What's the bad word?

Character A (Pointing towards a pouch of condom): Sir, isko paani ke saath loon ya doodh ke saath (Sir, should I take it with water or milk).

Riteish: Kele ke saath, (With banana).

In another dialogue from the movie, Ritesih says, “Jab se Pappu paida hua hai, main hilane me expert ho gaya hoon (I have become an expert in shaking after Pappu's birth).

These dialogues are from a movie which released last week.

The Indian Cinema has come a long way from the days of Anand and Mother India to Delhi Belly and now  Grand Masti.

The use of beep is passé. The cuss words are used profusely. The bedroom scenes have become common.

Call it the effect of commercialization and globalization of cinema or the liberalization of our censor board, Indian cinema in the past few years has seen drastic changes. The lyrics of the songs have undoubtedly stooped low. Songs like munni badnaam and sheela ki jawani didn’t create waves because of their melody or tune but primarily because of the words used in them.

A movie came, Delhi Belly. It changed the way movies were made, talking about the use of language in the film, never had we come across a movie that used swear words with such intensity. Today’s movies have loads of cuss words and choicest use of profanity. The abuse-oozing crime comedy, produced by Aamir Khan scored high with all, barring a few, setting a new definition of 'fun' in the industry.

In the past, the use of curses were only limited to the bad characters or the people who were shown in a negative light, today it has become cool talk..Today most of the movies have the common guy as their protagonist rather than a larger than life hero.

Directors claim it is only fair to the character if he swears a lot. A normal Indian, moreover a Delhite knows a lot about the cuss words and even has a flamboyant style of delivery. And mind you, its just not the guy, you can always find a young college girl curse as comfortably as a guy.

The argument, as put forward by Anurag Kashyap, director of “Gangs of Wasseypur”, is, “I come from a place where cuss words are part of everyday language and my characters are people who don’t have a rich vocabulary. We are not using profanities for effect.” 

No doubt the bar for social tolerance for profanity has increased. The Indian audience is mature than ever and is accepting the new bold face of cinema.

However the problem arises when movies go overboard with the cheap tricks and profanity.

This poses a lot of questions.

 Is this trend good or bad?

Do the people who make cinema have some social or moral obligations?

Is it fair to condemn them for showing the real true faces of the society?

Omkara used a lot of cuss words, the character Langda Tyagi was seen abusing in every second frame.

But did it feel like too much? No.

Because the director made sure that the other 2 main characters were clean, Kareena and Ajay Devgan. This is the art and this is how it should work.

One can easily differentiate a good movie from a bad one, always.

The cinema which only uses abuses and bold dialogues to sell their tickets like Grand Masti, with low grade humor and cheap acting skills is the kind of cinema which is degrading the film industry. A movie which uses sexual double meaning expletives to increase its shock value doesn't really leave an impression.

Sociologist Imitiaz Ahmed says,“In the past the use of cuss words was contextually determined and the character which used cuss words was shown in bad light or it represented the breakdown of communication, where the character would take a pause before uttering a bad word. Today cinema is not just entertainment. If it takes from society, it also shapes social behaviour. As an instrument of social change, it should reflect what is correct and what’s incorrect.”

Its obvious that the people making cinema cannot be bound to make all the movies clean and pristine. But in a country like ours, the social impact of the movies is at large. People live the movies, young children get deeply affected by it, I think the directors owe a little to the society.

No one contravene that Cinema does play a major role in a normal Indian’s life. And if it has the power to affect the lives of people in any which way, why not stay away from bad and cheap dialogues only to boost your sales? The dialogues which have neither any meaning nor any context. The ones which are used to elevate the shock factor of the movies.

The dialogues without which the Indian Cinema would have been better.