Sabapathy

It's one of the funniest movies in Tamil. Even as a kid I laughed so hard when I first saw the movie, probably around 1990. I found the movie online and started watching it again. Among a lot of new surprises from my first time viewing, I picked up some ridiculously funny expressions. It's not just the comic timing, but the use of language, acting etc from a historical perspective. The movie is over half century old, you can see that a lot of things have changed since then. But some of the 'changes' catch you off guard. One of the parts that totally cracked me up was this (In case you don't have the time to watch it yourself):

There are two Sabapathys: the young 'master' and his slightly older servant. The servant is a bit of crackpot -- a bit more than the 'master'. Sabapathy and his mother visit the 'would be' bride's place with the servant accompanying them. They reach the place and as they get down from the car they hear someone dancing upstairs (bharathnatiyam it would seem). At this point the exchange goes:

Servant: amma, edho thevudiya kacheri nadakudhu
mother: edho vishesham pola irukku, nalla sagunam dhan

The word thevudiya--which is now more than derogatory and often bleeped--is used again, rather casually, in another scene that follows immediately. If you want to watch just this part, click on this link and slide it to 35 minutes. You can watch the entire movie from here.

Aside: The link between the word thevudiya and bharathnatiyam may be understood from this interesting post on the movie Arangetram.