Adil Hussain: You can’t expect perfect Urdu from an actor from Assam or Tamil Nadu

Ahead of an interaction at the National School of Drama’s (NSD) Bharat Rang Mahotsav, Adil Hussain informed the audience that his Hindi is “not that good” and that his grammar may not always be correct. While the actor meant it to be a humble heads up, an audience member didn’t seem to take it quite well, and questioned how an NSD alumnus could be lacking prowess in this department.Adil – who hails from Assam – then clarified, “When I say I don’t know Hindi, what I mean is that I am not always grammatically right. But that does not take away from the fact that if I am speaking Hindi in a Hindi language play, I respect that with my life. If I play Shakespeare, then I must make sure that I speak the language which will respect the basic phonetic protocol of the particular language. If I am doing it in Urdu, then I must make sure that I speak Urdu. Now, India is a multilingual country, so there has to be a certain generosity on your (the audience’s) part to not expect perfect Urdu from a person who is coming from Assam or Manipur or Tamil Nadu or Kerala. You cannot do that. ”
Adil adds, “If I am speaking in Urdu or English, then as an actor, my responsibility is that I say it with the utmost respect and as much as I can. But also, the responsibility of being a generous audience lies on you. . . that – ‘Okay! These people have been away from the Hindi speaking culture’, or ‘Hindi has not been taught (to them), or properly taught (to them)’, or ‘it is not even necessary for a lot of people to learn Hindi or Urdu’, for that matter. ”
“At the same time, I try to make sure that when I speak in English, Urdu or Hindi while doing a play or acting, toh main apna jaan laga deta hoon, ki jis bhasha mein ho raha hai, uss bhasha ko main sahi tarah se boloon,” Adil said.
Sharing an example of how while doing a play, learning to speak a new language can be an added burden, he added, “Hypothetically, if the entire northern belt was a Manipuri belt, then you guys (Hindis peaking people) would be on the outskirts. In other parts, you will face the same problem. It is important, especially for a country like India, which is multi-lingual, (to pardon language errors). (If it were) Germany, I would understand that it is one nation-one language. But in the UK, they have Scotland and Wales, so they also have issues like this. But India is a way bigger and more complex country, and as an audience, we must be politically and socially aware enough to accept the kind of small mistakes that non-Hindi-speaking people make.”