Bipasha is accent-prone

By Indo-Asian News Service

Bipasha Basu is dubbing for her next film,Lamhaa, and is trying her level best to drop her Anglicised accent and diction to sound like a Kashmiri Muslim girl, her character in the film.

This, of course, is easier said than done. Even when Bipasha had done Bengali film, Sob Charitro Kalponik, she had been forbidden by director Rituparno Ghosh from dubbing her own lines although Bengali is her mother tongue.

This time, Bipasha is determined not to allow her performance to suffer because of her accent. For months, the actress has been secretly practicing her lines.

“It is really tough because I don’t really understand Urdu. But I’m never one to shun the urge to learn. I think it’s great fun. And my director, Rahul Dholakia, is very patient and chilled out,” Bipasha says. Since Lamhaa tackles the sensitive issue of militancy in Kashmir, Dholakia is pretty adamant on getting every nuance right. He has asked sound technician Manoj Sikka to monitor Bipasha’s diction.

“I’m putting my trust in Rahul’s team and the sound technician,” says the actress.

According to Dholakia, who's supervising Bipasha’s dubbing, the actress has made the best effort possible to sound like an authentic Kashmiri Muslim girl.

“At the moment, I’m simultaneously doing two very different jobs on two very different films. While I’m editing my social satire, Society, I am supervising the dubbing of my film on Kashmir, Lamhaa. Dubbing the dialogues of a film with as vast a historical-political canvas as Lamhaa is very tough. I wish I could devote more attention to Bipasha. But she’s doing a fine job,” says Dholakia.

While Sanjay Dutt, who plays an outsider, can get away with his characteristic drawling dialogues, Bipasha and Kunal Kapoor, who play Kashmiris, have had to slog to do away with their Bengali and Punjabi twangs respectively.