South of the Vindhyas
I had posted about Konkona a couple of days ago. That was before I discovered her Being Konkona interview on CNN-IBN, where Anuradha SenGupta asks her about her Mrs Iyer accent:
Anuradha SenGupta: Do you remember the accent that you had as Mrs Iyer in Mr & Mrs Iyer?It’s a fairly mediocre interview, on the whole, but the most irritating thing was this bit about the “South Indian accent”. It’s a Tamil accent she means, of course. The South is a big place, and diverse, and everyone doesn’t speak in one South Indian accent.Konkona Sen Sharma: Yes, I do remember some of it. You know what happened to me after doing that film? I had to do a play in English and I kept talking in a South Indian accent. The accent stayed with me for a while.
Exactly. Just like in North India, Sambar is Sambar. Only when one comes here, you realise that there are so many varieties to it!
Comment by Truman — September 3, 2006 @ 12:22 pm
Heh. South Indian accent. They should meet the Cherokee and the Sioux Indians.
Comment by km — September 3, 2006 @ 2:46 pm
Ignorance ain’t always prejudice. Please to be more forgiving?
Comment by Shivam — September 3, 2006 @ 8:04 pm
Who am I to forgive or not? Anyway, we South Indians are a very forgiving peepul. I’m just curious how, after reportedly spending days or weeks in Mylapore researching her role, she got this bit wrong.
Comment by Uma — September 4, 2006 @ 12:41 am
But she had such a perfect Tam accent. Even I was fooled and I did not like that… :(
Comment by Apurva — September 6, 2006 @ 10:54 am
I am a south indian brought up in MP, and i had this complain about a lot of my friends who come from north India.
But off late i found myself saying this a lot of times “north indian accent”, so, well,
Comment by pv — October 9, 2006 @ 6:44 pm