Crash course on Bollywood dialogue writing

By Moses Navgire, IndiaFM
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
People usually keep saying that making a career in Bollywood is not so easy. It's true that you need to have good contacts and a good luck to make it big in this industry but at the same time, you need to be smart. More than hard work, you should work smartly in Bollywood. And how exactly to do this is what we are going to teach you in this dialogue writing course.

If you are an aspiring writer and have thought of dialogue writing as a career option, all you have to do is watch some old Hindi films. Notice the situations, the emotions and relating dialogues. After a few films you'll notice a striking similarity between the situations in the films and the corresponding dialogues. So, just put the right dialogue in the right situation and you become a writer. To make things easy for you, we have made special notes taking portions from the ideal Bollywood script. We have written the important scenes with corresponding dialogues. So, you don't have to go through the videos taking down observations. Just read the following notes carefully and learn how writing in Bollywood is done.

Crucial situation # 1

A Bollywood film always starts with showing some horrifying crime the villain commits. Apparently, the prey of the villain happens to be the Hero's truthful father and Hero's mother witnesses the murder. This is the time when our hero is a 6 month old baby, but his mother vows that her son will take revenge.

Maa: yeh badle ki aag ab tere khoon se hi bujhegi kamine. Aur yeh badle mera beta lega.

Crucial situation # 2

20 years later, the hero becomes 21yrs old. He completes his degree with a first class, also a trophy for excellence in sports and an award in dance competition at college fest and a certificate for finding a technical error in Newton's E=mc2. So the extraordinary hero comes home with all these trophies and presents them to his widow mother who is busy sewing clothes. Well yea sewing clothes is how she makes money. That is how she paid for her son's Cambridge School's fees, his hostel charges, college fees, the amazing locations he takes his girlfriend to just sing songs and yea also rent of their one room cottage.

Hero: maa, main 1st class ke saath pass ho gaya
Maa: agar aaj tumhare baapu zinda hote to kitne khush hote beta
Hero: yeh kya maa, tumhare aakhon mein aasu?
Maa: yeh toh khushi ke aasu hai beta...
Maa: (wiping off her tears) ab chal jaldi se haath muh dhole, maine tere liye gaajar ka halwa banaya hai.

Crucial situation # 3

Some ugly bad guys from the street kidnap the Heroine and take her to a jungle far far away to rape her. They are almost close to doing it when suddenly Hero reaches there from nowhere and knocks the bad people down. The heroine is apparently his secret crush from college who she always ignores. She is scared and gets highly emotional then.

Heroine: agar tum sahi samay par nahi aate toh na jaane mera kya hota
Heroine: (suddenly questions him) tumne mere liye apni jaan khatre main kyun daali?
Hero: kyunki main tumse pyar karta hoon

Crucial Scene # 4

Hero hears the story of his fathers murder from his widow, white sari clad mother.

Hero: Ab mere jeene ka maksad sirf pitaji ki maut ka badla hai

Crucial Scene # 5

Hero finds out that the villain who murdered his pitaji is actually the Heroine's father, who shows the world that he is a businessman but he actually makes money by smuggling drugs, diamonds and gold biscuits. Heroine gets annoyed when Hero tells her about this.

Hero: Tumhare pitaji businessman nahi, hindustan ke sabse bade smuggler hai
Heroine: (annoyed) Tum mere daddy ke bare mein aisi baatein kar bhi kaise sakte ho! Ab main tumhari shakal tak nahi dekhna chahti

Crucial Scene # 6

Hero ki Maa reminds him of another responsibility on his shoulders.
Maa: Beta, pata nahi mere zindagi ke kitne din baaki hai. Ek baar teri behen ke haath pile kar doon, phir mein chain se mar sakti hoon
Hero: (promises) Maa main wadaa karta hoon, behena ki shaadi main jald se jald karwa doonga. Aur tum marne ki baatein mat karo.

Crucial Scene # 7

The heroine finds out about her father's illegal business and gets shocked.
Heroine: Toh Vijay (hero) ne aapke bare main sahi kaha tha, aap gunde hai, smuggler hain, desh-drohi hain!
Hero: Batameez! Us kamine ke behkaave main aake tu mujhse zabaan lada rahi hai. Tum kal hi amrica (America) ja rahi ho
Heroine: Duniya ki koi takat hame juda nahi kar sakti pitaji. Aap bhi nahi.

Crucial Scene # 8

Meanwhile, remember the goons whom the hero thrashed in CS # 3? Ok so these bad guys make a comeback to take revenge from the hero who ruined their party plus he had beaten them up like animals. Now, to take revenge they kidnap his younger sister and take her to a lonely cow-shed.
Tapori no.1: Tere bhai apne aap ko bohut bahadur samajta hai, ab bula usse tujhe bachane
Hero's behen: Bhagwan ke liye mujhe chhod do
Tapori no. 2: tere jaisi sunder cheez ko bhagwan ke liye chod do? Hehe..Hahahahaaa
Hero's behen: (shouts) BACHAAO!!
Tapori no. 1: chilaa, aur chilaa! Yahan teri cheekh sunne walah koi nahin
The goons get closer to her and hero ki behen screams
Hero ki behen: NAAHIIIIIIIIIII!

Hero ki behen then returns back with torn clothes (it's torn only on the shoulders), broken bangles and marks all over her body. Hero's not home that time. She goes and hugs her mother and starts crying.
Hero ki behen: maa, mein lut gayi, barbaad ho gayi

Maa instead on supporting her daughter, gets offensive
Hero ki Maa: tumne ab hame kahin mooh dikhane layak nahi choda
Hero ki Behen: (shocked) maa?
Hero ki Maa: ab hum logon ko kya jawab denge, tujhse kaun shaadi karega? Tune poore khaadan ki izzat mitti mein mila di. Ja nikal ja is ghar se.

Hero ki behen runs out of the house, jumps into the well and commits suicide. Hero's mother realizes her mistake later and then starts crying on her daughter's death.
Hero ki maa: yeh tune kya kiya beti!