The Indian film has been a great chunk of culture since the late 1890s. In fact the earliest films in India were made in Mumbai and Pune and had major stage actors playing lead roles. For one, no one from a respectable family would allow their sons or daughters to act in films, so theatre actors had the world to themselves. Secondly, the actors had to be good looking, good in acting and great singers too. Not many commoners fitted the bill.

In the forties, the dialogues were bombastic and loud. It was Parsi theatre all the way, borrowing heavily from Victorian theatric styles. Dialogues were accompanied with strong vocal histrionics, flinging of arms and exaggerated expressions. Probably the utilization of the camera was unheard of, the audiences in the movie halls were treated as audiences in the theatre. Playback was rocket science too. It was the era of Sohrab Modi, of long, flowery speeches in Urdu, of frequent use of Persian couplets to emphasize a point. The younger cousin was the ever-smiling K L Sehgal, drinking himself to death for his lost love in Devdas. For today's generation, there seems to be no reason for such melancholy. A distinct harmonium that enabled them to sound singsong accompanied Sehgal's dialogues.

Cut to the fifties, when women spoke through pouted lips and forgot to close their mouths in blatant displays of innocence. There was, at this time, a distinct school started by Dilip Kumar, Yusuf Khan from erstwhile Pakistan, who chose to settle in Mumbai and made India his home while the rest of his family left for Pakistan in the partition.

He, for the first time, introduced normal acting styles, almost as normal as everyday. Ashok Kumar, a Devika Rani - Himanshu Rai find, was another product of the normalcy school. His gestures with a pipe added to his sophistication while Dilip Kumar's soft Urdu pronunciation added to his. Times were a-changing and Sehgal was already being parodied.

Come the sixties and the scene changed drastically. There was talk of social upheaval in Khwaja Ahmed Abbas's strongly communist dialogues and songs. Guru Dutt's perfectly unaffected acting style took off from here, coupled with these sharp ideas, created a revolution of sorts.

Raj Kapoor too reflected the communist streak in his short trousers and tattered shoes and one meal a day look. Poverty was glorified, wealth was evil, and so were rich people.

Dialogues in the sixties were extremely telling. The situations were pre-ordained, the dialogues preempted. It used to be Urdu all the way. No one said England, it was always vilayat se... the fathers called their sons barkhurdars and the daughters were giggly teenagers in colored ribbons and high falsettos.

Gradually another, smaller change happened. Raj Kumar sauntered in, with his inimitable dialogue delivery. He almost sounded like he was obliging the dialogues by speaking them aloud. At other times, each word was a gold nugget to be weighed and delivered. It was the talk of the industry and soon considered an idiosyncrasy.

The later heroes were giggly, jumpy and irreverent. By the seventies, a faster, stuttering hero was acceptable, the Kapoor Brothers had arrived. Dharamendra was the only hero with a great voice while Sunil Dutt's exuded the All India Radio days, with distinct Punjabi overtones. Rajesh Khanna's voice acted almost as much as he did.

Amitabh Bachchan arrived and changed all that. It became fashionable for heroes to be strong, silent and brooding. Machoism was in (riding on the skinny Bachchan shoulders). Chewing a matchstick in the corner of the mouth spoke more words than a page full of script. The Hindi film hero had become ANGRY. He was showing it in silence.

The trends changed and talking became fashionable again, especially for comedy. Comedy of the Govinda or the down-market Amitabh films variety. The audience loved the plain UP accent of the superhero; the Allahabadis were swelling with pride. Till the young guns of Khans came around, it was fashionable being a North Indian, even Bengali. After the arrival of the South Mumbai Khans, Amir and Salman, it was Mumbai all the way, others were rustic country cousins, the bhaiyas and biharis. It is heartening to see the Big B retaining his Allahabad style, and still being respected!

The present trends of dialogue delivery are quite set. The South Mumbai types talk South Mumbai, the others talk normal Hinglish, no one talks very intelligently.

Perhaps we have lost the art of style!