Talk:Dil Chahta Hai

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Arthicus (did I spell your username right? Sorry if I didn't!), I reverted your edits to the synopsis, because I didn't think them an improvement. I don't think I'm defending my version, either, because that was recently replaced by a version that I just copyedited. Lots of interest in synopsizing this movie.

Anyway, I disagree with the characterization of the story as being "non-linear" and "uncharacteristic of Bollywood". Lots of Bollywood movies have flashbacks; it's a standard story technique. Zubeidaa was just about ALL of it flashbacks. As for interweaving three stories -- well, the canonical instance of that is Amar, Akbar, Anthony.

Plus -- I know it's spoilered but ... the bit re giving the same speech twice, once as pickup line and once heartfelt, is just too neat to ruin by telling readers ahead of time. Do let them discover it for themselves. I may be off-base here, but I think the purpose of the synopsis is to tell just enough so that the reader can decide for him/herself whether or not he/she wants to see the movie.

Hmmm ... well, when I've had to watch movies without subtitles (and I'm nuts enough to do that!) I do consult synopses to figure out the story. But Dil Chahta Hai has subtitles! <g>

I don't want to discourage you. There is certainly enough work for editors interested in Bollywood movies or Indian cinema in general. Please forgive me for being picky and keep on editing. Zora 13:40, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Recent edits

One editor keeps inserting the trivia that Aamir's goatee became a hot new style trend among Indian youth. But is this true? What's the evidence? We need a reference to a newspaper, magazine, or website making this claim.

I am new to wikipedia editing so i apologize for accidently not following the correct procedure and not giving references. I (Yajkr) made the edits in the trivia. Also I said that the goatee and hairstyle both became famous. yea Zora was correct by saying that the goatee might not have become as famous as the hairstyle (which i accept as an error on my part) but the hairstyle did become quite famous. please see the article which i intend to use as reference to support my claim in tribune india by clicking on this link. I hope this is good enough. thanks, Yajkr.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2002/20020803/windows/fashion.htm

As for the synopsis -- someone again replaced a short synopsis with an extremely long and BORING replay of the entire movie. Readers will not read this kind of thing. They will zoom over it. Shut it out. It is like being trapped in a corner at a party while a bore tells you every detail of some recent event in his life. Look, if you've seen the movie, you don't need this. If you haven't, you don't want to know the whole plot. We only need enough of a plot to let people know whether or not they might be interested in the movie. Zora 22:40, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Re the hairstyle -- that newspaper piece reads like an ad for the hairdresser. I've been reading about recent Indian journalism scandals, in which newspapers take payment for ads submitted as newspaper copy (the blog Sepia Mutiny had a thread on this). It is quite possible that you're right, and that the newspaper piece just sounds like over-the-top praise because that's the way fashion journalists write, but ... is there a better reference? Sorry to be a pain, but I'm just hyper-alert to WP being used for advertising and propaganda, because people are trying to do that all the time. Zora 03:34, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

about the hairstyle...hmm i am on the lookout for some more credible evidence if you say so. I fully appreciate your concerns about WP being used as a billboard but all the ones i have looked till now which mention the hairstyles also mention Contractor so ull need to give me some time as i have an exam coming up. as for now another thing i can say to support this is that after seeing it most of my friends had this hairstyle and infact i sported it for sometime too :) ...Yajkr

If it's just Aamir's hair -- I remember it was short, and a little spikey, yes? That's all over the place. In fact, I'm a 58 year old lady and MY hair looks a bit like that when I leave the hairdresser. So it could come from reading foreign magazines, seeing foreign movies, etc. But it could be the movie too. Wasn't Shammi Kapoor's little Elvis curl supposed to have spawned a legion of imitators?
Is there an article on Indian or South Asian hairstyles? This could be interesting, if we could get any material for it.
Good luck on your exam, Yajkr, and thanks for being so nice about all of this. I hope you'll be able to do more work with us on Indian films. It's such a big subject, we need all the help we can get. Zora 08:34, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

here's another link I found. this is from the hindu and it mentions the trend started by aamir's hairstyle in DCH. I hope this is good since the hindu is a reputed newspaper in India...let me know what you think...Yajkr

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2004/09/27/stories/2004092702180100.htm

here's another one that i think is self explanatory. read subsection aamir's spikes. http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/Oct212005/living1259120051020.asp

and another http://www.webindia123.com/movie/profiles/aamir.htm

and another http://www.bollywood4u.com/profile/aamir_khan.htm

and another...mentions aamir starting a trend... http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2005/08/02/stories/2005080200900300.htm

hmm...enuf evidence i think this is getting addictive and obsessive...isnt it :)

hmm...lemme know...Yajkr

Now those prove a trend! Good research Yajkr -- you win! I'll put it back in trivia immediately. My compliments on good googling and keeping your temper. May this be an augury of success in real life. Zora 19:38, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

thank you for your compliment. I think it is good to have such high standards about wikipedia since it is almost used by everybody and recently there was an article (about 4-5 weeks ago) in the news that some senator or something of that sort in america had a biography and it was full of false statements so we dont want that happening again...Yajkr

[edit] Zora's Edit on 21 May

This is with regards to this edit by Zora. Although the synopsis should be small, I have seen that ALL Featured Articles on movies have a section on "story" which is equivalent to the length as it appeared on this article before the edit by Zora. I find that this edit took the article miles back. Although it might be boring, but encyclopedia article is supposed to be comprehensive. Frankly, I haven't found even 5% of Featured Articles interesting enough to be read fully. But this does not mean that I go ahead with trimming them all to 10kb in size. Please consider restoring the version that existed before. If you are not convinced, check out ANY featured article on a movie and you will understand what I mean. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 20:19, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

What is the POINT of a long synopsis? If you've seen the movie, you don't need it, and if you haven't, you don't really want to know all the details in advance. Enough to decide whether or not you'll watch the film, yes, but a blow-by-blow account of the film? No, not really. MEGO. My Eyes Glaze Over.
Critics will discuss the film in minute detail, but they do so with the expectation that their readers will have seen the film and that the discussion is evaluating the film. That is, if you're going to talk about how witty and innovative the film is, you give examples to prove your case. But since we're not supposed to give personal opinions here on WP, we can't do that.
If we want critical evaluations, we have to import them. I think we can import a para or so as fair use, and link to the rest. So if you want more discussion of the film, Ambuj -- and I wouldn't be against that, as this film is one of my faves -- the way to do it is to give quotes from various reviews, perhaps juxtaposing them to each other and then stating the consensus, or summarizing the dispute. Would that work for you? Zora 20:50, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
The POINT is that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Here, we are supposed to follow some encyclopedic standards. I find that the best way to find such standards is to look at articles that already conform to the standards (i.e. Featured Articles). For the encyclopedia article on a movie, community consensus is that a section on "Plot" is essential. Whether it is useful for a viewer is not an issue of concern. It will certainly be helpful to some people who want to know what exactly happens in the movie and not fancruft reviews. If you would have noticed, I didn't any any personal opinions and stuck to facts. I only wrote things that are evident like "Akash goes to the marriage celebration and proposes her in front of a crowd, saying the same lines as he did when they first met.... The point is that an encyclopedia is expected to follow standards, and the edit you removed took it away from the set standards. BTW, this movie is my favorite Hindi movie. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 06:53, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Insisting that your prose be featured, even if it's boring and meandering, even if no one wants to read it -- what's the point of that? I hate to be harsh, but you're pushing me into it. I've been writing for an online audience for eighteen years and I know well that people are just not as patient when they read on a computer screen as when they read a book. We have to use shorter paragraphs and less complex sentences. Bullet points and indents help too.

Now we could work towards a version that's longer than the one we have now, but shorter than the one you want to put up. Instead of doing this IN the article, we could set up a Talk:Dil Chahta Hai/Temp page, paste your version of the synopsis there, and work on it until we're both satisfied. Would you be OK with that? Zora 10:04, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I think you will understand what I mean if you take this short test. Go to the featured article page and randomly select 10 articles from it. After having an overview of each article, decide which all you might wish to read fully. Chances are there won't be even two.
I am not telling that this article will become featured soon. I am only telling that whatever we do to the article, we must take it TOWARDS featured article and not the reverse way. My personal experience with all featured articles is that they contain a reasonably detailed plot section of size similar to "my version" (as you put it). Hence, I decided to write that section in detail. Yes, my writing isn't very good and sometimes complicate the sentences. So may I request you to copyedit "my version" so that its not complicated as well as comprehensive. BTW, have a look at the following articles and tell if they too need to be trimmed as they are boring:
-Ambuj Saxena (talk) 10:50, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I'd trim the synopses. Editors LOVE to write synopses. Readers don't like to read them. Telling a story well is an art few have mastered. Those who have mastered it get to publish their short stories in the New Yorker. Zora 10:58, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I have no idea what's happening but I'd like to say that "Is there a happy Bollywood ending? For two of the characters, yes. For one, no. However, in the last scene of the movie, it is suggested that there is hope even for the heart-broken character." is a pitiful ending for a synopsis. A synopsis explains everything. That's why the "spoiler warning" exists beforehand (plot details follow). If the information about the ending is withheld then it's not a synopsis. Correct it soon else I will have to do it myself. Article still needs brushing up.Zuracech lordum 04:16, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
If you see something that needs to be done, just do it, if you can. THat's what WIkipedia is all about. - BillCJ 04:49, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Zuracech, threatening your fellow editors is not the way to get things done here. No, a synopsis doesn't have to tell everything. See the discussion above. Most of the editors working on Bollywood films have agreed not to reveal endings for recent films. We try to tell enough about the film that readers can decide whether or not to see it, and hint as to whether it's a happy or sad ending, but we don't reveal any special plot twists. Dil Chahta Hai may be old enough now that we can assume that revealing the ending isn't going to bother readers. If you can add two or three sentences that give the ending in more detail, fine. Something like, Akash and what-his-face (the Saif Ali Khan guy) find true love; Sid finds heartbreak, when the older woman dies in the hospital. However, at the end of the film, we see Sid glancing at ??? and can guess that his story too will have a happy ending. Zora 06:22, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I tried to do this with my edit yesterday. I hope it's to everyone's liking. Shayborg 04:49, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Shayborg, that's well-done. Thank you! Zora 08:52, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Quotes

Seeing that the article is written in English, would it be too much to ask that the quotes include an English translation, in deferrence tonon-Hindi readers? Thanks - BillCJ 23:46, 25 January 2007 (UTC)