Saturday, February 23, 2008

Indian movie awards and the obsession with english language

I have often wondered, why most of the people getting a Hindi movie award, not speak in Hindi at the award functions (which is the language for which they are being given the award). I have been wanting to write about it for sometime now. In fact in this year's star screen awards, Sajid Khan mentioned about this issue in one part of the award. 
Let me make it very clear that I am not against any language, in fact people are free to speak in any language they feel like. I am in fact writing in English. My only point is, if you can make or act in a Hindi movie then what is so shameful about speaking the same language when it comes to award functions (although I can understand people like Rehman, Mani Ratnam speaking in English because they do not know Hindi or know only broken hindi). I do not know, are we trying to impress the western world, who hardly think very highly of our movies or hardly watch our award functions.
Hindi speaking belt has often accused southern India, especially Tamilnadu, of not speaking Hindi, the national language. But then where is the passion for Hindi when it comes to the most prestigious film awards. Is there a possibility that they want to cater to the southern India (especially Tamilnadu), I doubt that. 
I think that there is an obsession with english language in India. Speaking in English is considered hep and perceived as being intelligent but they might just be talking crap. In this English speaking race, what happens sometimes is, people do not convey what they have to, and end up making fool of themselves. I remember once my uncle's neighbor was worried that his two year old son has still not started speaking in English. 
Speak whichever language you are comfortable in, but do not feel shy or bad about speaking your own language. 

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

your observation is quite right.actors and directors of hindi film cant speak in hindi.its a graet tragedy.
brahmatmaj@gmail.com

Bibliophile said...

Thanks..It is really sad about India. Shah Rukh and Sajid Khan mentioned about it in Filmfare and Sansui awards but it just remains a joke.
I do not think we can enforce a language or should enforce a language. It is something that has to be realized by people. It is for the people to feel proud about their heritage and language without slighting the others.

Anonymous said...

Why are u being biased towards Mani Rathnam or AR Rehman? If they can make hindi movies and sing hindi songs, they should be able to speak hindi too, right? So, they are as culpable as others.

Maybe its just easy for pple to say " I would like to thank you all" rather than say " Main sab logon ka shukriya ada karna chahta hun"

I agree with you. some pple are just more comfortable in English.. but it is funny to see pple like Dharmendra trying to speak English all the time ;-)

Anonymous said...

Salut à tous,

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