Mumbai Tapori

Arts & Culture Culture, Arts, Literature & Linguistics
1

Sanjay Dutt dialogues in Munnabhai MBBS are catching on like wildfire and talking tapori (Hindi street slang spoken in Mumbai mixed with Marathi) could well be the new in thing.

Mumbai’s street slang is back in fashion like never before. For scriptwriters like Abbas Tyrewalla, it’s the language he grew up with and required little research.

“While writing the dialogues for Munnabhai, I didn’t have this in mind that the word mamu will be a big hit. The fact that it’s catching on is amazing,” said Abbas Tyrewalla, dialogue writer, Munnabhai MBBS.

The quintessential Mumbai tapori (Hindi-Marathi mix) first made his appearance in Rangeela.

Since then, there’s been no looking back as a flood of gangster films and comedies from Kaante to Jhankaar Beats turned to Mumbai slang to inject street savvy and humour into their scripts..

“We have to take care of lot of things. In Kaante Mahesh Manjrekar had these funny dialogues because of his image while Amitabh had some serious ones,” said Milap Zaveri, dialogue writer, Kaante and Jhankaar Beats.

But you can’t deliver a great film just based on intelligent dialogues. In some cases the script play falls short of the catch quips and of course the screen play also has to go with the humor.

“Screen play is equally important and we should enjoy whatever we do. Only then can we deliver a great product,” said Tushar Hiranandani, screenplay writer.

Suddenly one-liners are in vogue, be it in comedy films like Jhankaar Beats or thrillers like Khakee. Its punch line all the way.

2

There are so many words that Bollywood has stolen from the Karachi street slang...I rarely ever watch Hindi movies, but when I do, I always hear some new Karachi word being introduced in the script...

The word 'mamu' has been on the Karachiite's lips for god knows how long...It's like saying to someone affectionately, 'Yaar mamu, cigarette millay gi?', or vice versa, 'Haan bhai bhaanjay, kiya report hai?'.

Then of course Umer Sharif's Dramas were a big hit in India, and Umer Sharif although not using the classical street slang of Karachi, used many words in spite of that. And the next thing you know, I am watching a Hindi movie and I hear the word 'panga'...I am like, WTH?

Then the stream had started, words like chiraand, panga, khisak, thumboo, dundi, waat, dhur, bumboo, kitney e.t.c. became the mainstream talk of the Hindi filmi Mumbai tapori...

But the strange thing was, that despite the heavy and overwhelming influx of Hindi movies, they failed to import into Pakistan their charm. Although good for conversational light heartedness, terms of the Mumbai streets failed to catch on in Pakistan...Words like tapori, birhu, maafik, latka, lafrha, ziasti, tapka e.t.c., never really became part of the street talk of Karachi as the Karachi street talk became of Mumbai...

So you see, most of words in the Hindi tapori movies are from Karachi, kiya?

Sab words tum yahan sai chumput kar kai lay gai, mamu...:)

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Lajawab Beta :D

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Outrageous Tapori! :mad:

5

I think it sounds awful.