Don and The Beauty of Language in Films

I love languages and as a consequence, when I watch any movie, my attention is immediately drawn to the language of the characters. Is it a language or a dialect? How is the diction? Does the character and her development match the way she speaks? It is a pleasure then, to watch a movie where the writers, the director, and the actors have done full justice to the languages of the characters. In the movie Don made in 1978, the title role is played by Amitabh Bachchan. He is always called Don, his real name or anything else about him is never revealed. We only know that he was a Christian because a priest is present at his burial. Don is not your regular Mumbai gangster. He is suave and sophisticated. His clothes are impeccable. To play this character, Amitabh spoke in clipped tones, rrrrrrrolled his rrrrrs and made his voice a deep drawl. Also, Don never smiled. The character of Vijay who is a doppelgänger of Don is poles apart. Vijay comes from a village on the shores of Ganges. His Hindi is not your usual Bambaiyya Hindi but it has a touch of UP to it. Full credit to writers Salim-Javed for making use of the language to distinguish this character. And the way Amitabh has rendered it is simply superb. There are three roles here that Amitabh has to play : Don, Vijay and Vijay impersonating Don. When the real gangster Don is killed and when Vijay impersonates him, his language becomes sophisticated but he cannot really produce that deep drawl or the rolling rrrs. Also his mouth is much more open while speaking and he smiles often. This indicates that the impersonation of Don that he is doing is good but not perfect. Vijay loves chewing paan, Don is too sophisticated for such habits. When Vijay’s cover is blown and he becomes Vijay again, you see him chewing paan again. When he is on the run with Roma (Zeenat Aaman), a very interesting situation occurs. They end up in a Dhobi Ghaat, where all the washer men and women are making Bhang and singing. Again, full marks to Salim-Javed for the detailing. These washer-men do not speak Hindi but speak a dialect from somewhere around the banks of Ganges. So when one of them asks Vijay as to what he wants, to his immense surprise, Vijay answers in the same dialect. When this happens, the washer-men cannot believe that such a posh looking person can speak their dialect. The person speaking to Vijay says as much. They instantly connect and provide him a safe place to hide. All Indians speak at least three languages and understand many more but have you noticed something? If you are used to speaking to someone in one language, then you will continue to do so even though both of you can speak in some other language as well. For instance, it feels unnatural to speak to your parents or relatives in English if you have not done so since childhood. So our brain has more or less fixed the connections of which language to use while speaking to each person. Now, normally Vijay speaks to Roma in chaste Hindi, because when they met they started speaking that way. When they are hiding in the washermen’s place, Vijay drinks Bhaang and becomes intoxicated. His brain loses the strict control and when Roma asks him to leave, he answers her not in Hindi as he usually does but in the dialect that he is using with the washer men. Rarely do you see such impeccable language continuity. In fact, many times the critically acclaimed serious movies also fail the language test miserably. And after this incident Vijay keeps on speaking the dialect intermittently, as if he suddenly remembered a long forgotten way to express himself. Two scenes stand out in Don. One that I just described. And the other one is where Vijay meets the inspector for the first time. Here, Vijay speaks in his accented Hindi with a paan in his mouth. Anyone who has ever eaten a paan will know how difficult it is to speak while chewing one. I remember only one other actor who has done this really well and that is Kishore Kumar in Padosan. He also chewed lot of paans while singing the famous song in Don, Khaike Paan Banaraswala. Amitabh fans will cite different examples of his acting prowess, from Mili to Deewar to Kaala Paththar or many recent movies. I loved all these performances : especially the intense one in Kaala Paththar, but the transformation of Don to Vijay in Don remains one of my favourites.