says.

"Bambaiya Hindi was first used in the 1960s Khwaja Ahmad Abbas film, Sheher Aur Sapna. The dialect is often used to create authenticity in a Bombay-based film. In every part of the world, there are cities that capture the imagination of the masses. That's why so many films revolve around New York. So, also with Bombay."

Brands of Bambaiya

But it's only a handful of films that've captured true Bambaiya Hindi. There are several varieties of Bombay Hindi, Tiwari says, dubbing filmmaker Syed Mirza "the best chronicler of Mumbai". "Mirza delineates the distinction between a Salim Langda's version of Bambaiya Hindi, and an Albert Pinto's version." And while he applauds director Ram Gopal Varma's desire to employ the city's unique language as a means to construct an authentic picture of Mumbai in Rangeela and Satya, he says, "most Indian films stick to a Lalbaug-Marathi version of Bambaiya Hindi without exploring its variants."

Will Bambaiya phase out?

Tiwari explains what he calls "the pizza effect". In Italy, pizzas were not appreciated by the locals until they were adopted by American food chain, Pizza Hut and thereafter re-introduced in Italy, this time complete with the lure of blue-jeans and cola. "Certain individuals inspire the imagination of a society their language and culture becomes attractive. That's why Indians everywhere enjoy dancing to Shava-Shava, and why a Hindi movie is titled, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. Punjabi culture dominates Indian cinema today, because we are enamoured by the Punjabi success story. Punjabi refugees migrated here, struggled and emerged victorious. Similarly, the Mafia is romanticised, because at one time, politicians and film stars paid homage to the underworld. When people are charmed by a group, everything associated with that group, captures their interest." As far as threat to the language goes, Tiwari is clear that Hindi may be at risk thanks to those who insist it remain unadulterated, but Bambaiya Hindi is multi-faceted, evolving. "It's sure to stand the test of time."

Though Gujarati author and poet Dr Dilip Jhaveri grew up in Mumbai and went to a Gujarati school, before enrolling at St Xavier's College, he studied Marathi, Hindi, English and Sanskrit as a child. It's hardly surprising then that he wishes parents would encourage kids to explore more than two languages.

"Several many Indian languages are marginalised; some like Sindhi and North-Eastern dialects are fading into oblivion," Jhaveri says, grateful for the Central government's efforts to promote these. "The Sahitya Academy gets writing by lesser-read, vernacular authors translated, and it ends up encouraging literary-cultural activities and exhibitions around India," he points out.

The need for preservation

Jhaveri believes language is a means to establish identity, making it important for certain languages to be preserved. "People preserve their identity, collectively, in various ways. In rural areas, folk tales are a means of passing down language, orally.u00a0 Here, regional languages are kept alive through performance art like the Tamasha and Dashavtar." Jhaveri is confident that the trend can be reversed by effecting changes in the education system.u00a0
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Conceding that, often, too much emphasis on a group's identity can prove counterproductive, even divisive, it's the human race that could benefit from following nature's laws, he stresses. "In nature, different species find the means to divide their resources, and yet co-exist in harmony. Humans must learn from them, and retain our multi-cultural legacy, our unique codes,u00a0 just like every natural species maintains its own unique genetic coding."

Never too late to learn

Are there any Indian languages that Jhaveri wishes to master? Heu00a0 hopes to study Malayalam or Tamil, since Indian mythological tales were interpreted by translators of these languages, in the course of which they may have been modified and re-modified. "Certain liberties may have been taken with the stories, and I'd love to be able to read the original works and interpret them myself, some day."