Bollywood

Bollywood is the informal name given to the popular Mumbai-based film industry in India.

Dialogues and lyrics

The film script (frequently credited as "Dialogues") and the song lyrics are often written by different people. The dialogues are mostly written in Hindi, with use of Urdu in situations which require poetic dialogues. Contemporary mainstream movies also make great use of English. Dialogues are often melodramatic and invoke God, family, mother, duty, and self-sacrifice liberally.

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• In the 1975 film Deewar, a dialogue between the gangster brother Vijay and his policeman brother Ravi:

::Vijay: Hum dono ek hi jagah se apni zindagi ki shuruwat ki thi—aaj main kaha hoon aur tum kahan ho. Mere paas gaadi hai, bungalow hai, daulat hai—kya hai tumhaarey paas?

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::We both started our lives from the same place—look where I am today and where you are. I have cars, bungalows, wealth—what do you have?

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::

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::Ravi: Mere paas ma hai.

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::I have Mom.

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Music directors often prefer working with certain lyricists, to the point that the lyricist and composer are seen as a team. Song lyrics are usually about love. Bollywood song lyrics, especially in the old movies, frequently use Urdu or Hindustani vocabulary which has many elegant and poetic Arabic and Persian loan-words. Here's a sample from the 1983 film Hero, written by the great lyricist Anand Bakshi:

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::Bichhdey abhi to hum, bas kal parso,

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::jiyoongi main kaisey, is haal mein barson?

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::Maut na aayi, teri yaad kyon aayi,

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::Haaye, lambi judaayi!

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::We have been separated just a day or two,

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::How am I going to go on this way for years?

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::Death doesn't come; why, instead, do these memories of you?

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::Oh, this long separation!

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