Naseeruddin Shah’s deep purr, Anita Desai’s refined calm, Dharmesh Darshan’s effeminate exuberance… these are some of the voices heard in my latest extravaganza project which turns from the subject of dance to the world of Indian English Accents!
Why accents say ye? Well my latest YouTube obsession has been watching people try to reproduce various global accents in English. Given my interest in India, I of course have noticed the relative lack of South Asian accents, and when such accents do make an appearance they are almost always some variation of Apu from The Simpsons. YouTube user misscupcake1 once asked for examples of new accents to try so in my nerdiness I sent her a video of Preity Zinta as a sort of representation of a more “posh” Indian accent. Unfortunately, the result was this! And then there’s this very endearing chick xooropa who also uploads lots of funny accents including her Indian imitation which is a notch better than the previous but still in silly territory. I think part of the blame is that many folks here in the US have never heard varied Indian accents and even when they do they cannot pin down what they are hearing.
Why accents say ye? Well my latest YouTube obsession has been watching people try to reproduce various global accents in English. Given my interest in India, I of course have noticed the relative lack of South Asian accents, and when such accents do make an appearance they are almost always some variation of Apu from The Simpsons. YouTube user misscupcake1 once asked for examples of new accents to try so in my nerdiness I sent her a video of Preity Zinta as a sort of representation of a more “posh” Indian accent. Unfortunately, the result was this! And then there’s this very endearing chick xooropa who also uploads lots of funny accents including her Indian imitation which is a notch better than the previous but still in silly territory. I think part of the blame is that many folks here in the US have never heard varied Indian accents and even when they do they cannot pin down what they are hearing. 
