While London is known for its many tourist attractions, not many know about its rhyming slang that originated in the 19th century. You may say, ‘Mind your head as you go up the stairs’, but a Londoner would likely say, ‘Mind your loaf as you go up the apples’. You see, ‘stairs’ gets substituted with the rhyming ‘apples and pears’, after which, the rhyming word ‘pears’ gets dropped. We in Chennai, of course, have our very own dialect that is becoming increasingly popular in Tamil cinema.
That unforgiving consonant ‘zha’ is usually the one that suffers, like in the famous song, ‘Elandha Payam’. The singer, L. R. Eswari, uses the Madras way of pronunciation in singing it. Madras baashai is different, and borrows liberally from other languages including Telugu (‘ naina ’) and Urdu (‘ bejaar ’). The language has been used in our films to mainly portray rowdies, and usually, for comical effect. In the 1949 film Nallathambi , N. S. Krishnan makes references to this language in his narration of ‘Kindhanaar charithram’. He explains that they shorten all the words, and mentions the example of ‘jaladosham’ that becomes ‘jalpu’. Comedian Chandrababu helped lend it respect when he played a rickshaw puller in Sabaash Meena . Later, comedians like Nagesh, Thengai Srinivasan, and crucially, Cho, who used the dialect in his debut film, Paar Magaley Paar , helped make it popular.
He immortalised it with the song ‘Vaa Vathiyare’ in Bommalattam. Those like Suruli Rajan, Janagaraj and Loose Mohan used it for comic effect. While Pasi is among the earliest films to use this dialect extensively, the first hero to embrace it, arguably, is Kamal Haasan, who is known for speaking it to perfection.
In recent years, the dialect has undergone much transformation. Lyricist Rokesh, from Vyasarpadi, is quite the expert, and is now consulted regularly by the who’s who of Tamil cinema. Director K. V. Anand introduced this ‘Gaana’ singer as a lyricist in Anegan (‘Danga Maari’). Rokesh has since written several hit songs, including ‘Dandanakka’ ( Romeo Juliet ), ‘Bagulu Odayum Dagulu Mari’ ( Maari ), ‘Jithu Jilladi’ ( Theri ), and of course, the mega hit ‘Aaluma Doluma’ ( Vedalam ). The inspiration for the song, he says, came from watching some women fight for water in his locality (“ Aaluma doluma means a sneaky troublemaker”). Interestingly enough, unlike many lyricists, Rokesh often needs to be present while the song is being recorded, as some of the words are Greek and Latin to many singers. He has taken Tamil cinema by storm, and caused the recent spike in interest in Chennai baashai .
The writer will be talking on this subject this Friday at the Park Hyatt, Velachery.
