Bhauchaal kee jab aamad aamad hotee hai, to sab se pehle kutto.n ke kaan khaDe hote hai.n

Film : Raaj Tilak

Year of release : 1984

Spoken by : Samad Khan (Raj Kumar)

Spoken to : Bhavaani Singh (Ajit)

Dialogue writer : Inder Raj Anand

This is a typical Raj Kumar Kohli multi-starrer set in a kingdom and replete with typical intrigue and cloak and dagger stuff. Notable for the fact that his son Armaan Kohli makes an appearance as Saarika's younger brother. Funny I used the word notable.

Samad Khan is a loyal commander of the king, but Bhavaani Singh plots and tries to overthrow the king. When the coup fails, he puts the blame on Samad Khan and has him branded as a traitor. Years later, Samad Khan is in a position to get his own back. When he meets Bhavaani Singh, Bhavaani recognises the voice. He says

"tumhaaree aawaaz. tumhaaree soorat... samad... samad Khaan?"

"तुम्हारी आवाज़, तुम्हारी सूरत...समद...समद ख़ान?"

Samad responds with this line. I used to love this line as a kid. The beauty of this dialogue is the way Raj Kumar delivers it. He warns Bhavaani about his impending doom and brands him as a dog - because he has been able to identify the portents of his doom. Now read the line.

"achchhaa huaa jo toone mujhe pehchaan liyaa bhavaani. Bhauchaal kee jab aamad aamad hotee hai, to sab se pehle kutto.n ke kaan khaDe hote hai.n"

"अच्छा हुआ जो तूने मुझे पहचान लिया भवानी. भौचाल की जब आमद आमद होती है, तो सबसे पहले कुत्तों के कान खडे होते हैं."

भौंचाल or भौचाल is an acceptable alternative for the normally used word for earthquake - भूचाल. But this is the only place where I have heard it used thus.

doosre ko nahee.n uDne doongii

Film : Garm Havaa

Year of release : 1974

Spoken by : Amina (Gita later Gita Kak)

Spoken to : Shamshaad (Jalal Agha)

Dialogue writer : Kaifi Azmi

This was a brilliant film based on Ismat Chughtaii's short story. It is the story of a Muslim family which runs a shoe-making business in Agra circa 1948. Gradually all the relatives of Salim Mirza (Balraj Sahni) leave for Pakistan fearing discrimination in India. There are some very poignant scenes. During a family discussion where everyone is discussing a future in Pakistan; the youngest kid - 5 year old Munna asks a fantastic question

"abbaji pakistan me.n patang uDtee hai?"

For him all the other politico-religious questions were meaningless. Anyway, there were many such moments in this film. If you haven't seen it, do see it. 

Salim Mirza's daughter Amina is engaged to be married to her cousin Kazim. However,  Kazim too migrates to Pakistan. He does come back to take her away, but by then he is 'persona non grata' in India - because he is a Pakistani. He forgets to inform the local police station of his arrival and he is arrested and deported. He does not come back. 

Shamshaad is another local boy who is interested in Amina. But she is not interested in him. However, during one trip to the historical places around Agra, Shamshaad acts as a guide. He tries to put forth his suit repeatedly before Amina. But she spurns him. At a particular historical location, he stops and tells Amina a story of the Mughal Kingdom. The story goes like this -

"jaantee ho ek din, usee jagah par jahaan tum khaDee ho, Mehrunnisaa khaDee thee. 

aur yahaa.n. yahaa.n Saliim khaDaa thaa. uske dono.n haatho.n me.n kabootar the.

itne me.n jahaanpanaah ne Saliim ko yaad kiyaa. to Saliim ne dono.n kabootar uske haath me.n thamaa diye.

aur jab vo lauT ke aayaa...to usne dekhaa ki ek kabootar Gaayab thaa. to usne Mehrunnisa se poochhaa -

doosraa kabootar?

to Mehrunnisaa ne kahaa...vo to uD gayaa!

"जानती हो, एक दिन, उसी जगह पर जहां तुम खडी हो, मेहरुन्निसा खडी थी. और यहां, यहां सलीम खडा था. उसके दोनों हाथों में कबूतर थे. इतने में जहांपनाह ने सलीम को याद किया. तो सलीम ने दोनों कबूतर उसके हाथ में थमा दिये. और जब वो लौट कर आया...तो उसने देखा कि एक कबूतर ग़ायब था. तो उसने मेहरुन्निसा से पूछा - दूसरा कबूतर?

तो मेहरुन्निसा ने कहा...वो तो उड गया!

"Saliim ne poochhaa vo kaise? usne kahaa, aise..."

"सलीम ने पूछा वो कैसे? उसने कहा, ऐसे..."

And Shamshaad starts to make the gesture of releasing an imaginary pigeon. Right at that moment, Amina holds his hands and stops him from releasing the imaginary pigeon, and says,

"doosre ko nahee.n uDne doongee!"

"दूसरे को नहीं उडने दूंगी!" 

Few Hindi films have such parables included in them. 

iske maa baap tang aa chuke the

Film : Disha

Year of release : 1990

Spoken by : Soma Sarpat (Raghuvir Yadav)

Spoken to : Visitor (unknown)

Dialogue writer : Sai Paranjpe 

Karim Asif is considered a legend, though the only film he effectively made was Mughal-e-Aazam. Then why can't Sai Paranjpe be right on top of the list, just for Chashme Baddoor, Sparsh and Katha. Sometimes I don't understand the way our film critics work. Most people who talk about Mughal e Aazam haven't even seen the film (and don't understand half the dialogues), but yet it's a cult classic. Karim Asif is legendary. While it does help to have Dilip Kumar's kid sister as a wife, to be called legendary, but some categorisations are plain unfair. No, I have nothing against K Asif. I am a big fan myself (a look at this blog will tell you that). But Sai Paranjpe deserves more. I hope she gets it. 

The reason I wrote the earlier paragraph was to establish that Sai Paranjpe is underrated. And Disha is an underrated Sai Paranjpe film. 

A visitor comes to Soma's village. He comes to meet Soma. While he is waiting for him, he sees a few kids around. He asks them

"kyaa naam hai tum logo.n ke?"

The first one says 'Sharmila'. The second one says 'Jeetendra'. The third one says 'Amitabh' and the fourth and the youngest one says 'Kaddoo'. Yes you read that right. That's Hindi for pumpkin. A much loved and an equally hated vegetable. 

Surprised at this anti-climactic name, the visitor asks the kid, 

'Kaddoo kyo.n bhai?'

At that point Soma walks in and says by way of clarification, 

'jab tak ye paidaa huaa, iske maa baap tang aa chuke the'

'जब तक ये पैदा हुआ, इसके मां बाप तंग आ चुके थे'

This film is worth seeing just for this line. I haven't laughed more during a scene in my life. If you read between the lines, it is an amazing advertisement for family planning, delivered in an absolutely non-threatening way. If I was the Minister for Health and Social Welfare, I would use this scene as an ad, and use the tagline, 

'stop at Amitabh, before you land up with 'kaddoo''

As the ward boy in Munnabhai MBBS says - mai.n bhii soch rahaa hoo.n health minister ban jaaoo.n. 

Baandra ka bhaav bolo baap landan kaa nahee.n

Film : Jalwaa

Year of release : 1987

Spoken by : Inspector Kapil (in disguise)

Spoken to : Drug dealer

Dialogue writer : Kamalesh Pandey

There is a plethora of malls in and around Delhi now. In fact they are there all over India. Every luxury international brand is freely available in India now. However, most visitors end up not even window shopping at these shops (with the kind of names these shops have). The reason could be that they would have walked in to ask the price of an innocent looking hand bag with a name that sounds like सूई खींचों and would have been told that this 8x6 inch handbag costs 1.3 lac rupees. Their gut reaction would be what this character said 24 years ago. But these shops flourish because there are many in this country who don't mind paying that kind of money. But we'll let all that be. 

Kapil is an inspector who has vowed to rid Goa of its drug culture. Ostensibly, he failed or else we might not have seen the film Dum Maaro Dum this year. This film was inspired from the Eddie Murphy flick The Beverly Hills Cop and saw the arthouse Naseer crossover to commercial cinema after pumping some serious iron. 

Kapil goes to a drug dealer in disguise - as a handicapped old man. The dealer can't resist taking a shot at his age. He tells the dealer

"dekho saahab maskharii nahee.n. bhaav bolo bhaav bolo. "

The dealer says,

"ram kaa bees rupaye kvaarter. shyaam kaa das rupayaa."

Kapil acts surprised. And then comes up with this classic line, which you can use with the mall guys when they quote their rates. 

"brown sugar kaa das rupaya! are bandra ka bhaav bolo baap landan kaa nahee.n"

"ब्राउन शुगर का दस रुपया! अरे बान्द्रा का भाव बोलो बाप लन्दन का नहीं" 

If you are in Delhi, you can use Sadar Bazaar instead of Bandra.

The idea for this post is courtesy a friend who remembered this line, after he had to pay a reasonably heavy bill at a restaurant. I think he wanted to use this line with the waiter, but unfortunately he ended up leaving a tip on top of the billed amount. :)

Vaise bhii chor log chashmaa nahee.n pahantaa

Film : Hera Pheri 

Year of release : 2000

Spoken by : Baburao Ganpatrao Apte (Paresh Rawal)

Spoken to : Raju (Akshay Kumar) 

Dialogue writer : Neeraj Vora

Shyam (Sunil Shetty) and Raju have an interesting misunderstanding whereby both think the other person is a thief, a pick pocket. Shyam realises later that Raju was not a thief, but Raju still believes Shyam to be a thief. After this misunderstanding, Shyam lands up at Baburao's house (where Raju is already a tenant) and takes a room on rent. The moment Raju sees Shyam, he shouts at him and tells Baburao that Shyam is a thief. Shyam says he is not a thief. Baburao anyway does not trust Raju too much as he has defaulted in payment of rent for over 6 months. So he decides to believe Shyam. But once he has handled Raju, he quietly asks Shyam.

ae, ek baat bataa. tu sachmuch chor nahee.n hai naa?

ए, एक बात बता, तू सचमुच चोर नहीं है ना?

nahee.n babu bhaiyya! (says Shyam)

नहीं बाबू भैय्या!

And then comes Baburao's slam dunk line.

haa.n vaise bhii chor log chashmaa nahee.n pahantaa. 

हाँ, वैसे भी चोर लोग चशमा नहीं पहनता. 

And then as evidence of this new found trust, he gives Shyam some money and asks him to get a 'khambaa' (bottle of country liquor) for him. 

There are some home truths like this, that a lot of people believe in. That if you see a person wearing glasses, he has got to be respectable! Read another such interesting theory in this earlier post. 

ek dum fresh approach rahegaa

Film : Chashme Buddoor

Year of release : 1981

Spoken by : Jomo or J Lakhanpal (Ravi Baswani)

Spoken to : Neha Rajan (Deepti Naval)

Dialogue writer : Sai Paranjpe

One of my all time favourite films. The two philandering friends Jomo and Omi have noticed a new girl in their locality and they are going to take turns to try to woo her. Who will try first - this question is decided by a pack of cards. As Omi says - Jiskii mem uskee game, i.e. whosoever draws a queen first gets to try first. Omi gets that chance and messes it up. Now it is Jomo's turn. He goes to Neha's house as an asst. director and says he has seen her in a play held at Daulat Ram College. Neha smiles and says 

"maine aaj tak stage par qadam nahee.n rakhaa"

To Jomo's credit he does not flinch a bit and come back with a great line. He says

"tab to aur bhee achchhe. ek dum fresh approach rahegaa"

"तब तो और भी अच्छे. एक दम फ़्रेश अप्रोच रहेगा" 

So if you are a rank novice at something, you can present that as a virtue by using this line. Well if I was to be interviewed for the post of India's prime ministership, that'd be a good line to use :)

Jis insaan kaa maqsad sirf nuqsaan ho usse kisee kaa faayadaa nahee.n ho saktaa

Film : Maqbool

Year of release : 2003

Spoken by : Jahangir Khan (Pankaj Kapoor)

Spoken to :  Kaka (Piyush Mishra)

Dialogue writer : Vishal Bharadwaj

One of the most interesting relationships in Hindi cinema is the one between Jahangir Khan and Kaka. Jahangir is the mafia don. He gets an offer from a terrorist group for helping in a terrorist attack. The amount at stake is 30 crore rupees. He refuses the deal. Kaka is a bit surprised at his refusal. Jahangir explains it with this great line,

"Jis insaan kaa maqsad sirf nuqsaan ho usse kisee kaa faayadaa nahee.n ho saktaa"

"जिस इंसान का मक़सद सिर्फ़ नुक़्सान हो उससे किसी का फ़ायदा नहीं हो सकता"