Omkara may be headlined by Kareena Kapoor, Ajay Devgn, and Saif Ali Khan, but one character that stayed with the audience after the credits rolled was that of Indu, played by Konkona Sensharma. Her honest performance in the film won hearts. But interestingly, she had second thoughts about the role. In the recent episode of mid-day’s Sit with Hitlist series, Konkona Sensharma got candid with us about her life and career.
Konkona on Omkara
The actress shared how she thought of dropping out of the film multiple times due to the language. She recalled receiving a CD with her dialogue for the role and not being able to understand it because of the accent. Given that the film is set in the city of Meerut, in Uttar Pradesh, the plot follows the story of a gang leader, his gang, politics, and crime. The story, characters, and especially the dialogues were very local, which Kokona shares were difficult to grasp for her, given her rich Bengali roots.
The Metro In Dino actress shares, “In Omkara, the main prep was the accent. Like I remember that we were all given a CD. Back then, it used to be CDs of our dialogues. So I had to get it read by someone else. Because one doesn`t know this accent. And even when I went for the narration, he (Vishal Bhardwaj) did a narration for all the actors, I think in Sun and Sand or something. I remember hearing it and thinking, `Oh my God, I`m not following everything. I can`t even understand everything that they`re saying right now. How will I even do it?”
She further added, “Many times I want to run away. Many times I`m like, `Sh*t, why did I take this on?`”
Konkona recalls her experience with Vishal Bhardwaj
Talking about how the accent stressed her out, she says, “I remember he had made Maqbool. And I`m so in love with that film still. But in Omkara, that whole film, the whole time, I don`t remember anything except being so stressed about that UP dialect, the Western UP dialect. Because, you know, I`m a Bengali person. My Hindi is just about OK. I spent a lot of time retouching my lines. And then I had to speak in the Western UP dialect. I started when we were doing dubbing in ADR. You had to get it right. And I was kind of newish. There were these very established actors around. It was nerve-wracking, the whole thing was nerve-wracking.”
Recalling how she was nervous about her accent on sets as well, and how the director Vishal Bhardwaj sensed it. “Vishal is very, very gentle, very sweet. And I remember one day he came and just said quietly in my ear, `You know, Koko, you just concentrate on the acting. Don`t worry so much about the accent.` I was like, `Oh sh*t, now I`m not even being able to act. Did I get it wrong? The accent is not happening. Acting is not happening. I don`t know what I`m doing here,`” she shares.
Further talking about the pressure, she says, “So my only thing was that I had to go there. I have to be able to say my lines and come out. I have to be able to do that properly.”
