Of lines and tongues!

Of lines and tongues!

Niranjan Iyengar

I met two very interesting actors last week. Nargis Fakhri and Fawad Khan. Nargis made me laugh with her experiences during her debut film Rockstar where she had no clue what she was saying in the film because she didn't know Hindi. She has now learnt Hindi enough to actually respond in the language. Fawad knows the language well, but is observant about the linguistic differences that our two countries share. While he was amused by certain phrases we use here I couldn't help but smile at certain words he used. However, what stayed with me of the conversations with both was their keen interest in language', which a lot of actors from here tend to take for granted!

As a writer (especially someone who writes dialogue), I meet very few actors who are truly curious about the language they perform in or its nuances. Most actors focus on facial expressions, body language or rely on the strength of the direction (or background music). The issue is compounded by the fact that most new gen actors (even writers and directors) think in English and their interest in Hindi is restricted to translation. Even senior actors with years of experience have been irritated with me when I have pointed out after a shot that the line was rendered incorrectly. Even directors are often willing to sacrifice a grammatically correct line in favour of a good shot! Often the argument is that cinema is more of a visual medium and if an emotion can be conveyed effectively with visual aids then the lines are just functional. An actor even told me that in real life we often speak incorrect sentences' so why bother? But for me, cinema is still an audio'-visual medium and even if lines were just tools, I wouldn't be flippant about dismissing their importance.

Most actors also equate improvisation' with changing lines. Very few like Shah Rukh Khan actually manage to say lines differently without losing their essence and this perhaps comes from years of training in theatre apart from his passion for languages. Konkona Sen Sharma is another actor who is never reluctant about asking for a retake only because she has pronounced a word wrongly. She would spend time understanding each line and want to know why it was written the way it was. Shabana Azmi once called me home to discuss a couple of scenes for a film where she was playing a Tamilian woman just to know if her enunciations were right. Irrfan Khan would argue about the relevance of a certain word in a line if unconvinced. When you watch Kangana Ranaut as Datto in Tanu Weds Manu Returns, you can clearly see the effort that has gone into getting the phrases and pronunciations right! And all you need to do is focus on the caliber of work the above-mentioned names have done, to know the place of language in the scheme of things!