Watching Koffee with Karan the other day, I suddenly realised how affected Ma'am Madhuri Dixit's accent is. But, then it dawned on me that she has been living abroad (phoren/Amrika) for the past few years; so rolling her r's and emphasising on the a's is is only a part of being a NRI, but wearing a saree and doing a namaste keeps her rooted! But I don't blame her because we are gifted with super phonies in Bollywood like the original Bombay boy, Salman Khan who has never really 'lived' abroad but his accent alternates between continents/countries and is never Indian (and you thought appearing shirtless or getting into media brawls or killing chinkaras and sometimes, humans even, could make you look cool) and the pahari babe, Preity Zinta, who claims to hail from Shimla but strangely, has a weird non-desi accent (in fact, it is so unique that categorising it by country/region would be stripping it off its global colour or is it color?? ).
Indians are fortunate enough to be one of those countries where we speak English, almost as a second language in urban areas and speak it fairly well. Considering that English is largely recognised internationally as the language of communication officially, we enjoy a great advantage over some other Asian countries like China and Japan. Added to this is the fact, that we speak English (Ingliss, as we Desis call it) in varying accents across geographical locations. With increasing urbanisation, however, these accent related boundaries are fast disappearing but even today, you can tell apart a Gujju accent from a Marathi's or a Tamil accent from a Mallu's or a Bong accent from a Oriya's. The fascination with the English language is so much and so overpowering that those who cannot speak it well or have been educated in the vernacular are actually looked down upon, socially and professionally. For instance, you could be rejected at the job or marriage market, if you cannot speak the English language fluently; the freer of regional accent, the better. It does not matter if you speak your own native tongue or not but English you must speak. In fact, those who speak English at home are way cooler than those who use the lesser vernacular. It is okay if you haven't read books in your own language but English books (as they are called in India) you must read. In fact, if you say that you are a reader, it is assumed that you read English and only English literature. It's cool to read Tagore, Premchand, Manto but only the English translations. You see, you are not too familiar with your native language, coming from a English speaking background and studying in an English medium school and all. And also, what kind of a person are you, if you donot listen to English music across genres...from hip-hop to punk rock to reggae to lounge, everything is 'in'. Try playing Himesh Reshammiya at any up market club in our metros and if the bouncer does not attack you, toh batana! If you are out of the loop on Hollywood gossip, which prison Paris Hilton went to and who came fifth on American Idol, then even if you show pictures of Rani Mukherjee- Aditya Chopra engagement or interview Ash's tree husband and expose his side of the story after being abandoned by the most beautiful woman in the world, you are still a loser, buddy! (In my case, however, I must clarify that I am game for all kinds of gossip, not following East-West type of boundaries and btw, I have those exclusive pics that I just wrote about..email me with your credit card information for details!)
However, these days, not only do you have to speak English, free of regional accents; you may also adopt a western accent of your choice, which is limited to American and British and may be, the cool, more well known parts of Europe, like France or Spain! African accent is not good enough because the Africas are too similar to us, socio-culturally. Let me emphasise here that speaking good, grammatically correct English is not priority but speaking with an accent is. But, then there are many people like me who just cannot speak one line of English without saying 'yaar' or 'naa' or 'chal' and cannot help but admire with wonder and sneer with disgust, when the youth in Indian cities speak in their fake American accents with such elan. (Swagata, I warn you against bringing up the infamous 'mass communication' or 'classy' story here, as it was a Freudian slip..as an Indian youth almost hitting middle age, it pains me not to be able to speak with a Western accent!)
The insecurity of us, Indians is unbelievable. We want to both, outshine and deitify the West and may be, stealing their accents is the easiest way to infiltrate the Western world and establish our presence!!
