New Delhi: In one of the scenes of OTT smash hit Scam 1992, actor Pratik Gandhi, who plays notorious stockbroker Harshad Mehta, said “locha lafda aur jalebi fafda – ise Gujarati ki life se koi nikal nahi skta”. In another scene, when one of Mehta’s friend cautioned him about the risks associated with the stock market, he promptly replied, “Risk hai to ishq hai.” Now reel is becoming real. Indians have found amusing ways to express themselves borrowing from the OTTverse. But what has also entered the lexicon is can full of expletives that’s changing the language itself.
With the stock market in tailspin after Mehta’s manipulation, a broker losing money couldn’t contain his hate for Mehta and said “Ye Harshad Mehta Beh***** hai kaun?” This was 2020. In the past four years, OTT has increasingly taken storytelling to small towns and even villages and streamed expletives and slurs into the Hindi speakers’ language flow.
The OTT language has ensured virality and audience engagement but has got Hindi purists and government in a tizzy. Small towns are a sexy discovery for OTT. They bring local language and a cocktail of hyperlocal idioms, words, dialects and of course a volley of slurs. OTT is blending realism with regional dialects. Platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video brought a new wave of diversity as seen in shows such as Sacred Games, Mirzapur, Paatal Lok, Kota Factory and Panchayat where the local flavors prevailed. What began as Hindi-Haryanvi hybrid dialogues that gave colorful slurs is now all UP-Bihar hinterland dialect rich with bawdy phrases. But this evolution has also sparked debates about the role of language, violence, and explicit content in this new-age medium, resulting in controversies, cases and censorship.
“With the advent of OTT, the audience got to know about many small Hindustans,” said Arti Jain, digital editor of Hindi magazine Nayi Dhara.
Hindi professor at Delhi University Prabhat Ranjan said Dilip Kumar dialogues were a language tutorial on their own and language played an important role in making Amitabh Bachchan a superstar. Earlier, dialogues had purity of language in every way but in today’s time people do not understand the language at all.
In the 1950s, 60s, 70s the language of films used to meet every standard of purity. People used to learn language from films but in today’s time, the purity of language has been left far behind
Prabhat Ranjan, Hindi professor, Delhi University
“In the 1950s, 60s, 70s the language of films used to meet every standard of purity. People used to learn language from films but in today’s time, the purity of language has been left far behind,” said Ranjan. “When the use of bad language increases, the pressure on pure language is felt. And the demand for purity has become meaningless.”
The OTT content is having a great impact on the language of university students.
“There used to be popular literature earlier too, but its readership was limited. Now, the same things have started being made through cinema, which has widened the reach,” said Ravikant, Hindi professor at Lucknow University.
Language is more connected to technology and children’s language is being made through social media, OTT content or the Internet and it is affecting them most.
“What they are learning from there is also visible in their writing,” he said.
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‘A matter of aesthetics’
It has become fashionable to say that it all started with Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur. For many, it was a before-after point in Bollywood language. But Tigmanshu Dhulia, as Wasseypur’s upper caste bahubali businessman who throws expletives frequently, himself has something different to say. He now wants to distance himself from what has become a raging trend.
He said strong narratives can thrive without over-relying on explicit language.
“It’s a matter of aesthetics as the most important thing is the way in which the slurs are being used,” said Dhulia.
Dhulia cited a Sholay scene to drive home his point. Gabbar Singh, the villain, shoots the entire family of Thakur but the director decided against showing the actual firing. Instead, he sandwiched a speeding train shot in between to signal violence. The next shot shows coffins lying.
“It was such a horrific scene. So this is the style and aesthetics. If you do something aesthetically, it looks good and if you do it in a very crude way, it will look bad,” he said.
In 2023, Dhulia directed the OTT series Garmi. The director said that while making it for OTT, he thought of using a lot of abusive language but people did not like it. “How did Tigmanshu Dhulia make it? How did he use slurs,” people asked.
Bundeli, Awadhi are so juicy on their own that slurs are not needed
Tigmanshu Dhulia, director and actor
Dhulia agreed filmmakers these days are using slurs to punctuate dialogues. “That punctuation can be done with some other force,” he said, adding that it is the duty of the filmmakers and writers to explain to the actors about the kind of abuses used and how to present that.
Dhulia’s Haasil, Bullet Raja, Pan Singh Tomar have characters speaking regional tongues such as Bundeli, Awadhi etc.
“Bundeli, Awadhi are so juicy on their own that slurs are not needed,” said Dhulia, adding that those who don’t understand the language resort to slurs.
The director actor said that many OTT shows are not well made but became popular because dialogues are expletives laden.
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Evolution of screen language
In Hindi cinema, Shekhar Kapoor’s Bandit Queen shook audiences when it hit theatres in 1994. Not only because of its subject but the language. It’s very opening scene has slurs. Phoolan Devi’s flushed face is visible and she shouts angrily: “main hoon Phoolan Devi behanch** main hoon.
“Those slurs were confined to caste oppression against a woman of a lower caste,” said Uday Prakash, who wrote the novel Peeli Chhatri Wali Ladki and Mohandas.
The film faced many checks from Central Board of Film and Certification (CBFC) over cuss words and frontal nudity. Initially, it was banned in India but later re-released with an A rating.
Hindi cinema has seen change in language in every era. The 1950s were filled with numerous films with heavy influence of Urdu. With the passage of time, dialogues became more relatable and conversational. In the 1970s, Hindi filmmakers incorporated slangs into the dialogues. While in the 1990s, cinema was influenced by western culture with English increasingly entering the dialogues. The language of cinema was shaped by a complex interplay of cultural, social, and political factors.
While big screen too is porous and some catchy dialogues stay with the audiences, the frequency appears to be higher with OTT content. And when laced with profanity, they are able to tickle a large section of audiences.
Hindi cinema has seen change in language in every era. The 1950s were filled with numerous films with heavy influence of Urdu. With the passage of time, dialogues became more relatable and conversational.
In Mirzapur, Munna Bhaiya—played by Pankaj Tripathi (Divyendu Sharma)—said “jo bharosewale hote hain vahi bho***wale bhi hote hain.” In Paatal Lok, when Jaideep Ahlawat, who plays a cop, is suspended, a tea seller outside the police station tells him “aapke sath jo hua na bahut galat hua.” An agitated Ahlawat responds “tu chai bana le bawli gaa**.
In another scene of Paatal Lok, Ahlawat said, “Sir aadhi jindagi apne baap ki aankhon mein dekha hai ki uska beta chu**** hai, baki jindagi bete ki aankhon mein nahi dekhna chahta ki uska baap chu**** hai.”
In Sacred Games, Nawazuddin Siddiqui said: Apun kidar tha malum nahi, apun ko bas gaa*** maa*** thi.” In the same series, Pankaj Tripathi’s character is given a catchphrase: “Aham Brahmasmi” and “Balidan dena hoga.”
Nearly five years after these web series hit OTT screens, their dialogues have found an afterlife and often find expression in the language of the youth that speaks in memes.
For Arti Jain, OTT has broken the monolithic world of films. She gives the hugely popular “Arey Binod” reference from Panchayat series on Amazon Prime. It highlights the power of local accent and the mannerisms of India’s villages and small towns. And the audiences in the big cities have made a connection.
Unlike the expletive-laden dialogues popularised by shows such as Mirzapur or Sacred Games, Panchayat adopts a more grounded, relatable tone reflective of rural India and captures the nuances of everyday speech, signaling a broader trend towards realism and inclusivity in storytelling. “Humach ke”, “rangbaazi”, “muh chiyaar doge” are finding resonance beyond Bihar and UP.
However, Jain said writers are not able to give memorable dialogues, the way Kader Khan or Salim-Javed did.
“Dialogue writing as an art is going down,” she said.
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The looming censorship
Former Central Information Commissioner and the founder of Save Culture Save Bharat Foundation, Uday Mahurkar met RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat seeking support to “unite Bharat against makers and distributers of perverted content/pornography on OTT..” He has also filed a case against Netflix and Ekta Kapoor for displaying explicit content.
“We were forced to take judicial action after Delhi Police refused to file an FIR, despite irrefutable evidence presented in my complaint,” Mahurkar wrote on X.
Ekta Kapoor’s OTT platform Alt Balaji produced bold, edgy and often provocative adult content on relationships, infidelity, desire.
“Will India be culturally bankrupt by 2047, even as it aspires to superpower status,” Mahurkar told ThePrint, adding that healthy and clean entertainment is important and should be promoted.
He said that the way the relationships between mother-in-law and son-in-law, father-in-law and daughter-in-law are being shown on OTT platforms, it will destroy society. “This is a misuse of freedom of expression and OTT is promoting it.”
The I&B Ministry is working on new regulations to govern OTT content before its release, mandating the beeping of profanity and blurring of explicit scenes. The government has also introduced the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 that mandate OTT platforms to self-regulate their content.
In October, the Supreme Court rejected a petition filed by Delhi-based advocate Shashank Shekhar Jha, seeking creation of a regulatory body for OTT platforms.
In Lok Sabha, BJP MP Arun Govil recently called for keeping a check on OTT content. “Whatever is being shown on OTT platforms is very obscene, we cannot watch it while sitting with family. Our moral values have deteriorated because of it,” said Govil.
Amazon Prime’s 2021 web series Tandav ran into controversy after multiple complaints were filed against the makers for hurting religious sentiment. The makers also received IB Ministry summons.
After Tandav, Netflix removed Nayanthara’s Annapoorani (2023) from its platform. Netflix also faced legal heat for Maharaj (2024) while Anubhav Sinha’s IC 814: The Kandhar Hikack ran into controversy resulting in summons by the IB ministry.
The I&B Ministry is working on new regulations to govern OTT content before its release, mandating the beeping of profanity and blurring of explicit scenes. The government has also introduced the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 that mandate OTT platforms to self-regulate their content.
Citing an example, Mihir Pandya said that content like Sacred Games would have been filtered out of films but it was made due to OTT. “Paatal Lok, Laila openly commented on many issues,” he said.
Film scholar and author of Shehar aur Cinema Vaya Delhi Mihir Pandya, said that Anurag Kashyap wanted to use the names of real characters while making the film Black Friday but he did not get permission. But Hansal Mehta used some real footage of Harshad Mehta in Scam 1992. “Films were not able to do this work but with the advent of OTT, all this started happening,” he said.
Anurag Kashyap said this year that the golden age of OTT is over. In 2018, Kashyap had said abuses are not deliberately used in his films. “I let things happen in a natural and organic way. We have become like this that we can see and hear such things in our routine life but not in films, as if the entire burden of the society is on films,” he had said.
Pandya said that after Tandav, many such shows were stopped and filmmakers and writers started censoring themselves. “After 2021, shows that could have been made are not being made. This is not a good situation for art.”
Dhulia called out the contradictions of Indian audiences, pointing out their acceptance of vulgarity in English films but discomfort with it in homegrown content.
“We are hypocrites,” he said, highlighting how societal standards often clash with artistic freedom. For Dhulia, the real challenge for filmmakers lies in creating impactful narratives without relying on slurs or sensationalism.
“It’s like cooking mutton — adding pepper is easy. The real skill is making it flavorful without it,” he said.
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)
One would have to be extremely naive and gullible to believe that OTT shows expose the reality of “small Hindustans”.
OTT shows are a masala combination of sleaze, profanity and violence. No one can identify with that level of sleaze, profanity or violence simply because it does not exist. At best, a handful of exceptions can be found in this nation of 1.4 billion. But nobody, talks in such profane language, or sexually fantasise about anyone/everyone of the opposite gender or shoot dead random people.
If one has to think of reality, then only a few shows such as Panchayat and Pataal Lok qualify.
The fact that Krishan Murari thinks these OTT shows depict the reality shows how far removed he is from reality. Maybe a visit to a UP or Bihar village, accompanied by a month or two of stay there, would help him cut through the fog and observe the reality of rural life.
Shows like Mirzapur and Sacred Games do not represent rural India or Indian society. For anyone who has stayed amongst the rural folk in UP/Bihar will tell you that law and order is a serious issue. But it’s nowhere like what has been portrayed in Mirzapur. And adults hardly use profanity laden language. The level of profanity in Mirzapur dialogues are absolutely unrealistic.
And last but not the least would be the sleaze. These shows would have us believe that rural folks are sex-crazy people willing to jump into bed with anyone and everyone. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The people who believe that Mirzapur depicts the reality of India have never stayed among rural folk. They have absolutely zero idea of how things are in rural UP/Bihar.
Language purity? Are you serious Mr. Murari?
Bollywood has always promoted a heavily Urdu influenced Hindi. The Hindi of old Bollywood films seems less like Hindi and more like Urdu.
Bollywood has been the biggest champion of Urdu all along.
What kind of language purity are we talking about here?