meree scooter kee pichhlee seat tumhe, bahut chhoTee maaloom hone lagee hai

Film : Rang Birangi
Year of release : 1983
Spoken by : Jeet (Farooque Sheikh)
Spoken to : Anita (Deepti Naval)

Anita's boss (Amol Palekar), in a bid to perk up his married life, starts romancing her. Her fiance Jeet, who is a professor in a college, routinely picks her up after office on his Lambretta scooter. On a couple of such occasions, he finds her driving off in the evening in her boss' car. On their next meeting, Anita finds him slightly taciturn. She asks him the reason. He says

Anita, mujhe aajkal aisaa lagtaa hai, meree scooter kee pichhlee seat tumhe, bahut chhoTee maaloom hone lagee hai.
अनीता...मुझे आजकल ऐसा लगता है...मेरी स्कूटर की पिछली सीट तुम्हे...बहुत छोटी मालूम होने लगी है

Arre naukree milee hai tankhaa naheeN

I have had a lot of queries on the line which features as the title of this blog. Many readers have asked me if I propose to explain this line in detail. I will, I will. But that will have to wait. For the moment, I am featuring another line from that cult classic - Chashme Baddoor.

Siddhaarth Paraashar (Faarooque Sheikh) is an intelligent and educated young man who is in love with Neha Raajan (Deepti Naval). They normally meet at Rajnigandha restaurant and have a tooty fruity ice cream and a coffee. So one day when Siddhaarth goes to meet Neha, he tells her that he has landed a job. Neha is thrilled. She immediately tells the waiter (Keemti Anand) to get a 'double tooty fruity' ice cream. Siddharth's immediate response is

"अरे नौकरी मिली है तंख़्वाह नही"
"Arre Naukri mili hai tankhaaah nahin"

A slightly ruder way of saying the same thing would be

"गांव बसा नही मंगते आ गये"

Literally, the featured line means that I have landed something good, but it is yet to yield fruits. So let us not jump to conclusions and get carried away.

This is a classic line, which I have used many times as a freelancer. If I had landed a lucrative assignment my friends would clamour for a 'treat'. And then I would say this line. So the next

"अरे नौकरी मिली है तंख़्वाह नहीं"

If you have a more thick skinned set of friends, use the other line

"गांव बसा नही मंगते आ गये"

Mere dost beeDiyon par utar aaye hain

The idea for this blog came to me when one of my colleagues, once told me the exact line that you see in the title. The reference was - I used to normally travel by auto rickshaws and that day I had taken a state corporation bus. I was intrigued by the usage and asked him what he meant. He said that this line is uttered by Faarooque Sheikh in the 1980s classic Chashm-e-baddoor. It hit me that our Hindi films (and for that matter all films) are a very rich source of dialogues which when viewed in the proper context almost work like proverbs. How many of us have been in a workshop or a training session where after a question posed by the presenter; if no one proffers an answer, the presenter usually says "itnaa sannaaTaa kyoon hai bhaai". Seldom has this line failed in getting something from a twitter to a guffaw from the audience. This line is uttered by the grand old man of Hindi cinema - AK Hangal in that all time classic Sholay.

So this blog shall basically catch and capture such memorable lines. We will try and give you the exact words spoken - as a proverb or a quotation is incorrect if even a syllable is changed. We will also give the situation of the line, the film in which it was used, which character uttered it and what it could mean metaphorically. Although my colleague triggered the idea of creating this blog, he quoted this line wrong. So I ensure that all the lines are exactly as they appear in the film, and not as people remember them.
If you remember any great lines, please write in to me. Leave the research to me. I would like to encourage each one of you to contribute. Remember the requirements

1. The exact words to be used
2. The situation in which they are used
3. The film in which they are used
4. The character (real as well as fictional) who spouts the lines
5. The metaphor - or why do you think it qualifies to be a proverb

Any anecdotes around it are more than helpful. Feel free to write in. And I heartily wish you never have to smoke a beeDi ever. Nor a cigarette for that matter. Nor any form of tobacco. Cheers

Ravi