iske maa baap tang aa chuke the

Film : Disha

Year of release : 1990

Spoken by : Soma Sarpat (Raghuvir Yadav)

Spoken to : Visitor (unknown)

Dialogue writer : Sai Paranjpe 

Karim Asif is considered a legend, though the only film he effectively made was Mughal-e-Aazam. Then why can't Sai Paranjpe be right on top of the list, just for Chashme Baddoor, Sparsh and Katha. Sometimes I don't understand the way our film critics work. Most people who talk about Mughal e Aazam haven't even seen the film (and don't understand half the dialogues), but yet it's a cult classic. Karim Asif is legendary. While it does help to have Dilip Kumar's kid sister as a wife, to be called legendary, but some categorisations are plain unfair. No, I have nothing against K Asif. I am a big fan myself (a look at this blog will tell you that). But Sai Paranjpe deserves more. I hope she gets it. 

The reason I wrote the earlier paragraph was to establish that Sai Paranjpe is underrated. And Disha is an underrated Sai Paranjpe film. 

A visitor comes to Soma's village. He comes to meet Soma. While he is waiting for him, he sees a few kids around. He asks them

"kyaa naam hai tum logo.n ke?"

The first one says 'Sharmila'. The second one says 'Jeetendra'. The third one says 'Amitabh' and the fourth and the youngest one says 'Kaddoo'. Yes you read that right. That's Hindi for pumpkin. A much loved and an equally hated vegetable. 

Surprised at this anti-climactic name, the visitor asks the kid, 

'Kaddoo kyo.n bhai?'

At that point Soma walks in and says by way of clarification, 

'jab tak ye paidaa huaa, iske maa baap tang aa chuke the'

'जब तक ये पैदा हुआ, इसके मां बाप तंग आ चुके थे'

This film is worth seeing just for this line. I haven't laughed more during a scene in my life. If you read between the lines, it is an amazing advertisement for family planning, delivered in an absolutely non-threatening way. If I was the Minister for Health and Social Welfare, I would use this scene as an ad, and use the tagline, 

'stop at Amitabh, before you land up with 'kaddoo''

As the ward boy in Munnabhai MBBS says - mai.n bhii soch rahaa hoo.n health minister ban jaaoo.n.