Urdu and the Bollywood
The Hindi film industry based in Mumbai is also called Bollywood. Urdu, particularly the Urdu poetry, has played a vital role in the development of Bollywood. In fact, both Urdu language and Mumbai film industry have been helpful in their development and popularity.
In the development of Mumbai film industry, Urdu has contributed in many ways. Be the ghazals by Urdu poets or its dialogues; in many aspects, the contribution of Urdu language is very significant.
In fact, Indian film industry is one of the sectors that is most influenced by Urdu language. The biggest film industry in world–the Indian film industry based in Mumbai or ‘Bollywood’ has been influenced in many ways, from music to dialogue delivery. The language used in Bollywood movies uses a vocabulary that is easy to understand by Urdu and Hindi speakers alike. It uses many Urdu songs, ghazals, nazams, and dialogues in its movies.
Similarly, Bollywood has also increased the popularity and reach of Urdu language. Through its music and films, Hindi film industry made Urdu poets, Ghazal and shayari the international favorite. Bollywood had even made films on Urdu poets like Ghalib.
From the 1950s, Hindi film industry started displaying the names of its films also in Urdu script. Today most of the Bollywood films present film titles in the Hindi, Urdu, and Roman alphabet.