Thursday, September 21, 2006

Of "Babies", "Babas" and "Ghodas"


Bollywood - The Indian Film Industry. The largest in the world, with an output of over 800 movies a year. Where the only thing copied is the rhyme of its beloved name to Hollywood. Everything else is pure inspiration.
Where more than the kitch and gaudy costumes, it is the sound that will take you by surprise. You just need to be near a Bollywood shoot to understand.
The voices of more than a hundred people talking in different languages, and different dialects within those languages. The sibilance of the carpenters saw on wood. The “mike check - mike check - 1 2 3 - wooofphhh” of the sound engineers speaking & breathing into the mic. The multi-lingual abuses of the Light-wallas putting up the lights.
Where among all the confusion is the hilarity of the unique and onomotopoeic names given to every essential item, things, practises and people. Where “lighting-dada” (Light guys) will climb a “GHODA” ( horse, a wooden ladder) to adjust the “Baby” so that there is no reflection on the table on the set. Most probably it was “Camera-dada” (cameraman) who asked him to climb the GHODA. But “camera-dada” is still irritated because the “lighting-dadas” have dirtied the set and so he requests the “setting-dada” (set fabricators) to clean it, while “sound-dada” wires “baba” (the male lead) or “baby” (the female lead).

2 comments:

  1. heheh...

    you went to a verbally colorful shoot ya?

    didnt know you wrote so well.. nice read

    ReplyDelete