/>
Katrina Kaif has a point to prove in Raajneeti. It's not just the National award that she's aiming to get with her
performance. It's the long-winded rhetorical dialogues that she wants to get tone-and-pitch-perfect so that once and
for all no one would ever say she can't speak Hindi fluently.
Surrounded in the cast with stalwarts like Naseeruddin Shah, Manoj Bajpai and Nana Patekar who spoke super-
fluent Hindi and Urdu and constantly ribbed about her chee-chee Hindi by her co-stars specially Ranbir Kapoor,
Katrina has taken a vow to wow with her command over the desi language.
In fact every time the director Prakash Jha wanted to get Katrina's attention on location he would jokingly threaten
to get her lines dubbed by another artiste.
Not only did she get herself a private Hindi-Urdu tutor, she also got her director Prakash Jha to work on her
dialogues and their delivery for extra hours.
And now moving away from conventional dubbing techniques Katrina is actually doing her lines twice every day,
once on her own and then in her director's presence.
Confirming this double-delivery duty that Katrina has taken on Prakash Jha says, "She once goes through the lines
on her own the entire day.Then in the evening whatever words and lines I feel need improvement, she happily dubs
them again.
I've never such determination in any one before. On location in Bhopal once when she had to
do a sequence with Nana Patekar where she had to repeat the swearing-in oath- ceremony with Nana after winning
an election, Katrina panicked about the long words and lines.
She pleaded with me to cancel the
shooting, prepared the whole day and then delivered a perfect dialogues the next day."
The dubbing for Raajneeti is also very important for Katrina to be eligible for the National award next year.
When Prakash suggested that he might need to get a dubbing artiste to do Katrina's intricate dubbing she had protested
strongly pointing out her chances at the National awards would be nixed.
Predicts Prakash, "After Raajneeti no one would ever accuse of Katrina not knowing Hindi."
Adds Katrina, "It was a challenge I set for myself. I've always paid that extra attention to my dubbing. But
Raajneeti is really tough. Was I challenged by other actors speaking such fluent Hindi in Raajneeti? No I always
look at only myself as competition."
Katrina admits her Hindi has improved considerably after working in Raajneeti. "None of my roles so far required
any specific fluency in the way I spoke. When I got a chance I decided to work on it really hard."
Monday, March 08, 2010 13:49 IST