08-01-2007, 09:00 AM
Bharatvarshji, Omkara is a confusing case, to the extreme. A GOOD experimentation in language, and successful too, but certainly far from any real dialect spoken REALLY by any single set of people in UP.
They tried to represent a village of Eastern UP, to begin with. The entire background and location is truely a typical East UP village. (In fact the place where they shot a large part of the movie is not very far from my original village) Some of the locations that I can mention about the movie... The student hostel that they showed in the earlier part of the movie... that is Lucknow University's real hostel. A temple they showed where Naseer-ud-deen Shah is shown worshipping in a Shiva temple on a river Bank - that place is close to Prayag/Allahabad. The fight scene at a Brick-Bhatta - that is typical of East of Lucknow... Then they showed the city which is Lucknow... there are some very narrow streets as well as the dance sequences - that in fact does not look like UP but Bihar - Gaya or nearabouts.
So overall, the idea was to show east UP touching Bihar.
But dialect? I think different characters spoke different languages 'artificially' influenced by one or the other "real" dialects.
e.g. Saif Ali and his wife spoke more of Eastern dialect - mix of Awadhi with Khadi Boli. something close to what you would hear in the rural surroundings of Lucknow/Unnao/Kanpur. Some of the worlds they used, and idioms, are real, and typical of the region.
Some other characters spoke what can be said to be a rather good representation of East UP's urban Hindi, for sure. Examples would be what Kareena Kapur, her father, and Naseer-ud-deen Shah spoke. This type of Hindi would be heard in small towns of east UP.
HOWEVER, by and large the whole film and most of its characters spoke what I would say is influenced by WESTERN UP, bordering Haryana, in the rural areas of the districts like Muzaffar-Nagar/Modi-Nagar etc. Some characters including Ajay Devgan spoke a heavy Haryana-influenced accent with UP-influenced words. E.g. "Kathor!" and also the curse-words and abuses are typical of east UP, but not accent.
Dialect in the songs - both the words and accent - is east-UP influenced - largely Awadhi, sometimes Bhojpuri. 'Beedi Jala-ile' has typical awadhi accent with urdu-imported words of course. "jigar-maan badi aag hai..." could have been "jiyaa-maan badi aag hai...".
They tried to represent a village of Eastern UP, to begin with. The entire background and location is truely a typical East UP village. (In fact the place where they shot a large part of the movie is not very far from my original village) Some of the locations that I can mention about the movie... The student hostel that they showed in the earlier part of the movie... that is Lucknow University's real hostel. A temple they showed where Naseer-ud-deen Shah is shown worshipping in a Shiva temple on a river Bank - that place is close to Prayag/Allahabad. The fight scene at a Brick-Bhatta - that is typical of East of Lucknow... Then they showed the city which is Lucknow... there are some very narrow streets as well as the dance sequences - that in fact does not look like UP but Bihar - Gaya or nearabouts.
So overall, the idea was to show east UP touching Bihar.
But dialect? I think different characters spoke different languages 'artificially' influenced by one or the other "real" dialects.
e.g. Saif Ali and his wife spoke more of Eastern dialect - mix of Awadhi with Khadi Boli. something close to what you would hear in the rural surroundings of Lucknow/Unnao/Kanpur. Some of the worlds they used, and idioms, are real, and typical of the region.
Some other characters spoke what can be said to be a rather good representation of East UP's urban Hindi, for sure. Examples would be what Kareena Kapur, her father, and Naseer-ud-deen Shah spoke. This type of Hindi would be heard in small towns of east UP.
HOWEVER, by and large the whole film and most of its characters spoke what I would say is influenced by WESTERN UP, bordering Haryana, in the rural areas of the districts like Muzaffar-Nagar/Modi-Nagar etc. Some characters including Ajay Devgan spoke a heavy Haryana-influenced accent with UP-influenced words. E.g. "Kathor!" and also the curse-words and abuses are typical of east UP, but not accent.
Dialect in the songs - both the words and accent - is east-UP influenced - largely Awadhi, sometimes Bhojpuri. 'Beedi Jala-ile' has typical awadhi accent with urdu-imported words of course. "jigar-maan badi aag hai..." could have been "jiyaa-maan badi aag hai...".