PANAJI: There is a reason why IFFI 2018 is International Film Festival of India and not 'Hindi' and the day three of the ongoing movie gala saw the organisers grappling with finding a meeting point for those who know and do not know English.
The bone of contention was that since people and delegates from different countries had come to attend the "international" festival, it was logical that English be used to express one's ideas.
At IFFI 2018's 'Redefining Stories' session on Thursday, one of the audience members objected to the moderator, cinematographer Aseem Bajaj using Hindi as the medium of speech.
To which actor Pankaj Tripathi, who was part of the panel, quickly interjected in Hindi, "Uska kya jisko English nahin aati".
Fellow panellist actor Rahul Bose made light of the discussion and said "I can speak in English, Bengali, Punjabi, Marathi and Hindi. We can take a vote."
This was followed by an audience member saying: "You are known by Hindi films, please talk in Hindi."
The audience member who strongly reacted to Tripathi earlier, dug his heels harder with continuous "No's."
Bajaj asked the man in question if he understood Hindi, to which the person said "Not so well".
Soon another audience member got hold of the microphone and she said, "I am from Korea, please speak in English."
Then Bajaj declared that the panel will talk in English to make things "easy".
Tripathi said, "If I speak in Hindi, someone please translate for those who can't understand."
When he got his chance to speak after others in the end, the actor helplessly said to the man in question that he was unable to speak in English.
The audience member then said, "You are wearing jeans and all, you should be knowing English."
To this Tripathi replied, "The age in which we learn a language, I was not that privileged to be able to wear jeans and do that."
His honest and transparent answer won many hearts.
The actor said his piece in Hindi when he got the chance: "Main yahan baitha hoon apni story sunane 'Redefining Stories' mein. Ye apne aap mein redefining hai ki main baitha hoon aur aap sun rahe hain."
He then said: "Aap mujhe gaur se meri aankhon mein dekhenge na, to saari kahaani aapko pata chal jayegi... Main itna hee filmy hoon".
The actor said language is not a issue and in his inimitable style translated the bit in a mix of Hindi and English.
"Gaur se (closely) look into my eyes, and you will know the story," he said to a resounding applause and laughter from the audience.
The speech skirmish also continued in the 'Conversation with The Kapoor's' session that had Boney Kapoor and Janhvi Kapoor with writer Rumi Jaffery as moderator.
Besides being the first in-your-face-nepotism-debate "family affair" at the eight-day long movie gala, the segment was marked by another argument over the choice of language.
Someone from the audience objected to Jaffery speaking in Hindi. That it's an international festival speak in English. To which a stern Jaffery said, "Hindi is our 'rashtra bhasha' and I will speak in it."
No one, however, dared to correct Jaffery that India does not have a national language.
Amid lots of questions and interruptions, Boney Kapoor tried to assuage the angry crowd, saying "I will speak in Hindi and also translate in English."
The producer then spoke about his son, Arjun Kapoor's absence, who was scheduled to attend the session.
Arjun is currently working on his look for Ashutosh Gowariker's period drama "Panipat" and the film's team wants to keep it under wraps for obvious reasons, Boney said in Hindi.
He then translated the sentence in English. But he could not fully honour his promise as the session moved ahead.
Jaffery too continued posing questions, mostly in Hindi, with some words of English and Urdu sprinkled here and there. The scales of the entire conversation too ended up tilting Hindi's favour.
At NFDC's Film Bazaar, Knowledge Series 'Badlands & the Gender' however, conversation ran quite as melodiously as some of Vishal Bhardwaj's compositions.
The director was in conversation with London-based documentary filmmaker Nasreen Munni Kabir.
Kabir was asking questions in English and Bhardwaj was answering them in the same language.
In the session, when two members of the audience posed questions to him in Hindi, the director chose to answer in English.
Earlier, when some glimpses of Bhardwaj's films were shown, the director appealed to the organisers to arrange clips with subtitles (in English) so that people from other parts of the country and world do not get lost in translation.