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Indian media needs to get over Priyanka Chopra's accent

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Sonia Chopra
Sonia ChopraOct 09, 2015 | 13:53

Indian media needs to get over Priyanka Chopra's accent

By now, I have watched two episodes of Quantico which is Bollywood icon Priyanka Chopra’s (no relation to me) crossover debut on American television.

It’s creating a strong buzz. USA Today says that Quantico has "gained momentum in viewer chatter during the new TV season’s second week". And it has been placed fourth in the top ten shows.

The American media has been extremely generous in lavishing praise and has dutifully captured all the excitement Quantico is generating by being ABC’s top rated show and the fact that it has an Indian actress in the lead role.

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As far as Indians here are concerned, it was a debut that is both successful and long overdue. It makes us all proud to see Chopra on all major billboards in the country and watch her make appearances on major television shows.

For years, they told Indian actresses that this was an impossible feat and now someone has done it. And that’s big.

And while the media here has focused on the groundbreaking achievement of an Indian actress who is also a huge Bollywood star, the Indian media has decided to zero in on Chopra’s lack of American accent.

I present a few samples:

Annoying accent” screamed The Quint.

Firstpost quips that Chopra’s accent is that of “a shuddh desi”.

And Firstpost also cheekily says viewers will be introduced to “five different versions of the American desi accent” and Chopra should decide “which one of the five accents” she wants to “run with for the show and keep”.

And in an interview with The New York Times, Chopra admitted that she spent hours with “an amazing dialect coach” working on her R-s. And it’s hard.

“It took me days to be able to say ‘counter-terrorism’ in an American accent. It was very difficult for me,” she said.

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This brutally honest statement makes me proud of her and her accomplishments. Twenty five years ago, I found out like the 3.1 million Indians who live here, you cannot just acquire the American accent.

You can fake it but if you are not born here, you will never speak like an American, who was born here.

When I watched Quantico, it only took me a few minutes to notice that Chopra didn’t have that same colloquial ease that her colleagues had.

Only to me, it was natural. It didn’t jar. And also unlike the journalists who are reporting from there, all of us who live here experience the diversity of accents in this country.

On any given day, I realise I probably hear about 17 different accents from people who have immigrated here from Mexico, Sri Lanka, France, Spain, Israel, England, Ireland, Italy, Costa Rica and the African continents, to name a few.

America is a melting pot and while everyone uses the exact same colloquial dialect they say the words with some kind of accent.

Indian journalists, in my opinion, are just used to false, pretentious accents that people put on over there. To me, those people sound absolutely ridiculous, like they have been watching too much Cartoon Network.

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Indian actors go on a trip from Mumbai to New Delhi and come back with an "American" accent.

In judging Chopra’s accent, the Indian journalists bring to the table their own burdens of bias, prejudice and loathing for those who they consider “inferior” because they sound “uncool” or “unsophisticated”.

In America, Indians are high profile CEOs, award winning novelists, Spelling Bee champions, doctors and engineers.

And we all have our accents except for those who are born here. We keep it real. The only compromise I have made is to speak really clearly and simply. But I am me, an educated, confident Indian woman. I am no cheap imitation of anyone.

And I am not going to lie to you. That’s a difficult choice. As a journalist, when I go out to report on stories, I sometimes encounter hostility.

I had one person tell me nastily, "Go back to your country" when I asked this family member of a woman accused of killing two priests in a car accident because she was high on drugs. (She was later convicted.)

It makes you self-conscious and it changes you. It can also be a source of anxiety but this is how it is. Ordinary people cannot afford a dialect coach. We have all had our fair share of moments when people frown in confusion and say they don’t understand us. But we repeat ourselves till they get it.

For me personally, there have been moments of high anxiety and nervousness. It’s nerve racking to raise your hand in press conferences to ask a key question sometimes because it’s imperative you are understood.

Recently, I was invited to be a guest speaker at a college to talk about "Diversity in Journalism". I wore the sheath dress, the pumps and the pearls but as I stood at the podium, just before my opening remarks, I gripped the edges of the podium for support as I addressed the freshman class.

I knew that with my words, my accent would be noticed and I allowed myself the brief moment of fear before I conquered it.

They told me later I killed it. I will tell you how I did it. My passion and my eagerness in getting the message overshadowed my reservations about my accent.

That’s how I hope it will be for Chopra. Because for the first time in her acting career, she is doing something truly brave. She is being herself and she is representing us.

Something that takes real guts. I know because I do it every day as do all immigrants.

Last updated: October 12, 2015 | 11:30
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