Hindi can't be imposed on others, says Adoor Gopalakrishnan

National-award-winning filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan says Hindi is a beautiful language, but it should be counted as a regional language and should not be imposed on others.
Gopalakrishnan, 74, played a major role in revolutionising Malayalam cinema and is regarded as one of the finest filmmakers of India.
"Hindi is a very beautiful language. There are very fine writers in Hindi, no doubt about that, but you cannot impose Hindi over and above others... Not only administratively but even otherwise," he told PTI.
Adoor feels as India is made up of various cultures and traditions, an "exclusive" attitude will not work.

"Hindi was by official imposition only. Because officially they want to have one language kind of attitude from everybody... That's a very exclusive kind of attitude. India is a country of several different cultures, languages, styles of living.
"Naturally, you have to allow and understand that. It's all together only that India is made up of," he said, on the sidelines of the second edition of Gateway LitFest here.

Adoor says that for a language to be classified as national, it should be spoken by the entire country.
"It is wrong when you think Hindi is a national language and other languages are regional. All the languages are regional, it becomes national only when everybody in the country speaks a particular language, but that doesn't happen," he said.

The filmmaker pioneered the new wave cinema movement in Kerala with his first film "Swayamvaram" in 1972. He last made "Oru Pennum Randaanum" (A Climate of Crime) in 2008 and won Kerala state award for best director.
Adoor feels Hindi should be counted as a regional language, as people in many parts of the country do not speak it.
Adoor says taking a long gap was not a conscious decision
but he was waiting for a story worth telling.
"It was not a conscious decision to take such a long gap. But I needed an idea, which is novel and something worth telling. It should be exciting enough for me to go through the whole process of filmmaking. 'Pinneyum' was that."

The filmmaker also feels today cinema has dumbed down romance and has been reduced to something which is borderline vulgar.
"These days for romantic scenes, you need 40-50 extras, both men and women. Men should look rowdy, women should look like very loose characters. This is romance.
"They either sing with the hero or heroine, or dance with them. That has become the norm. When you make a film and show just simplicity, they (audience) say 'We don't understand'. But they understand this ludicrous thing.