Hindi Lessons for Chikni Chameli

Every year,as a bunch of young hopefuls comes to Bollywood,there is a team of professionals in the background,working to iron out the creases that might,otherwise,threaten their passage into a demanding industry. The most obscure among this medley of acting coaches,fitness trainers,dance instructors are perhaps the language and diction coaches,who make sure the actors sound believable on screen as they roll their tongues around words like guftagun and nazaakat.

Even before she faced the camera for Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar,Pakistani-American model Nargis Fakhri had her work cut out. Hindi wasn’t the easiest of languages to master,particularly when you have had no exposure to it in 32 years. “I could not even differentiate “T” like in talwar and “T” like in tamatar,” she says. Fakhri enrolled for a language and diction course with Mumbai-based Vibha Chibber and over three painstaking months,picked up the basics. “The beginning was very stressful. The Hindi alphabet is nothing like the English alphabet. I couldn’t get my tongue to move the way it was necessary and would fumble a lot,” she says. Chibber put her through gruelling sessions that lasted eight hours a day every day of the week,making her identify the alphabets,learning their pronunciation,before moving on to conjugations and eventually to nursery rhymes and poems. “The rhymes were like tongue twisters. I would repeat them after her,” says Fakhri.

In 2008,when actor Katrina Kaif was readying for Kabir Khan’s film New York,Vidur had to work on her comprehension skill. Producer Aditya Chopra was unhappy with the half-British half-Kashmiri actor’s Hindi,but did not want to get it dubbed like other movie producers.

Vidur’s next assignment with Kaif during the making of Prakash Jha’s Raajneeti involved a lot more work. “She had to deliver long speeches in Hindi and her accent and diction had to sound authentic. She practised her speeches for 20 days before the shoot,” says Vidur,who made Kaif listen to audio recordings of poetry and political speeches and made her repeat certain words and phrases.

But Kaif is still a work in progress. “She stopped practising after Raajneeti released. Yash Chopra called me recently to train her again for his next film,” says the man who came from Allahabad to Mumbai in 1989,eager to make a mark as a director. While nothing materialised on that front,his theatre production,Kabira Khada Bazaar Mein,caught the eye of acting teacher Kishore Namit Kapoor,who was looking for instructors for his classes. Over the years,Vidur has become indispensable to his clients,helping actors like Hrithik Roshan,Fardeen Khan,Vivek Oberoi and Ranbir Kapoor with their diction and dialogue delivery.

Dedication,though,is aplenty among the current crop of actors,says voice and diction trainer Vinod Tharani. He was working with theatre personalities Satyadev Dubey and Habib Tanvir,when director Farah Khan got in touch with him ahead of her debut film Om Shanti Om,featuring Deepika Padukone. “Deepika’s voice was loud and shrill,and she had a typical south Indian accent. She knew Hindi,but her pronunciations had to be worked on,” says Tharani,35. The success of the film and appreciation of Padukone’s performance made Tharani stay on in Bollywood. His proteges now include Sri Lankan model Jacqueline Fernandes and British model Amy Jackson,who debuted in the recent Ekk Deewana Tha. “These girls attend regular classes and make sure they speak Hindi whenever they can. There is so much competition that if they don’t learn the language well enough,they might be left behind,” says Tharani,who is also training wrestlers for the television show Ring Ka King.

Till the ‘80s,diction and voice training were unexplored concepts in Bollywood. “There were a few Urdu shayars or maulvis who directors like Mehboob Khan,Raj Kapoor and Raj Khosla referred to for Urdu pronunciation,” says Tharani. Most actors came from north India. “Hindi was their mother tongue and they obviously spoke it well,” says Abhay Joshi,who trained actor Rana Daggubatti for his Bollywood debut Dum Maaro Dum. Joshi,an alumnus of National School of Drama,worked with Barry John’s Acting Academy before branching off on his own.

The ’90s saw the rise of a new crop of actors,educated abroad and with a fledgling knowledge of Hindi. Vidur’s first student,actor Saif Ali Khan,was one such example. “In 1991,Saif was signed for Bekhudi opposite Kajol. But he was eventually dropped as his Hindi was not great. We worked on it and I am proud to say that from Aashiq Awaara to Aarakshan,Saif has come a long way,” says Vidur.

While training methods vary,most of them insist on personalised classes. Vidur allots 15-20 classes per student,spread over a period of three months,teaching them distinctions in pronunciation and dialogue delivery. Tharani’s classes may last between four to five months with more stress on grammar. Joshi,on the other hand,works with his wards before shoots and during dubbing,and insists they watch a lot of Hindi movies and listen to film music. Their remuneration matches the efforts they put in. “It’s a high-paying job,” says Tharani,without putting a figure to it. Sources in the industry peg salaries between Rs 75,000 and Rs 1 lakh per student per course.

While most actors prefer individual lessons,directors sometimes opt for script-based training,a trend started by Aditya Chopra during Mohabbatein. Roshan Abbas,for instance,had Chibber on the sets of his directorial debut Always Kabhie Kabhie. “For many contemporary actors,Hindi is a second language. Having a diction coach makes it easier to learn both Hindi and Urdu,” he says.

The hardest part of the job,says Chibber,is getting rid of the accents. She had a difficult time training Brazilian model Giselli Monteiro during Love Aaj Kal,even though she only had about five lines in the movie. “The accent is always the last thing to go. That’s why I insist my students speak in Hindi most of the time,” says Chibber,busy training model Diana Penty for her debut in Cocktail. Leone should take note.