Nobody who’s familiar with his films is surprised with Dulquer Salman’s performance in ‘The Zoya Factor’. It’s his Hindi diction shorn of any ‘Madrasi’ accent that’s making people in the North take notice. ‘Say hello to Dulquer, Bollywood’s latest exciting import from the South,’ gushes a critic. It’s as if he’s received transfer orders with a promotion. Dulquer sleepwalks through a role that tests his batting skills more than his immense acting abilities while Sonam Kapoor is busy making faces.
For Dulquer, the film seems to have been a paid holiday and yes, his Hindi diction is surprisingly proficient for someone who studied in Chennai and later at Purdue University. But then every actor from the South making his/her foray into Hindi films has taken the trouble to learn the language while we’re still caricatures with a ‘Madrasi’ accent doing the ‘lungi’ dance in their films.
Stars like Kamal and Rajni did not do Hindi films for the money. Kamal is fond of saying he’s a limelight moth. Applause is an actor’s aphrodisiac and the wider the better. It was unfathomable though why Rajni who was ruling Tamil cinema would agree to do more than 20 films in Hindi which were mostly multi-starrers. Even Chiranjeevi who fumed at the way Southern actors and technicians were treated at an International film festival and thundered he’d not do a Hindi film, succumbed and was lured though definitely not by the lucre.
The best thing that happened to Kamal‘s career I feel was when his Hindi films flopped and he felt it was literally a waste of time, considering the number of days they took to complete a film. His talent was not being tested even though the biggest names like Hrishikesh Mukerjee, Raj Kapoor and Manmohan Desai were keen on working with him. When Manmohan Desai approached him, Kamal asked for a script. The director laughed aloud and remarked that even Amitabh didn’t demand one.
“I’m not Amitabh,” retorted Kamal. Kamal was sharing cold vibes with Amitabh thanks to a film they were both starring in being shelved after seventy five percent had been shot. Amitabh was shaken by Kamal’s performance when he watched the ‘rushes’. None of Balachander’s remakes with Kamal worked after ‘Ek Dhuje Ke Liye’. His brief foray was the most creatively barren period in his illustrious career. He still remains the most successful South actor in Hindi cinema though.
Kamal Haasan and Sridevi in the Hindi film "Sadma" ("Moondram Pirai" in Tamil).
Now all these stars spoke their own lines. Kamal was clear that dubbing was a crucial part of a performance and would speak his own lines. After a few of his Hindi films, I mentioned that his Hindi accent was getting better. “How do you know?” he shot back. Well, I told him I watched a lot of Hindi films. You don’t need to speak the language. You need to understand and Hindi cinema helped me pick up the language more than the text book we were forced to study.
We learnt the language because we wanted to not because it was imposed. When I pointed out that Velu Naicker grows up in Bombay, but does not talk Hindi, Mani Ratnam said, “We’re not saying he does not understand the language. He just doesn’t care to speak.” I think that echoes the collective voice of all the non-Hindi speaking populace. It’s not just the heroes. Every Southern heroine who’s ruled Hindi cinema over the decades spoke their own lines, from Vyjayanthimala to the present Deepika Padukone. It bespeaks love for the medium and dedication towards the profession.
When I mentioned to Madhuri Dixit that she looked thin probably due to over work, she retorted, “It’s only in the South that heroines are expected to be buxom.” I reminded her that it took a ‘Sadma’ to prove that there’s more to Sridevi than her thunder thighs’ in the North. In the recent acclaimed web series, ‘The Family Man’, the highly underrated Priyamani sinks her teeth into a well-etched character. Again, it’s not her performance, but her effortless Hindi diction though it’s established that she’s a Tamilian that stands out. Then there’s the extremely talented Neeraj Madhav from Kerala who plays a terrorist. He shows you don’t have to contort your face and scream to appear menacing. ‘Madrasi’ films were called loud and vulgar, but Jeetendra owes most of his riches to remakes of outlandish, hysterical Telugu potboilers directed by the likes of T. Rama Rao and Bapiah, while sensitive stuff like ‘Solva Saal’ and ‘Sadma’ limped at the box-office.
On the flipside, how many of the heroines imported more for their skin tone than their talent, or the man mountains who play antagonists have bothered to speak ‘Madrasi’? You can name Khushboo, but then she migrated to Madras long back. The biggest of Hindi heroines like Katrina Kaif and Priyanka Chopra have been lured paying a fortune, definitely not for their talent if any, but for a romantic dalliance when the hero is not beating up the baddies. The girls too were clear it’s purely for pelf and not because the roles had scope for performance. It’s easy money when you just have to sashay, shake a leg and leave somebody paid a pittance to struggle with the lip sync. There are the snarling baddies dealing in blood and broken bones like Sonu Sood, Mukesh Rishi and Pradeep Rawat. Sai Kumar or his brother Ravi Shanker is mostly their menacing voices. When they do make an effort it’s torturous, like Nana Patekar in ‘Kaala’. Sayaji Shinde, it must be mentioned, speaks fairly good Telugu.
We understand their language because we want to. They want us to learn their language because they refuse to acknowledge any other tongue. Down South is the new up North.
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