I don't think it's brownsploitation as much as Kamal Haasan (the hero) in disguise as a very cool late 70s - early 80s disco star infiltrating the bad guy's den to vanquish him with the help of his yellow-clad female relief.

This video was forwarded to me a week ago by a white American friend who was suffering from a bout of cultural confusion after watching it. She couldn't understand what the choreographed sequence was for. Naturally, I gave her the explanation that all South Asians are born mind-readers and telekinetics. This is why when a brown boy meets a brown girl in, say, Delhi, they instantly fall into step and are able to anticipate each other's every move in a dance set in Paris or Aruba.

Sollu Sollu Enna Perumai - Say, Say, My Pride?

That's Kamal Hasan, gulp!

Meaning: Solla Solla enna perumai-I feel proud saying it!

This is supposed to be a parody - right?

Am I the only one who noticed a SNOW WHITE poster in the background??

This is supposed to be a parody - right?

Gargi--I think this is the real deal and not a parody.

ANNA: The Snow White poster was one of the first things I noticed when I stopped concentrating on trying to pick up the dance-steps. I think I am going to break out some of them the next time I'm out.

that was so bizarre it beggars the imagination.

p.s. i still think south indians are aliens with indian accents :)

re: the alien comment, i don't want to start a flamewar, so i will clarify: when i hear hindi music or people chattering in gujarati or punjabi, if i strain i can pick up a lot of what they are saying since it isn't that different from bengali. when i hear tamil or malayalam, it sounds like i should understand it (the accent), but when i listen closely it remains utterly incomprehensible (the linguistic reasons are well known obviously). i understand why this is happening rationally, but it always weirds me out :)

Dude moves like David Brent. Beyond awesome. And the cigar smoking cat in the suit is none other than Sir Vidia, I'm sure of it.

Wicked good.

And we think of Bangladeshis who find Nicole Kidman more attractive than Kareena Kapoor as alien life forms :)
By the way, here's the translation:
Kill Whitey.
Kill Whitey.
Whitey be dead.
Kill Whitey

This song is a typical one (luckily not seen these days) sung by the hero in villain's den. The hero is in disguise, he has a different hairstyle.. :-) .

While searching for info. about this song, I found a comment

Coming to IR's song, name any genere of music and he's got songs in it. From classic to Rock, to R&B to Rock and Roll. Although his forte is Fusion, if he decides to give a pure classical or western classical music, he sticks to it in an absolute profound manner. Have any one listened to his "Solla solla" from Ellam Inbamayam(1981). His use of chorus for orchestration in that song is mind boggling. Thats pure Rock and Roll. Listen to Niram Piruthu from Time, thats pure WCM. For fusion , take "Andhi Mazhai" from Raja Paarvai. Another interesting fustion would be of "Megam Karukkayile" from Vaithegi kaathirunthal. Its interesting to note that the guitar accompanying the song is actually Western in its inception but the vocals are folksy. Coming back to the original topic, Come back ilayaraja, never has he gone out of scene man, its only us who havent been listening to his gems of 90's. He will always rule the Music scene in India. Hail the genius

in
http://www.lazygeek.net/archives/2004/07/come_back_illayaraaja.html

I don't know the technical details of music. But the songs mentioned "Andhi Mazhai" and "Megam Karukkayile" are gems (like a lot of songs from Ilaiyaraja)..

If you liked that one, you gotta check this one out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAU5IFt-QSs

By the way, here's the translation: Kill Whitey. Kill Whitey. Whitey be dead. Kill Whitey

lol!

So Ilayaraja comes back into the discussion here on SM. Hear all ya Himesh fans! This man, Ilayaraja is the real deal! And he has a unique voice too!

I actually really enjoyed that.

This is the golden age of desi Youtube videos, I think. (BTW, is anyone making a definitive list somewhere? Collecting them all?)

Sajit,

Thanks a million for posting the clip. Get the video/DVD of Ellam Inba Mayam literally everything (or the world/life) is (suffused with) pleasure and watch this fabulous slapstick entertainer - never a dull moment. The movie dates back to about 1979-81. Kamalahasan is cleverly repititive and long ago learnt that the way to fame is to act it out in fronmt of a fawning press. But where slapstick is concerned Kmalahasan has always delivered and his creativity is limitless (all the way to his recent comedies, Tenali, Panchatantram, and Pammal K. Sambandam. This movie was inspired by Peter Sellers's Soft Beds and Hard Battles, 1074 and as foreign movies took their time coming to India we had to wait for 5 years before we got to see Soft Beds.... Kamalahasan saw the movie and was inspired to use the theme. I will tell you something about this sequence without giving away the spoiler. The villain (dear old Jaisankar, alas! no more) used to know Kamal at one time and now has forgotten about him. The villain's daughter is seeing Kamal for the first time, and this is about 15 minutes into the movie. There's a lot more fun to come and a whopper of a dappankuthu based on the Carnatic varnam Raravenu Go'opala Rajita Sadguna Jayaseela...

So sepiamutiny finally got to hear about that obscure musician from India called Ilayaraja (who Naushad thought had achieved so much that the work of the veterans like him amounted to little and in whose presence of course Ilayaraja is known to always have remained standing and never taken his seat). Check out Ilayaraja's oratorio, Tiruvasakam in Symphony sometime. Ilayaraja is a treasure and his music will always please, inspire, enthrall, move, and...words fail me.

Razib:

I know Hindi and Punjabi. When I hear Gujarati, it sounds to me like a bunch of Hindi words I never heard before...so I know what you're talking about, I feel like I SHOULD understand it but I don't. Bengali sounds familiar too but because of a major pronunciation shift it sounds less familiar than Gujarati/Marathi, etc (words which would be pronounced like 'hut' in other northern Indian languages are pronounced like 'hot' in Bengali; and 'sun' becomes 'shon') Punjabi and Hindi are close to each other, some sentences would be virtually identical in the two languages. Tamil/Telugu etc. sound VERY different to me (but similar to each other and to the other South Indian languages).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PFURM9eA_Q&mode=related&search=rajkumar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzwmcbrLv7Y&mode=related&search=rajkumar

Shiva: So this is where the "maaman veedu, machi veedu" song was from. Heard that when I was a kid and no one could tell me where it was from!

I was totally going to post "if you come today" just now!!

Dr. Rajkumar was the best.

My favorite Ilayaraja song.
From youtube
As a kid I used to listen to All India Radio in the evenings and would get very hyper if this song came on and someone would have to slap me. The guitar is awesome, leaves you wanting more somehow.

This is the golden age of desi Youtube videos, I think.

No, my friend. This is the golden age... of AMARDEEP.

I agree with this sentiment though. I try to download whichever youtube vids I can. I'm guessing that youtube will be shut down or otherwise penalized due to the staggering costs it's having on the Two Minute Clips From Movies and Music Videos Industry.

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.

Someone told me that Bollywood was, in its origins, essentially a knock-off of Tamil films. Is this true?

From the land of Nayak,
Saurav

The Best Ilayaraja instrumental in a song! Maybe best song ever!
Poongathave...
Horrid video but try imagining Sathyajit Ray's early movies to this sound. According to Razib's comment @ #8, it shouldn't be too difficult. Violins..

All that pelvic-thrusting is taking a toll on me...

Btw, I still think the joke's on us and they're all tongue-in-cheek. Have to be!

Rasudha: Thanks. Better than the stupid Raaga link that I posted of this song last week. This way a lot more people get to hear it! We could do with less of "Mic" Mohan though :D

Garrrrrrrrrrrgi,

This is clearly a case of who's laughing at whom. In the context of this movie, the dancer is mocking the rich & therefore evil guy and his western ways by aping western music and dance of that period, disco. The commentators on youtube are enjoying themselves by mocking this video. Are they mocking their own heritage? hmmm...or maybe its just brownsploitation boogie... wan chiku wank wank...solla solla enna perimai...

anantha:

We could do with less of "Mic" Mohan though

if I knew the face that went with that voice...only downside to youtube ; )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRiTvY-lkVI

And this one is from one of those wannabes hip hop fakers, down south in India! Incidentally, the singer and the composer, he is the aforementioned Ilayaraja's son.

Someone told me that Bollywood was, in its origins, essentially a knock-off of Tamil films. Is this true?

There are no separate entities in the strict sense from day one. Actors, actresses, movie directors, producers, camera crew work in different regional industries as opportunity arises and move around. Kamalhassan acts in 6 regional (including Bollywood) centers of film making. Nepali actress like Manisha Koirala even makes movies in the Malayali film industry. Abhishek B. is becoming big rage in Bhojpuri film industry. Sharmilla Tagore started with Satyajit Ray in Bengali films.

I think it all stated from Bombay circa 1917, and is the main hub.

That is why Amitabh does not like the word: Bollywood and always talks as Indian film indsutry.

brownz-in-film.

Right, hilarious videos and all, but could someone explain the term 'brownsploitation' for this n00b? I feel like I'm missing something here.

The Chocolate Brownie in Mango Milkshake: It's a take-off on "blaxploitation".

Please, please go easy on the guy. To his credit, he duped an entire state into thinking he could dance, with just 3 moves. :)
But Ilaiyaraja's music is to die for. The man continued to be inspired to dish out classic tunes, knowing they'd all be butchered onscreen. Here's a latter-day Ilaiyaraja/Kamal combo that's much better, with a tip of the hat to 'Bill Haley and the Comets'.

one 'o' clack, two 'o' clack rock! :))

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FthnViwkCs0

the list is being compiled here

@rasudha #25,

The Best Ilayaraja instrumental in a song! Maybe best song ever! Poongathave...

i haven't heard much of illayaraja's music, though i have heard a lot abt him. now, i must say the song you linked is impressive. typically, my opinion of the many "classical" filmi pieces i am asked to listen to is not very printable, to say the least. admittedly those pieces usually come with the recommendation: "you will love this, it is very classical and melodious". to me, use of the word "melodious" is the signal to buy ear plugs :).

on the other hand, this song is fresh sounding in a dangerously common raga---hats off! someone who can pull this off cannot be bad at all. i think i will dig up more of illayaraja's pieces.

Did any Hindi song fans notice that the song posted by Rasudha in #22 is the one from which the tune of famous Hindi song "Neelay neelay ambar" was jipped?

@ navratan kurma #38,

you are right. you disgusting fat a$$ bappi!!

Not an Ilayaraja song, but a great classical one nonetheless. Nanda en nila

The middle two songs in this Ilayaraja movie nenjathai-killathe.html are pretty nice

brownz-in-film.

Razib,

You are correct.

With increasing frequency, Pakistani actors, actresses, singers are being hired by Bollywood, Bhojppuri film industry, and Indian TV.

Feroze Khan was in Pakistan few months ago, got drunk, and blurted some serious embarassing stuff, and now supposedly is not welcomed in Pakistan anyomore.

Nepalis have been in Bollywood for a while.

I love you, bytewords.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8o1dZk9gBI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGsdQ1p-cQw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAU5IFt-QSs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GuMQr3UghA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koqeSXJtvvo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rvx5e3mjMxQ

There are no separate entities in the strict sense from day one. Actors, actresses, movie directors, producers, camera crew work in different regional industries as opportunity arises and move around. Kamalhassan acts in 6 regional (including Bollywood) centers of film making. Nepali actress like Manisha Koirala even makes movies in the Malayali film industry. Abhishek B. is becoming big rage in Bhojpuri film industry. Sharmilla Tagore started with Satyajit Ray in Bengali films.

I think it all stated from Bombay circa 1917, and is the main hub.

That is why Amitabh does not like the word: Bollywood and always talks as Indian film indsutry.

Kush, this is all very well and good from an Indian nationalist standpoint :p but what I was trying to ask is if the style of Bollywood movies of the 70s and 80s wasn't predated in Tamil film. i don't know much about desi film, but it's seems implausible to say it's all and has always been one big hodgepodge without separate strands that would help you distinguish Satyajit Ray from Dil Chahta Hai.

On an aside, check out this awesome timeline of Indian cinematography.

Readers might be interested to know that one of the pioneer film directors in Tamil was actually an American by the name of Ellis R. Dungan who knew no Tamil. Check out the Internet Movie Database for a list of his Tamil movies. Also relevant is this article by S. Muthiah in The Hindu which contains a picture of Ellis Dungan. Incidentally, the Internet Movie Data base gives only his year of birth (1908) so it is possible that Mr. Dungan is still around with us. (I may be wrong and would appreciate being corrected.)

Navaratan Kurma, bytewords,

I checked out the songs.. Ilaiyaraja's movie (Payanangal mudivathillai) came out in 82, and Kalakaar came out in 83, checked the story of kalakaar in imdb and the stories look similar. Maybe it's an unsaid / unwritten arrangement. I don't think people acknowledge others' contribution in India yet.. The target audience is different for tamil and hindi movies (pre internet days). Also it is hard to find and punish plagiarism.. and I don't think anyone is above 'internalising'.. So the music directors just ignore .. It is hard to be creative if you do 30 movies in one year.

I like the "starting tune" of this song from Ilaiyaraja very much.. It is mesmerising.
link
Would like to know if it has been used somewhere else..

Kalakar is an attempted remake of Payanangal.... Kalyanji-Anandji asked Ilayaraja that they be permitted to use the tune ILaya Nila.... Ilayaraja is reported to have agreed to it on the condition that they let him use a Mahendra Kapoor number from Upkaar which Raaja said was his favourite K-A composition. Raaja had Yesudas render the song in NeegaL Kettavai -very hauntingly- some time in 1988. Raaja began performing on stage in his late teens around 1962 and over the next 15 years performed as a sessions musician all over India.

Yes, Maaman Oodu Machaan Oodu... is the song I mean, it's in Bhilahari right?

There has been a lot of exchange of ideas, people, themes, and methods all across the movie industry in India.

Kamal Hasan - The original triple threat all-in-all Alughu Raja of Tamil movies. My favorite Kamalsploitation movie has got to be Sakala kala vallavan.

The illayaraja songs people are linking to here are awesome, now I'm that much more motivated to go and download some. He has a great voice too, I was trying to find a link to Thenpandi Cheemayile from Nayakan, but could'nt.

This is clearly a case of who's laughing at whom. In the context of this movie, the dancer is mocking the rich & therefore evil guy and his western ways by aping western music and dance of that period, disco

I also noticed that in the last 15 seconds of the clip everyone breaks out into a semi-dapankuthu, maybe they are trying to say that deep down, no matter how western your ways, no one can resist breaking out into a good dapankuthu......Ah Podu!

Here is a piece on Ilyaraja in Outlook India. I would also heartily recommend Ilyaraja's Thiruvasagam in Symphony, which shiva the original brings up. I can understand very little Tamil, but its really not necessary to know any to feel the bhakti in this creative piece.

To ears attuned to listening to Manickavasagar's Thiruvasagam sung by Oduvars (Shaivite temple singers) in traditional panns (precursors to ragas), Ilayaraja's attempt could amount to blasphemy. To upholders of "tradition", this fresh engagement with the ninth-century bhakti saint's ecstatic outpourings—involving the 90-piece Budapest Symphony Orchestra, 60 East European voices with a choir of 25 children, a choir of 60 Indian voices, 40 Indian musicians and 10 voices from New York—may seem an odd mixture.

Manickavasagar is associated with the Shaiva Siddhanta tradition.

Yeti- how do you download from youtube? ignorantly law-abiding (tee-hee), I thought they were only for streaming...

this dance is not at all that strange (apart from the afro) from things seen in typical Tamil cinema.

Shouldn't that be Indian cinema of that perios in the 70s-80s..

This is a comment from IMDB on Disco Dancer 1983
http://imdb.com/title/tt0208903/usercomments

Author: Damian Bridgeman from Dublin Ireland

Hi All,

This is a breath taking piece of work as it is probably the strangest and funniest film I have ever seen. Although I suspect this was not the intention of the film. This is late night after the pub stuff. Just laugh your way through it. the big guitar disco dance number near the end is so absurd that you will wet yourself from laughing. The guy who reviewed it is absolutely on the money in his comments. But it is impossible to really relate how nuts it is. With extra mirror balls and disco dancers that spring up out of nowhere. A Killing guitar (literally it kills). Unhappy Indian disco dancing punters that take out their frustrations by throwing sandals- whats it all about?

Cheers

Damian

good god. if I had spanky gold boots like that, I'd dance like that too!

fierce link, Sajit!

DD: If you use Firefox, the Video Downloader extension will help.
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2390/
But everything on Youtube is a flash file, so you need a player like VLC to open it.

And if you ever choreograph a 'Homage to the 80s' number, please do incorporate some Kamal moves. Please. :)

I remember this Malayalam movie 'Udayannu Tharam' that was a satire of South Indian movies. It has this song that was quite a hit, and makes fun of the song & dance routine by having an unconventional hero, check it out

http://youtube.com/watch?v=4ijPcqKD4Zo&search=mohanlal

lol...Kesh, only the mallus can do a true paraody

Also my Tamil Movie enthusiasts will remember this famous video, This guy can hold his own with ANY hip hop dancer!!!!! i'll put my two paisa on this guy

http://youtube.com/watch?v=lvl8djv0MAI&search=prabhu%20

lol...Kesh, only the mallus can do a true paraody

HaHA true that!!

Navratan Kurma / bytewords: I knew this was bound to come up.

Did any Hindi song fans notice that the song posted by Rasudha in #22 is the one from which the tune of famous Hindi song "Neelay neelay ambar" was jipped?

Expected to have this discussion last week it self, but no one brought it up! I mentioned these two numbers on Amardeep's post on Omkara's music last week as my favorite peice of TFM trivia. I should have put it explicitly.

Ponniyin Selvan / Shiva: Right on the money! I can't believe how many people get all derisive with the internalizing argument when they hear the Tamil original, in spite of the guitar riffs that bring up the song's end.

Suresh: Dungan died sometime ago. He was the one who "introduced" MGR and also directed some of MS Subbalakshmi's better known movies.

say it's all and has always been one big hodgepodge without separate strands that would help you distinguish Satyajit Ray from Dil Chahta Ha

There always has been a big hodgepodge. Read some of the comments written by Shiva and Ponniyan here on this thread.

Even the Bollywood of 70-80s was making similar movies as other regional centers - all of them had disco or Shaft-like themes. It is not common the same film in India be made in different languages at the same time or later. An example is Sadma by Kamalhaasan and Sridevi. There are hazaar (thousand) more examples.

There are no separate strands in terms of talent pool used, there are separate strands for target audience.

this dance is not at all that strange (apart from the afro) from things seen in typical Tamil cinema.

Shouldn't that be Indian cinema of that perios in the 70s-80s..

Anantha,

surprising coincidence.. Do you know of other pairs of songs??.. With internet/raaga I think it will be pretty easy to find out who "internalised" what...

Kesh: Btw, Prabhu Deva choreographed "Main Aisa Kyon Hoon" in Lakshya and won his second National Award for best choreography. He also choreographed the song, "Pyar Zindagi" from Pukar with Madhuri Dixit a few years ago.

Interestingly his first National Award was for Sapnay/Minsara Kanavu. This movie included this song that seems to have been partly "internalized" from this Gene Kelly - Leslie Caron number from An American in Paris (1951)! Some parts of the sets and the "steps" are erriely similar (starting at 3:01 onwards). Wish I could point out the similarities better, but the only "An American in Paris" video I can find at this point is what seems to be a tribute to Vincente Minnelli.

Wiki informs us that Gene Kelly won his only Oscar (honorary) that year "in appreciation of his versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer, and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film". So Prabhu Deva winning his award for an almost identical number is perhaps fitting ;)

Ponniyin Selvan: I am not sure if Raaga can be viewed as a "go to" resource to pinpoint "internalizing". But I have to give a shout out to Karthik over at I2FS, who is doing an outstanding job of tracking down and analyzing all the musical inspirations.

In fact, the samples he provides to substantiate his claims are very helpful in actually figuring out the "listening interests" of the composers in question, right from Salil Chaudhry to Sanjeev Dharshan.

Anantha,

thanks for the link.. but it starts with

Another important factor, is that this site focuses more on inspirations from international sources, rather than from inter-language inspirations in India. So I save considerable web space by not including Anand Milind's inspirations from Ilayaraja and A R Rahman! :-)

:-)

There are no separate strands in terms of talent pool used, there are separate strands for target audience.

Kush, I think that will change soon (the talent pool), if it has not, already. The kind of assembly line movie we get to see in Bollywood these days (let's leave the K Jo's out of this!) are not typical of what you see down South.

Yes, the target audience is largely different now. But that was not the case earlier. The audiences were largely similar in tastes.

I might rot in hell for this statement, considering that I am a hardcore Rajinikanth fan. Here goes - A lot of Rajinikanth's mega hits in Tamil were re-makes of Amitabh Bachchan starrers!

But the David Dhawans of the world minted a lot more. Almost every single David Dhawan movie has a Tamil or Telugu original that did equally good business!

Thank you, Sajit! Best post and discussion HEVVVER! I can't stop clicking the links people are posting. Help... no work getting done! Didn't know there was so much good stuff on youtube.

Am I the only one that feels very embarrassed when watching things like this? Many times my white friends talk to me about how cheesy these videos are, and I can't help but agree with them many times. There are exceptions, but these incredibly cheesy rips are more embarrasing than anything else.

Help... no work getting done!

Welcome to the club!

p.s. i still think south indians are aliens with indian accents :)

dont make me angry....you WOUN'T LIKE ME WHEN IM ANGRY!

Am I the only one that feels very embarrassed when watching things like this?

Getting embarassed for something in which you never played a role/part is a nice feeling to have.. It is as good as taking pride for something in which you never played a role/part.. Enjoy it while it lasts.. :-)

Getting embarassed for something in which you never played a role/part is a nice feeling to have.. It is as good as taking pride for something in which you never played a role/part.. Enjoy it while it lasts.. :-)

I never liked collectivism...

Am I the only one that feels very embarrassed when watching things like this? Many times my white friends talk to me about how cheesy these videos are, and I can't help but agree with them many times. There are exceptions, but these incredibly cheesy rips are more embarrasing than anything else.

Easiest solution: don't let your white friends see these videos.

D-Tank,

Am I the only one that feels very embarrassed when watching things like this? Many times my white friends talk to me about how cheesy these videos are, and I can't help but agree with them many times. There are exceptions, but these incredibly cheesy rips are more embarrasing than anything else.

Don't be embarrassed by this video, D-Tank. This video is cheesy but harmless. If you want to be embarrassed about an Indian-made music video, here's a good one...
Warning: Has been known to scare little children and you may suffer from loss of sleep/weightloss after viewing.
RaaRAa...

Rasudha,

What is to be embarrassed about here? I haven't had the chance to watch Chandramukhi yet, but if it is indeed a remake of the excellent Malayalam movie Manichithrathazhu, then everything in the video makes perfect sense. Or are you pointing out Rajni's antics? Or perhaps you are joking...

Enna intha pasanga 'alien' endru sollraanga? Avanga mozhi enakkum appdiye thonalaam. Ennamo! Free-ya viduvom...

Here is a 2.0 version of Tamil dancing. The dancing is amateurish at times. They actually start laughing in the middle, but it’s cute. At least it is more authentic then Kamal Hassan’s dancing.

rasudha,

Your warning needs to be in bold type. It's not just little children who would find it squeamish. (And in case Razib gets confused the song is Telugu. Not sure what it is doing in a Tamil movie.)

Am I the only one that feels very embarrassed when watching things like this?

Yes. You are the only one WHO feels very embarrassed.

(And in case Razib gets confused the song is Telugu. Not sure what it is doing in a Tamil movie.)

The story is about "Multiple Personality Disorder"..That character who is afflicted with MPD thinks of herself as a Telugu dancer wrongfully abducted by a King and separated from her lover..

It is funny, the movie is a super hit in all the four south indian languages.. Shobana won the best actoress award for her Malayalam movie in which she plays the "tamil dancer".. These folks minted money with just one good story and the poor guy who wrote the original story got a pittance..

navratan kurma,

I love you, bytewords.

oh thank you thank you :).

since when did youtube become a repository for old cheesy tamil dance numbers

gautham,

yo bro, bollywood rox, madrawood sux!

It seems like there is a slightly condescending view of Tamil cinema from the Bollywood fans in here.

Gautham, don't want to muddy the seemingly clear water by dipping my arm in it, but this condescending view is nothing new. It seems to be so prevelant that one loses voice just by talkign about it.

And that's why, even though it might seem tagential to the discussion here, one tries to highlight the positives that not a lot of people who comment here know - For e.g., Ilayaraja's gems and A.R.Rahman's Tamil numbers that many native Hindi speakers haven't even heard about. Just doing my bit to bring enlightenment to the masses ;)

And ya, needless to say, we "intellectuals" from down south look down upon the others with scorn too. Once I start, I can't stop ranting about Himesh Reshmaiyya or Kumar Sanu! Ah well, to each his own!

yeah, do quote as "intellectuals." both bengali and brains start with the same letter!

It seems like there is a slightly condescending view of Tamil cinema from the Bollywood fans in here

I think the condescension branches further than cinema.

razib,

I don’t want to start a flame war either but your categorization of South Indians as “aliens with Indian accents” whose language is utterly incomprehensible sounds like major essentializing on your part.

I am not a linguist, but you being of Bengali origin should I think enable you to understand some “South Indian words”.

I am not sure if Bangaldeshi Bengali is significantly different than the Indian Bengali. Bengali seems to sounds the same to my non-Bengali ears whether it is spoken by Hindus or Muslims, unlike Hindi. And literary Bengali seems very sanskritized. (In fact I believe the post-independence, de-urdufication of Hindi and its subsequent sankritization has a lot to do with certain cultural nationalists emulating Bengali, rather than a return to some pre-Islamic Hindi.)

Anyway, if you are familiar with Bengali, and therefore by default are familiar with Sanskrit words you should be able to understand a lot more “south Indian” words than you claim. I am not sure about the amount of Sanskritization in other South Indian languages, but about 40% of the Telugu lexicon is of Sanskrit origin. I am not sure about the extent of the influence of Sanskrit on Kannada and Malayalam, but I believe both languages still retain some of the influence. Tamil I believe has undergone some recent de-sanskritization, but I am not sure if it was as dependent as the other South Indian languages on Sanskrit loan words in the first place.

To claim that the south Indian languages are “utterly incomprehensible” because of linguistic reasons, is utterly false. You may not be familiar with the syntax, but you should be able to understand a word or two. I suspect the failure stems from your lack of familiarity with Bengali, but it has nothing to do with linguistics reasons as you claim. Your use of the derogatory word “southie” in the past makes me wonder if you are actually listening to South Indians with open ears.

It seems like there is a slightly condescending view of Tamil cinema from the Bollywood fans in here.

Not at all, if you mute the streaming, I would not even know whether the movie is from Bollywood, Tollywood, Kollywood. There are hazaar Bollywood songs in Afro wigs too.

Kamalhaasan (the dancer in the video) acts in all: Bollywood, Tollywood, and Kollywood, and then some. His production company rakes about US $10 million a year in India.

Somebody said here on the thread that Mani Ratnam is their favorite Tamil director. He makes great Bollywood movies too - example Bombay, Dil Se and in Kannada, and Telugu too.

my tamizh bretheren,

Ignore Razib, for every bangaldeshi-pseudo-bengali (I think he deserves some abuse here), you have me to balance!
My floor at the engineering college hostel (dorm to the ABCD's) was packed with Tamil's and Mallus, and this was during the glory
days of the early '90's when Hindi-walla's were just discovering the brilliance of Tamil movies. Man, I knew all the songs of Roja,
Gentleman, "Thiruda, Thiruda" in Tamil before the hindi-valla's even knew of these movies. I still have " Veerapandi Kottaiyile" and
"Koncham Nilavu" on all my favourites CD's.

comeon relax guys, padam pakla ma?

Your use of the derogatory word “southie” in the past makes me wonder if you are actually listening to South Indians with open ears.

LOL. i don't ever remember using the word "southie." if i did, i was probably making fun of some prig who was making derogatory insinuations of south indians via parody.

take a chill pill.

pretty soon someone will tell me that making a joke is "essentializing." people need to leave the verbo-theoretical artillery at the door sometimes.

Navratan Kurma,

Rasudha, What is to be embarrassed about here? I haven't had the chance to watch Chandramukhi yet, but if it is indeed a remake of the excellent Malayalam movie Manichithrathazhu, then everything in the video makes perfect sense. Or are you pointing out Rajni's antics? Or perhaps you are joking...

Malayalam movie Manichithrathazhu is one of my favorites. Chandramukhi is a travesty of that movie. Shobana is a godess and Jyothika is a demon in comparison. I'm a tamil-telugu but have no pride in Tamil movie any longer. What they did to Fazil's beautiful malyalam film must be very painful for him to watch. Of course, it was Vasu in the Kannada film Aapthmithra that started this.

In malayalam, the equivalent song Oru Murai Vanthu Paraiyo is in Tamil.

Enna intha pasanga 'alien' endru sollraanga? Avanga mozhi enakkum appdiye thonalaam. Ennamo! Free-ya viduvom...

It's all the vowels that make South Indian languages seem alien. No need to be mad. I like that we sound different.

Some more ilayaraja gems...
http://www.musicindiaonline.com/l/26/s/movie_name.4934/ (listen to the second song)

http://www.musicindiaonline.com/l/26/s/year.30/ ( especially 4 and 5)

razib,

"verbo-theoretical artillery"

O the irony : )

Also this one(Listen to the mrigas...if you know what that means...If you notice the music between each stanza is different unlike hindi songs)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd1-YNsUlck&search=nizhalgal

yes, bengali (and assamese and oriya) are very different from the western indo-aryan languages. still, i can recognize words like "meg" and "kala" and stuff usually.

yeah, my bangla sux. mebee that wuz it.

#100

no, you failed a more fundamental test of "bengaliness", the ability to appreciate another great culture.

btw, my Bengali ain't to great either.

I think people are being "sensitive" here.. (nothing wrong though..)

But there is nothing wrong to sound "alien" to those who do not know the language.. Don't you think it is mutual.??

Gautham: Since i used the term "intellectual" first, I should perhaps clarify that the usage was not to point fingers at anyone, but to laugh at those South Indian people that I that I have met personally and who speak condescendingly of anyone north of the Vindhyas. While for many North Indians, it is the "I can't understand you and so you are stupid", for many of us from down south, it is a case of "You cannot understand anything that comes out from my mouth and so you are stupid." So it is all a case of communication gap.

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.

Bombay was a Tamil movie. I'm fairly sure of this, but not 100%. It was dubbed to Hindi.

yes, Gautham's right-- originally Mani Ratnam made it in Tamil. It did so well, he decided to remake it in Hindi. Solid movie, definitely one of the new classics.

no, you failed a more fundamental test of "bengaliness", the ability to appreciate another great culture.

dude, i was making the alien comment in response to this video. LOL.

Bombay was a Tamil movie. I'm fairly sure of this, but not 100%. It was dubbed to Hindi.

Yes, I checked. Originally, Bombay was a Tamil movie and then dubbed in Hindi. One of my earlier comments, I talked about this too - often Indian movies are dubbed in multiple languages and some later remade with same or different stars like, Sadma. Sadma had same stars but a different director.

Amitabh Bachchan has signed couple Bhojpuri movies, so has Hema Malini. Katrina Kaif has couple of Telugu movies.

Have you noticed Mani Ratnam's favorite actress is Manisha Koirala who happens to be Nepali?

kush,

please put together venn diagram which shows the intersection of actor/esses across regional and bollywood film industries. your argument would be persuasive if you can show widespread intersections across the subsets.

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 isn’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 haven’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,

In Tamil movies the male leads are usually pretty representative of the general populace, but the women leads are generally super light-skinned.

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?

Am I the only one that feels very embarrassed when watching things like this?

Yes. You are the only one WHO feels very embarrassed.

grammar nazi! but wicked comment nonetheless, communis rixatrixareforkids :)

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?

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.

Am I the only one that feels very embarrassed when watching things like this?

Yes. You are the only one WHO feels very embarrassed.

grammar nazi! but wicked comment nonetheless, communis rixatrixareforkids :)

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?

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!

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.

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,

I hope it's not to me you are referring to when you say some people are being sensitive : )

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.

And I thought Tamilians were the language snobs : ) "Tamil is a classical language"

It IS a classical language. 3rd century BCE Tamil Sangam poetry? Tiruvalluvar? Tokalpiyar? Silapadikaram? Here, even whitey thinks so.

Why are we talking about Tamil and Hindi when this is a post on Indian movies? What we should be talking about is Bazigar. A language named after a movie. Damn neat, no?

Rasudha, yes I think your interpretation of the video is correct - which makes it considerably less cheesy, since good guy is just mocking bad guy's cheesiness, which means good guy is non-cheesy...

And to all and sundry: That bangali babu is nothing like a bangali babu. A true bangali babu wears his worn sacred thread,a long kurta, over a dhoti, carries a jute shopping bag and a skinny black umbrella, wears blue rubber flip flops and square black spectacles, oils his hair and parts it carefully to the side. He carries himself with an extraordinary sense of dignity, if not pomposity. He haggles relentlessly over the price of fish, and sits for hours discussing politics and religion with his neighbours. He cannot fix a leaky faucet, but has an opinion on everything. He has read about everything and everyone, but has gone nowhere and done nothing.

We Bengalis are also good at laughing at ourselves.

Kush @133:

When in doubt, think of SriDevi, Aishwaryia Rai, Vijanthimala - All are Tamil actresses that loomed large on India.

And they were so dark skinned...I'd have felt better if you pointed out Rekha or Waheeda Rehman. I don't think they would have done as well in Tamil film industry being dark cows : )

I'm sorry but Tamilians have no right to be embarassed by their movies. That right belongs only to us Pakistanis.

errr .... umm .... I know blaxploitation ... and I am aware that Brownsploitation is catching on ....... but doesn't brownsploitation refer to pimping the exotic appeal of Desi Cinema to sell trashy and kitschy movies??

is this really brownsploitation? i think "hollywood-bollywood" was more brownsploitation

and "Monsoon Wedding" was certainly NOT

and, I also think a lot of US/UK publishers use "Brownsploitation" to define the phenomenon of a rash of authors riding the wave created by Dan Brown (Da Vinci Code) and coming up with similar-themed fiction

I would define "Bride & Prejudice" and "The Guru" as brownsploitation.....

Hair oil is passé. India and its populace have to understand this fundamental truth whilst undertaking their journey towards achieving "cultural coolness" Hair gel should be popularised amongst the masses. Every family with a Ration Card should be allowed a large dollop of hair gel; preferably, a non-flaky variety like: VO5. In schools, students should be segregated based on their hair type and both straight-haired pupils and wavy-haired pupils should be taught to gel their hair by experts who have been trained at Tony & Guy. Every barber shop should be supplied with a G-string so that barbers all over the country can shape the beards of the masses to confirm with the 50 cent style that is the current rage. Citizens must consider it their duty to look cool. Politicians should not be allowed to run for office if they do not gel their hair. Masses who refuse to gel their hair should be gently coerced in the right direction with the threat of additional taxes. In five years India will be home to the coolest bunch of people on the planet. Also, a scientific body should be formed to discover a new and original gait for the Indian Man. This new gait should rival and ultimately replace the black man's strut that cool people everywhere use currently. A "Sharp, Mean, and Wicked" India will have the respect of the West.
Peace

Hair oil is passé. India and its populace have to understand this fundamental truth whilst undertaking their journey towards achieving "cultural coolness"
Vote's roe-ng with hair oil, I say? Simbly put, all that glitters is not hair gel. Sometimes, it is hair oil. Mallus everywhere, unite! Against mallu-sploitation.

More coals to stoke the north-south linguistic divide flame war.
check out this- http://dingchak.net/?p=8

Kush(comment #133) When in doubt, think of SriDevi, Aishwaryia Rai, Vijanthimala - All are Tamil actresses that loomed large on India.

aah, but Kush, please dont forget Nagma and Kusboo who loomed down the south, much larger than any one from the south loomed up north, loomed like 2 all conquering foreign zeppelins they did.

re #166

awesome

I would define Bride and Prejudice as an embarrassment, actually. And as for the song that started this whole thread, Solla Solla Enna Perumai, i thought it meant, "Tell me, what pride?" or something like that. Looks like ten years of learning Tamil as a second language has just gone down the drain. :|

One thing that strikes me, is this guys age, I think Indian cinema is the only medium that can get away with having 40+ year old men dancing like they're 8 year olds, and wearing excessive clothing. I think because people have fairly loose filters when it comes to being entertained, it increases the shelf life of these "actors"

The only US equivalent is perhaps this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9ygJ7LkyiQ

More coals to stoke the north-south linguistic divide flame war.

"The trouble with South India.....is that it's full of South Indians."

;)

"The trouble with South India.....is that it's full of South Indians."

...and the trouble with the North is that there aren't enough (of South Indians)..
;)

et tu brown?

Boston-Southie,

...and the trouble with the North is that there aren't enough (of South Indians).. ;)

Ha, very good !

I was just kidding.

The real problem with South India is it's not further to the South.

;)

that can get away with having 40+ year old men dancing like they're 8 year olds

How old are Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, John Travolta? - most of Hollywood actors mature post-40, or even 50. They do some bizarre stuff too. In fact, there is hardly a bankable male star in Hollywood that is really young.

You think John Travolta was 20 in Pulp Fiction when his danced with Uma Thurman. Johnny Depp is 40ish too - Pirates of the Carribeans is acting like 40 olds, himm.

How old are Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, John Travolta? - most of Hollywood actors mature post-40, or even 50. They do some bizarre stuff too.

Examples please?

You think John Travolta was 20 in Pulp Fiction when his danced with Uma Thurman

Thats a narrative element in the story, it has to do with a deleted scene in pulp fiction where Mia Wallace goes into something about different types of dances or dancing, I forget exactly. I'll say Johnny Depp, while he may be 40, doesn't *look* 40. At least not in pirates.

The closes thing I remember is Chris Walken in the fat boy slim video, and even that was a sort of satire, because it's the complete opposite of what he's done in other roles.

And the real problem with North India is that North Indians do not stay there.

^ So true. They coming running to the South for their jobs :)

And the real problem with North India is that North Indians do not stay there.

When I said South India should ideally be further to the South, I meant like Antarctica.

I have the low down on this clip...

The song's meaning literally is "say say what pride", but the context is, "If you keep talking about yourself, who's gonna give a shit after a while?"

The freaky guy in the gray business suit is a villian, the guy in the darker suit butt dancing towards the end is his henchman, and our dancer/hero has infiltrated them by wearing a disguise. (somehow I think the disguise consisted of him trimming the afro)

So in a small way, the dance sequence actually makes narrative sense in the story line - which is a rarity for these types of films.

I'll let the real film snobs debate relevance and symbolism of Snow White in the background.

I suggest North India join Pakistan. The newly created Nindopakistan would immediately plunge into civil war, and the real India could get on peacefully with more important business.

Garrrrrrrgi ! well said..... real india lies in south and east of India..... rest is truly NindoPakistan

Since someone brought up www.itwofs.com, I couldn't resist posting this:

Here's the shortened URL for a forum where they have a list of songs plagiarized from other languages mostly Tamil/Ilayaraja by Anand Milind; Very interesting:

http://ilayaraja.notlong.com

Enjoy. The most notable lift is Dhak Dhak.

I think there's a reason why many Tamilians take offence when Ilayaraja's work is criticized, as we believe he has reached a level where he has no equals and many of us grew up listening to his masterpieces.

Here's a favorite of many and mine. The interesting thing about this clip is, at about 2:04, you'll see a young Ilayaraja, lip synching for a song that was actually sung by S.P.Balasubramaniam which is an interesting twist. You'll also notice he is a bit camera-shy as always. Tamil speakers might appreciate this remixed version of the same song, which in my opinion, was done without destroying the original.

Wonderful board here... I was introduced to this video from a friend of mine here and fell in love with the sense of humor and amazing music. Upon further research I came upon one other Kamal Hassan clip with fantastic music. To my surprise they were both written by the same person - Ilayaraaja. There's actually a small amount of his music available on iTunes, but I'm having a very difficult time finding more of the disco- and rock-influenced songs like "Solla Solla" and "Ilamai Itho Itho." Any recommendations on songs or where to find them?

- clueless white boy

@wonderboy

hey, I am a tamil speaker and a big fan of Ilayaraaja - and I have listened to hundreds of his songs hundreds of times. But even I was taken aback by 'Solla Solla''s originality. :) so the bottom line is, I am not sure he ever composed more than a handful of songs in the style of 'solla solla' or 'ilamai itho itho'. :((

The thing is unlike western musicians he doesn't go for a particular sound; he rather goes for a particular mood (or 'situation' in bolly/kollywood parlance) that's in tune with what goes on in the movie. And so he does his best work when challenged with interesting situations. But unfortunately he happens to be far more original than Indian movies, so he ended up getting mostly stock situations (like guy and a girl dancing) and he managed to to astoundingly original and prolific (close to 4000 songs) work within the constraints of formulaic indian movies.

I think it's possible to go through his output and come up with a dozen or so different 'sounds' and dozens of albums in each of those sounds, but that's not the point of his music.

But anyway, if you want more overtly western influenced songs you should check out these:

(this was pointed out also by Manoj @35), kind of twist-ey
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9tjTDyXSZA. (ram bam bam)
Listen to this on headphones and listen to the trumpets, piano, guitar and the bass

2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNaBmArxeeI (ninnu kori varnam)
This is not really rock or any other genre you can point to. But this is a really cool interpretation of a really traditional south indian composition. Prominent drums, synthesizer sounds.

3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzgaCmcw9Ss (vaa vaa pakkam vaa)
This is again no obvious genre - but it has overt west influence - great chorus, some really bizzarre very low sounding wind instrument (I don't know what it is), drums... but the video lacks the humor of 'solla solla'.

4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzgaCmcw9Ss (po malarndhida)
This is an overt carnatic (south indian classical) - western fusion piece. The reason I say overt is that most of Ilayaraja's songs can be construed as east-west fusion, but they don't sound like crappy self-conscious mish mashes a lot of other musicians' fusion attempts tend to be, and sound really natural.
But this piece is one example of a happy overtly fusion piece that Ilayaraja did.
Prominent 'mridangam' - the south indian classical drum, and wierd strings that are in keeping with the somewhat humorous nature of the situation.

5. To round this list off, I will give you two good songs Ilayaraaja came up with for a totally stock boy-girl dance. You can probably call these fusion too.
a. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu5iUZa9OJY (pattu kannam thottu kolla) - the highlight of this song are the first 50 seconds or so where he comes up with a great section for multiple rhythm and vocal lines. (he is a big fan of Bach)
b. This is a really standard Ilayaraja piece, but still very enjoyable: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSOpAa-lKkI (ABC nee vaasi)
There's a slight nod to a suite from Bizet's Carmen. Ilayaraaja starts his voice melody with the ding-dong-ding bells melody of the Bizet song, (ding-dong-ding ding-dong-ding = A-B-C nee vaa si) but outrageously enough, Ilayaraaja 'resolves' the opening phrase with the the phrase that Bizet used to **open** his song - pay attention to the "sooo easy" phrase.

@wonderboy

to follow up on my earlier post, here are two more songs with an 80s feel to them. Also **please please don't watch the videos** :) they are mostly horrible (the two songs you referred to are exceptions)

1. http://youtube.com/watch?v=y_r_M7O0P1s (Muthhaaduthe Muthhaduthe); Now the same movie has other songs with completely different sounds - the reason Ilayaraja went for a 'contemporary' (for that era, early eighties) sound for this song is that (I am guessing) the guy and girl dancing in this song are the young adolescent son and daughter of two older characters who are the main characters. In fact the girl in this song has a father who is the hero of the movie. The hero has his own duet with his love interest, and that song has a **totally** different sound and feel. It is here, if you are interested: http://youtube.com/watch?v=cp8BgrRjlQo - so the young ones' song has a light airy feel, whereas the older couples' song has some added depth (I think the minor key does the trick).

2, http://youtube.com/watch?v=6robs2bJrn8 (Mella Mella ennai thottu) - You can imagine this is the Tamil equivalent of Erci Prydz's "Call on meeeeee" (http://youtube.com/watch?v=K-2iwGeZ2O4) I mean, musically they are very different, but they are both hormonal; what is achieved with an abundance of pelvic thrusts in 'call on me', Ilayaraja is trying to do with his music (and he has to overcome the horrible video)
This song in fact is really different from anything else that Ilayaraaja did that I am tempted to thing he got the tune from elsewhere.

what Ilayaraja did and did not mess around with:

Ilayaraja was very innovative in many ways, but what he didn't meddle around too much with was the structure of a song. Now, if you are familiar with forms in western music (like sonata, rondo etc), most of Indian film songs probably fall into the rondo form - they keep coming back to the a 'subject' which is the opening vocal melodic phrase. So a typical song is structured like: X1 A A* A X2 B B* A A*A X3 B B* A A* A ; Looks complicated, but it's really not. X1 is usually a purely instrumental overture, A is the main subject, A* is closely related to A, X2 is a purely instrumental bridge to B B*; then repeat A A* A, X3 is a purely instrumental bridge to a repeat of B B* etc. Most film songs (or for that matter most songs of any kind) are like miniature western classical 'movements'

By and large Ilayaraja stuck to this, but where he let his imagination roam free was in the instrumental passages and how he transitioned between the various melodic material (basically, the chord and key changes; now I am not good at recognizing chords and keys, but I can tell the changes, and I think I can spot imaginative progressions). The weird thing about Ilayaraja's progressions (at least for me) is that they are both unpredictable *and* very smooth. So he is kind of like Mozart in this, I suppose - not messing with form too much, but being so imaginative in melodic transitions.

Instrumentation was Ilayaraja's other big strength. There have been others who have been great melody makers (almost any successful film music director, for in India melody is the king in making a song a hit) and others who have been great sculptors of sound (A. R. Rahman and his later clones), but in my humble opinion, no one else made such amazing orchestral arrangements. His specialty was the ability to use a wide array of instruments and engage them in a lively conversation. His orchestration often has lively 'call and answer' parts - like in 'solla solla enna perumai', in the second instrumental passage (X3) there is an amazing duet between Sax and rhythms+guitar. Or in this song 'Andhi mazhai' there's a great piano - mridangam duet, again in X3 (mridangam is the south indian drum).
If he used both western and indian drums, their beat would fall on different counts in a cycle (like in this song: Poongathave http://youtube.com/watch?v=-0HJvBjUn5g)

In terms of songs, I think this ability for orchestration has been the hardest for other composers to imitate (no one excepted). To be fair Ilayaraja has found it hard to deliver some sounds too (Rahman's song always seem to have better produced sound, and Ilayaraja has never given a convincing song with a techno/hiphop influenced sound like Rahman has been able to).

In my opinion, there has been *one and only one* other movie by any other composer that has come close to Ilayaraja's style in terms of both melody and orchestration (this is for Tamil music geeks) - and that is Devendran's 'Vedham Pudhithu'.

hi all - Kamal Hassan is a genuinely trained/accomplished classical dancer

check this site: http://asiarecipe.com/inddance.html

"Kamal Hassan proved to all those parents who are afraid of their sons joining in dance studios that male version of classical dance is glamorous, masculine, tasteful and elegant. Even though he was trained in Bharata Natyam, in this film Kamal Hassan performs many other styles also."

and also these videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6VCxXno848
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r17Fq3m_Jk

its my humble retort that Kamal hassan is much MUCH more than just someone who duped an entire state with just three dance moves!

i want the song of and a quick and a quick my ile.could you please type that song in for my