NEW and IMPROVED- A Neutral Accent For Mr.Madrasi

Alright, so I am stuck with a familiar problem - how do I begin my rant?


A good idea would be to tell you how the Oxford English Dictionary defines what I want to rant against. But prejudice is far too familiar a concept to beggar the indignity of an introduction. So, let me begin by asking you who the person was that coaxed his prejudice into your face? If you are an Indian, a SOUTH Indian at that, was he someone that hid his ignorance behind a gaudy tie, the kind that seem so plentiful these days. Perhaps, HE also had an irritating over-confidence -- an air of smugness -- that seems to be the hallmark of everyone with a two-bit, third grade management degree from a back alley in DELHI. Somehow, HE behaves, as if HE were in fact the Archangel bearing the copyright of the one true gospel of GOD.




HE met me on a train, a bottle of mineral water in tow and some movie rag to keep his intellect occupied. Of course, on and off HIS cell phone would ring, of course he would lapse into ultra-loud conversations, of course in ENGLISH, of course peppered with four lettered words, and of course utterly endearing! As the norm for an Indian train journey goes, conversation transpires out of the nothingness, like a ghost out of the mists. You do not even have the time to anticipate its presence before you are inextricably trapped. Simple wordless bovine adjacency of the kind that the rest of the world treasures in the name of privacy is an anathema.

An elderly gentleman in the group of passengers, graciously offered tea to all his fellow travelers. HE refused, with all the practiced grace of a perennially smiling plastic doll. I, on the other hand committed a cardinal sin, I said "Ihad juSSSt noWW oNLy, uncle" all my south Indian upbringing pouring itself out, saturating my accent. For a brief moment I threw a glance at HIM, all-smiling. Yet, his smile was different, this time it was the triumphal smile of a wily python that is anticipating a wonderful lunch of a poor rabbit that had strayed right into its curls.
"You seem to be a local guy here," he asked me
"AF Corse, yes"
"Whaddyado"
"saari, i didn't understand"
"What do u do?" in ultra slow motion
"oh,i yam doo-ying my Ph.D under a joint Indo-GERRman pRRoject," I said with a fair measure of pride, trying to outdo his contempt.
"You didn't get through to a management school?"
"No, No, i waant to do this...In fact it is a good technical koschen that I am working on.."
"Waat do u do?"

"I work as an HR manager with I***l"
"What kind of career opportunities do you anticipate once you've done your....thing" HE

"I think I will join some AAR yand dee firm"

"Well, actually I run an institute as well, we are involved in Accent training, Accent neutralization, .........and we also place people with BPO's" HE
"You do realize that if you opt for a shift in your profession, the BPO industry will be a great alternative"

"Yesss"

" Give me a call, sometime, once you are back in hydRaBaD, attend a few sessions with us, I'm pretty sure you'll know the difference for yourself,"

"in waat?"

"In your Accent! once you are in the job market you will realize how hard it is for someone with a pronounced mother tongue influence on his language, to get ahead of the pack. I've seen loads of you guys face really bad situations. You know more than half of the South Indians that I interview, are actually, way underqualified . They SUFFER because of their accents." HE finally put a stopper in that verbal diarrhea.

"waat qualifikayshans aare reqoired faar the BPO jaab"

"A good command over the English language, competitive communication skills, great personality..."

"Oh, u mean like you,"

"Er...I think I am slightly over that phase of my career"

"So, you also got your accent neutralized..?"
"Well, I never had a problem in that area you see, we come from a cosmopolitan background in DELHI, accents are hardly a problem"

"So waat is a neutral accent"

"something that doesn't show traces of your mother tongue on your pronunciation, has clean vocabulary and great command on how to enunciate words... in the right way, internationally acceptable"

"means i should speak like Americans?"

"Lets not get ahead of ourselves.... no one is born perfect you see..... though many times my American clients have complimented me on how i managed to fool them"

"but i yam very proud of my mother tongue, i yam happy that it has the power to show up even when i yam speaking other languages"

"Well, it won't take you too far, though, will it?"

"No, its taking me to one of the world best cancer research institute....faar me that is enuff no?"
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Well, let me do , what I thought would be a good idea to begin my rant with. Let me define a neutral accent.
(Keeping with the anti-Establishment tone i decided to use Wikipedia as my reference and not the Oxford English dictionary---very self-conscious, I know.....but hey its a rant. Also, i consider Wikipedia the modern day bastion of freedom; a slightly inaccurate, though wholly democratic, academic authority.)
Wikipedia defines neutral as the state of being entirely unbiased, free of any kind of typification or characterization, and not tending to any known position

Accent on the other hand is the sum total of all that typifies and characterizes an object or a process, provides it with peculiarity. Wikipedia defines an accent as a manner of pronunciation of a language by a certain group of people.

To my mind the phrase neutral accent is an oxymoron. Anything that is an accent by its very definition cannot be neutral. Indeed, when a falsehood is repeated long enough it starts to sound true....so does a neutral accent.
Only a group of culturally spineless people would speak a language in a way that is in complete dissonance with their learned phonologies. I am the lucky few who haven't had their accents neutralized....hallelujah for that. And everyone else that is in this great sheep trot to the neutralization center, good for them. I hope though, that because of the wierdo that Mr.Madrassi is, he will keep up his accent, even if as a charade for public entertainment.