Bollywood Digg

Once, solar consultant Jaideep Malviya would start his official mails and letters with 'Dear Sir' and end them with 'Yours Sincerely'. Now, he has replaced both standard expressions with one: Jai Ho.

It was destiny, it seems, that Slumdog Millionaire's award-winning song would become an anthem. Corporate executives so smitten by the words that they are now using Jai Ho as salutation and valediction in their e-mails. What's more, the term has captivated even international clients.

"After the movie's success, most of my international clients started using Jai Ho in the valediction. Since the Oscars, almost every mail I got from my international clients had Jai Ho either as salutation or valediction," says Malviya.

One of his clients, Nigel Cotton of Germany, wrote that the only thing he wanted to see after the Taj Mahal when in India was Slumdog Millionaire in an Indian theatre; all he would want to carry back was a DVD with the song Jai Ho on it.

"Namaste was very common, until Jai Ho took over. It's very emotional to get such letters. No matter how different that person is, you automatically relate to him if he uses your language. Moreover, after eight Oscars, the words have a sense of pride associated with them," says Malviya.