I have just watched:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarkar_(film)

It is based on The Godfather, set in Mumbai today. The actor playing Sarkar looks like Al Pacino. pretty good movie with very pretty girls. There weren't many menacing looking guys in it, everybody looked too intelligent with their eyeglasses and cellphones.

2 questions for Sam:

1. Is it plausible for thugs (bodyguards) just walk around town with semi-automatic weapons?

2. The actors occassionally and randomly switched to English from Hindi. Is it the way for the average people? When you talk with your friends, do you mix English in your talk??

I've never even seen a cop with a weapon, except during the riots, so the answer to that would be no.

Yup, usually we speak either English interspersed with Hindi or Hindi interspersed with English.

However, Sarkar, with the father son duo of Amitabh-Abhishek Bachchan is a masala film [i.e. bears little resemblance to reality]. For a look at how these dons really operate, see Nayagan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayagan

Do you also speak Marathi? The internet seems to be saying Bambaiyaa Hindi is Mubai's main language but a minority of web sites say Marathi is the main language.

Last time I was at Sahar and tried to tell the airport beggar boy to go away in a language other than English the boy scolded me. I thought the boy was scolding me for speaking Marathi instead of Hindi but a week later when I checked the word I thought I remembered using it was Hindi. Maybe the boy was scolding me for speaking Hindi. He said something and the word Marathi in a very condescending tone which I found funny because he was a beggar.

Unfortunately for me I don't know which of the few words that I learned are Hindi and which are Marathi and which words I am mispronouncing so badly that they are not words in any language.

Yeah I speak Marathi and Gujarati as well. Marathi is the local lingo, but Bombay has always been more cosmopolitan than Maharashtrian. The advent of the Shiv Sena [with an ideology that puts the Marathi Manus first] has been detrimental to the ethos of Bombay, which has been converted into the vernacular Mumbai. Your beggar was probably one of those Marathi Manus [the Maharashtrian Man]

Unfortunately it won't go away soon since the Thackeray spawn is reprouducing itself without mutation




The attacks on Hindi speaking communities in Mumbai by the members of Raj Thackeray led Maharastra Navnirman Sena (MSN) clearly indicates how selfish, irresponsible and anti-people our leadership can be to reach the chairs of power. It’s only for a quick reach to the corridors of power that Raj Thackeray has put the state of Maharastra on a linguistic divide in the name of protecting the rights of ‘Marathi Manush’.

Western India of the immediate post independence scenario witnessed a mixed state, i.e. the Bombay State comprising of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Bombay. Although the Bombay state has been done away with, and the then existing bilingual state comprising of Gujarati and Marathi is now two separate states – Maharastra and Gujarat.

Talking about Mumbai, although geographically the city is very much a part of Maharashtra, Mumbai is a true mini-world where people from rest of the country and even the world live in keeping the Marathi speaking population at less than 50 percent. The city, over the years, has seen an influx of people from the rest of the country and even different parts of the globe for making a career, business exploration, development consultancy etc.

The city has truly become the commercial capital of India making it the gateway for people and organisations interested in pursuing economic activities in the country. Apart form that, the Mumbai port and the Bollywood film industry have brought in the multilingual crowd to the city. Had the situation been a little different, Mumbai would not have earned the title of ‘commercial’ as well as ‘entertainment’ capital of India.

In the events leading to the 2008 attacks on North Indians in Maharshtra, Raj Thackeray made critical remarks about migrants from the North Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar accusing them of spoiling the culture of Maharastra and grabbing the opportunities of Marathi natives.

Staging political rallies across the state, Raj even questioned the loyalty of Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan towards Maharashtra on the ground that he doesn’t speak Marathi language in public. It’s not only Amitabh, but many other personalities were brought under Raj’s Marathi scanner to raise the slogan of ‘Marathi Manus’ for churning of political mileage and electoral benefits.

But, unfortunately or tactfully, Raj never demanded ‘Bollywood’ to stop producing Hindi movies and go for Marathi films only. May be because he knows the employment and revenue generating potential of Hindi film Industry that gives Mumbai international fame.

Even to brand himself a Marathi Maniac, Raj threw the idea of driving out the Non-Marathi population from the state. The Mumbai film industry, the largest film-making fraternity in the world, has been doing business internationally through popular Hindi films. How does it matter if one out of a population of more than one billion speaks Hindi or Marathi? Is the foundation of our nation so poor that a whole state of 96.75 million people would erupt so violently over a remark that is meant for political interests of an individual struggling to be settled in state politics?

http://hotnhitnews.com/linguistic_politics_n_regional_disparity_in_India_ 09001.htm

is a masala film [i.e. bears little resemblance to reality].

What is a masala film, a mixture? Sarkar also has a sequel.

The only thing I didn't like was the extended use of tense music, it was like in the series 24. You just can't make every moment tense. They only switched to Indian music at the last 15 minutes.

The movie was also based (supposedly) on the family of Balasaheb Thackeray, the leader of the Mumbai-based political party, Shiv Sena.

masala =spice

I haven't seen the film so I couldn't comment on it.

Mumbai Godfather is the name of an Indian Bollywood film directed by Deepak Balraj . .

My girlfriend speaks hindi she got me to watch a movie guirpe or something ... some guy that forgets every 15 minutes and hes on a mission to kill the people that did this to him, etc....

I like those films just not the dancing and singing randomly every 30 minutes

My girlfriend speaks hindi she got me to watch a movie guirpe or something ... some guy that forgets every 15 minutes and hes on a mission to kill the people that did this to him, etc....

I like those films just not the dancing and singing randomly every 30 minutes

Thats Aamir Khan's Ghajini and its based on the Guy Pearce movie Memento

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/

Subhash Nagre (Amitabh Bachchan), who is known by his followers as Sarkar, lives in Mumbai. The opening scenes show a rape victim's father (Veerendra Saxena) approaching Sarkar for justice (which the corrupt law and order system has failed to deliver) which Sarkar promptly establishes by having the rapist beaten up by his henchmen. His son, Vishnu (Kay Kay Menon), plays a foul-mouthed producer who is more interested in the film actress Sapna (Nisha Kothari) than his wife Amrita (Rukhsar).