At this very moment Bipasha Basu is going through the biggest challenge of her career. She has to drop her anglicized-Bengali accent and diction completely to sound like the Kashmiri Muslim girl she plays in Rahul Dholakia’s Lamhaa.

Even when Bipasha had done a Bengali film Sob Charitro Kalponik by Rituparno Ghosh, she had been forbidden by the director from dubbing her own lines although Bengali is her mother tongue.

However, this time Bipasha is determined to not allow her voice-performance to suffer on the grounds of her accent. The actress has been secretly practicing her lines for months.

And now, when the dubbing is finally on, Bipasha with the help of the sound recordist Manoj Sikka is giving Urdu her best shot.

According to her director Rahul Dholakia, who’s constantly supervising Bipasha’s dubbing, the actress has made the strongest effort possible to sound like an authentic Kashmiri Muslim girl.

Says Dholakia, “At the moment, I’m simultaneously doing two very different jobs on two of my 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 Bipasha, “It is tough, really tough because I don’t really understand Urdu. But I’m never one to shun the urge to learn. I find it great fun. And my director Rahul Dholakia is very patient and chilled out.”

The sound recordist Manoj Sikka has been given the job of monitoring Biapasha’s diction.

Adds Bipasha, “I’m putting my trust in Rahul’s team and the sound recordist.”

Since the film tackles the sensitive issue of Kashmir militancy, director Dholakia is pretty adamant on getting every nuance right.

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

-Subhash K Jha/ Sampurn Wire