As much as I love Bollywood and the genre’s dance sequences, it is definitely important to recognize that Indian cinema encompasses more than just mainsteream Bollywood film. Not only is arthouse cinema on the up-and-up, but regional language film has always been a strong contributor to the entertaining of the masses. So, it is with great pleasure (thanks flats) that I present to you one of the coolest examples of a brownsploitation-film dance sequence EVER. It’s from a Tamil film entitled “Ellam Inba Mayam” (1981) and the song is Solla Solla Enna Perumai. Enjoy.
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Dolomite, eat your heart out. Can any of our Tamil speaking readers tell us what the song is about?
Hey Kush how about Simran. She shows up quite a bit in Tollywood. Isn’t she Punjabi?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilayaraaja
razib, you clown, I was just going to post a link to that song. Telugus need to be represented here too in case they get too uppity. Now I’m going to look for Bengali specimen.
here it is anyway
Poor sridevi must have bruises from all that shoulder nudging.
shiloh, do you like neil diamond?
please put together venn diagram which shows the intersection of actor/esses across regional and bollywood film industries.
I will, and will start with Satyajit Ray and his alum.
Yesudas (for all who do not know him)who sang for the movies “Anand Mahal” and “Chitchor” was allegedly driven out of bolly wood because one famous singer was threatened….guess who
uh, i was joking 🙂 but soundz interesting.
ponniyin selvan,
I hope it’s not to me you are referring to when you say some people are being sensitive : )
My point is that some “South Indian words” should not be that alien. What does one make of the fact that someone claims to understand “megh” and “kaal” but who might (he hasn’t btw) claim “megahmu” and “kaalamu” sound utterly alien. To pick a random example from Gautam’s post take “mouna raagam”, most desis would know what that means, where ever they might be from but if some one claims that they find it utterly alien, it might lead me to make some conjectures, perhaps unfairly : )
Razib bengali
Do you like bing crosby?
Tef,
I believe 80+ percent of Malyalam words (credit the Namboodiri Brahmins) and over 60 percent of Kannada words owe their origins to Skt., despite the Dravidian grammatical structure.
shiloh, heez ok.
re: word count, i find the high % of sansrkit words plausible, but please note that overall % doesn’t necessarily translate into everyday speech. e.g., the percenage of latin and greek origin words in english is very high, but the “core” words used in most everyday speech tend to be germanic (though if you “latinize” everyday speech with french imported variants it sounds a lot “classier” all of a sudden).
tef,
here’s a video that is bengali but could easily be telugu too. Not ‘alien’ at all!
Bengali Babu
Brown Chaplin and Dappankuthu? Is he singing about coca cola? A leftist anti-coke propaganga?
Hey Kush how about Simran. She shows up quite a bit in Tollywood. Isn’t she Punjabi?
Yes. Let’s take an example of Mr. and Mrs. Iyer. A film made by Aparna Sen (a Satyajit Ray alum, and a Bengali actress who acted in Bengali, Hindi and English movies) in English about a beautiful love story between a Tamil Brahmin and a Muslim.
Who plays the Tamil Brahmin to a T – Konkona Sen Sharma, real life daughter of Aparna Sen and granddaughter of Chindananda Dasgupta.
As a pseudo-Indian, I think Razib’s ‘alien’ analogy is in poor taste, given the systemic colonization, subjugation, and exploitation of traditional, matriarchal, egalitarian Native Indian culture over thousands of years by chauvanist, heirarchal, ‘enthnolinguistic aliens’ to the north. Native Indian languages are more than just highly sophisticated methods of communication, they allow the imprinting of the aforementioned traditional values upon their speakers ultimately leading to a more livable society. Tamil has 17 words for Peace.
rasudha,
the bengali link was wicked.. still crying
superbrown, straight or fake, wow, you rok!
while Hindi audiences seem to prefer super-lightskinned demigods that live in place like London, Sydney and Switzerland. I’m not saying either is superior, and I think it is pretty ironic for people in here to suggest otherwise
Gautham – I love Tamil movies, but the preference for super-light skinned people in movies isnÂ’t a purely North Indian thing. In Tamil movies the male leads are usually pretty representative of the general populace, but the women leads are generally super light-skinned. Someone brought up the fact that Simran and Manisha are both not South Indian, there seems to be a lot of North Indian women in Tamil movies because of the fairer skin aspect.
I havenÂ’t seen many Hindi movies, but from what I’ve been told the older ones are definitely better, which in my opinion is the same with Tamil movies. Older movies by K. Balachander, Bharathiraja and the like were amazing.
though my first thought on a quick read through was, “what have kanadians done to native americans?”
razib,
You are right having a high pecentage sanskrit words in a language does not necessarily mean that they are used in everyday language. But in Telugu the sanskrit words are used quite extensively, not just in literature, or high culture spheres, but in everyday conversation. Although I can’t prove it, most people who are bilingual (Telugu & Hindi) don’t find Sanskritized Telugu odd, it’s so deeply ingrained that it does not seem alien, but Hindi, the official version anyways seems artificial.
I recall reading somewhere that there are no Telugu origin words for “north” and “south” it seems implausible, but I guess it is true. The words used are uttara and dakshina both sanskrit, very indicative of sanskrit’s influence.
rasudha,
WTF was that?! : ) And it sounds completely “alien” so I guess there goes my theory. Wait I heard “Bangladesh” – land of the Bengalis. My theory still holds.
You are right having a high pecentage sanskrit words in a language does not necessarily mean that they are used in everyday language. But in Telugu the sanskrit words are used quite extensively, not just in literature, or high culture spheres, but in everyday conversation. Although I can’t prove it, most people who are bilingual (Telugu & Hindi) don’t find Sanskritized Telugu odd, it’s so deeply ingrained that it does not seem alien, but Hindi, the official version anyways seems artificial.
my understanding is that telugu is more like north indian languages than the other southern ones. in fact, the telugu speaking individuals that my family socialized with refused to consider it a dravidian language (OK, straight up, they lectured my father when he opined that he thought it was a dravidian language). where you draw the boundaries between languages can be artificial, and there is a distortion introduced by the more distinctive nature of “high” or literate languages. but for whatever reason, i do personally feel there is a discontinuity between hindu and telugu in relation to their distance from bengali.
wantok,
Female leads from the north are usually just glamour dolls who dont have a meaty role. The tamil movies that require female “actresses” usually go for Tamil or Malayali actresses. Eg Meera Jasmine, Sneha, Gopika, Asin, Sandhya, Sangeetha etc. Jyothika , Laila and Simran(from north) took a while to graduate from the glamour roles. Tamils dont spend any effort to support/develop tamil heroines and when necessary poach from the neighboring malayali industry. It really sucks not to able to see a role model who looks like you. I mean unlike the males you almost never see a heroine who is the same color or culture as you. As if the whole race of us is unworthy. Good thing we don’t depend on the film industry for self-esteem.
of course, my ascertainment could be cross-referenced with the perception of someone who speaks hindi, gujarati or punjabi: are bengali and south indian languages equally opaque in terms of intelligibility?
razib,
Telugu people are language snobs. The ones in Andra at least. I’m a telugu and grew up in Tamil Nadu speaking both languages, so I know. Telugus dont bother to learn etymology, grammer etc from other dravidian languages and because they use many sanskrit words, they think they are different.
Tamil Paruppu is Telugu Pappu Tamil Vandi is Telugu Bandi Tamil Ulunthu is Telugu Uddu
I can go on and on and on…
What people of south need to understand is that ‘Tamil’ as the ancester language is not the tamil spoken today. It is Senthamizh. Tamil is as far from Senthamizh as Telugu is. But Southern languages are all derived from Senthamizh. Use of sanskrit words in current telugu is similar to their use of persian. eg. Ee Rozu-this day
There were a whole slew of “disco” in Tamil movies in the 70s. I don’t think they were parodying anything, they probably thought this was too cool for words. Is there anyone here who remembers Rajnikanth singing “I can kiss you bithout tecching you?” He became my god after that – kissing but bithout tecching!!
As if the whole race of us is unworthy. Good thing we don’t depend on the film industry for self-esteem.
When in doubt, think of SriDevi, Aishwaryia Rai, Vijanthimala – All are Tamil actresses that loomed large on India.
Filmmaking is a business – the directors and producers pick their safest bets within their budget. I do not think they sit down and think about role models etc. – they will loose money and be on the street.
Aishwaryia Rai
ain’t she from the tulu community?
grammar nazi! but wicked comment nonetheless, communis rixatrixareforkids 🙂
Not that i know any of those languages, but hey I’m a male bong and feel comfortable interjecting on any conversation that mentions my peeps regardless of whether it makes sense for me to do so–i think north subcontinental languages are much easier to pick up some sense of than south indian languages. When i hear my friends speeking malayalam, i can’t undersatnd a damn thing. When i hear my friends speak in hindi, i tend to undersatnd one or two damn things When I hear gujarati, it’s somewhere in the middle (kem cho? :).
Though this has to do with exposure too–how much more hindi do we hear in this indocentric paradise called the 2nd gen diaspora? I think Gautam’s comment illustrated this well: ” It seems like there is a slightly condescending view of Tamil cinema from the Bollywood fans in here.”
And now back to our regularly scheduled verbo-theoretical artillery fire…
s-man, you are being hegemonic on the “South” as you call it.
Razib:
No. As someone who can speak Hindi, I can attest that spoken Bengali is MUCH closer to colloquial Hindi (not artificial Sanskritised Hindi which I hate) than Telugu is. Bengali and Hindi share a similar basic grammar, and both are Indo-Aryan languages. Even if you take Sanskrit words out of the picture completely, Hindi and Bengali share the same substrate…most of the core words, and even the pronouns, etc. are related. Bengali and Hindi are related like French and Italian. Telugu, which has an enormous amount of Sanskrit borrowings/loanwords superimposed on a Dravidian base, is (in relation to Bengali/Hindi) more like English to French…because superficially English and French seem very similar (due to many Latin-derived words in both) but structurally they are very different, belonging to two different families. Even that’s not a perfect analogy since English and French are both still Indo-European whereas Telugu belongs to a completely different family. However, interestingly, if you compare Marathi (Indo-Aryan language) with it’s neighbor Kannada (Dravidian language), the two have become close to each other in rhythm, intonation, speech patterns, even some vocabulary, due to centuries of close proximity.
When in doubt, think of SriDevi, Aishwaryia Rai, Vijanthimala – All are Tamil actresses that loomed large on India.
Aishwarya Rai is not Tamil. I am not sure about Vyjayanthimala, but I thought she was from Karnataka.
ain’t she from the tulu community?
She is Kanada. But the other two – Sridevi, Vijanthimala are definitely Tamil.
However, Ms. Rai started her film career in Tamil with no other than Mani Ratnam.
The point is the filmmakers are not sitting with “equal opportunity” forms or belong to “some exclusive clubs” that they will only act in Satyajit films – as if they are some separate strands.
Sharmilla Tagore was doing “ja ja” in swimsuit with Shammi Kapoor in “An Evening in Paris”. Same woman who acted in Devi – one of Ray’s seminal work.
grammar nazi! but wicked comment nonetheless, communis rixatrixareforkids 🙂
Not that i know any of those languages, but hey I’m a male bong and feel comfortable interjecting on any conversation that mentions my peeps regardless of whether it makes sense for me to do so–i think north subcontinental languages are much easier to pick up some sense of than south indian languages. When i hear my friends speeking malayalam, i can’t undersatnd a damn thing. When i hear my friends speak in hindi, i tend to undersatnd one or two damn things When I hear gujarati, it’s somewhere in the middle (kem cho? :).
Though this has to do with exposure too–how much more hindi do we hear in this indocentric paradise called the 2nd gen diaspora? I think Gautam’s comment illustrated this well: ” It seems like there is a slightly condescending view of Tamil cinema from the Bollywood fans in here.”
And now back to our regularly scheduled verbo-theoretical artillery fire…
amitabh,
interestingly i have used the romance language analogy before. if bengali is french, gujarati, punjabi and hindu can be thought of as italian, catalan spanish. not there here is a particular correspondence between languages and their analogs, but i think the relationship holds in that bengali is an outgroup, though a recognizably related one.
Sollu Sollu Enna Perumai – Say, Say, My Pride?
I think the song translates to something like “Bol bolke kya garv”. I am not exactly sure what the context is, but I believe it would translate to something like “What sort of pride is it that requires you to talk about it?” I may well be wrong.
What I like about Tamil movies is a sense of identity that is consistently based on a very specific cultural identity. I love Bollywood too, but I think that Bollywood, on the other hand, is based on a pan-Indian identity that does not ‘naturally occur’.
Razib:
Hindi and Punjabi are probably like Spanish and Portuguese i.e very close. Bengali and Gujarati are probably equally divergent from Hindi, I don’t know if Bengali would be the outlier. The Bihari dialects (Bhojpuri, Maithili, Magadhi) are transitional between Hindi and Bengali, and the Rajasthani dialects (Marwari, etc) are transitional between Hindi and Gujarati.
The point is the filmmakers are not sitting with “equal opportunity” forms or belong to “some exclusive clubs” that they will only act in Satyajit films – as if they are some separate strands.
Well said, Kush. The Bollywood industry is not equal opportunity-based, and that has to do with the structure of the industry. It is not very well organized. Organizationally, they are more like startups than like movie studios. It is hard, therefore, to adopt industry-wide “equal opportunity” standards.
Sindhi is a fascinating language…although it blends into Punjabi via the Siraiki dialect and blends into Gujarati via the Kutchi dialect, Sindhi is very distinct, and probably a real outlier.
Sorry folks, post #145 has nothing to do with this thread. I got carried away (again). Moderators feel free to delete.
Tangent alert!
Does she have any European ancestry like Karan Kapoor?
I’m sure this has been debated here before, but as far as looks go She is as representative of Indian women as I’m of Samoans.
a friend told me she is from mangalore where european sailors have long made a port of call. i am skeptical, i think her look is probably just part of the extant variation with the gene pool of 1 billion people.
anantha : As far as cinema is concerned, it is all about the way things are dealt with. I typically find Bollywood movies more escapist, while movies down south are generally more grounded in reality. Again this could be more related to the socio-economic climate prevailing in the area. Down south equality has been the catch phrase since the 60s. So Sanjay Rawat would jump out from a Sikorsky clad in black Versace and run to the puja room (hair flowing in the breeze and tun tun tun tun music playing the background) in his millionaire father Yashwardhan Rawat’s 25 room Victorian manor to fall at his mom’s feet.
But down south, Saravana Kumar might get down from Route 29C and walk to his own second floor, two bedroom apartment where his retired (with pension) father and housewife mother are waiting with the day’s news.
Again this is my perception of things. I quite agree. This sounds like a typical sort of scene from Bollywood and Tamil movies resp.ly. Most regional language movies are based on the cultural identity of the specific state to which the regional language movie belongs. I think it is only Bollywood that is the exception in that it is pan-Indian.
rasudha,
Telugu, I think is not derived from senthamizh, I think it is derived from some proto-Dravidian language. Telugu falls in the south-central branch and Tamil, Kannada & Malayalam in the southern branch.
And I thought Tamilians were the language snobs : ) “Tamil is a classical language” “everything thing southern is derived from tamil”
razib,
Amitabh’s informed response pretty much covers it. Yes, there was once (in the 1850s) reluctance by Telugu scholars to acknowledge that Telugu syntax is Dravidian. That sort of “truthiness” has far a large part disappeared. Amitabh’s English/French analogy is very apt. Although I must add it is universally acknowledged that Telugu is the Italian of the East!
Navratan Kurma :
I’m sure this has been debated here before, but as far as looks go. She is as representative of Indian women as I’m of Samoans I think that is true of actresses, in general. Angelina Jolie also is a lot less representative of America women. I do agree that Hollywood is more diverse, both ethnically and in terms of what is considered good looking.
But one thing for Ash, the characters she plays are undoubtedly Indian. She may not be a great talent, but at least, she is somewhat credible.
ash has a round face.
Aishwaryia Rai
ain’t she from the tulu community?
She is from the Bunt community. More info on the Bunts here : http://www.boloji.com/places/0022.htm
duznt change her roundy face.
Gotta run somewhere, but I want to back up rasudha #131 and agree with Amitabh #137.
Malayalam (~Tamizh + Sanskritam) has hazaaar more Sanskritam words than Telugu, but Mallus don’t quite try to distance themselves from Tamizh/l as much as Telugus do (as Rasudha pointed out). But this perhaps has to do with the reasons that Amitabh pointed out.
tef,
No, I was making a general observation.. We tend to stereotype people if we don’t have enough knowledge about their language/food habits/culture/etc…. And unfortunately for such a diverse country like India, we have very poor knowledge about people from other regions/states.. I bet very few in this forum know there is a language called “Ao” and it is a major language spoken in one of the Indian states 🙂
I think our (I mean the Indian) education system needs to be tuned so that we learn more about each other. If we are not educated, information comes from movies/stories etc.. where you get the stereotyped “madrasis” that does not convey much..
Mostly neighbouring states/regions have overlaps in language / food / culture and as the distance increases differences increase..
india is geographically and demographically equivalent to all of course. why should confusion and misunderstanding surprise? the key is not to mistake regional realities as universal ones. those of us born and raised in the USA tend to fall into this trap a lot since we are archetypical browns to the rest of society, so our own regional folkways become conflated in our minds with brown normative behavior and customs.