Always ready to learn

This, of course, is easier said than done. Even when Bipasha had done Bengali film Sob Charitro Kalponik, she had been forbidden by director Rituparno Ghosh from dubbing her own lines, although Bengali is her mother tongue.

This time, however, Bipasha is determined  not to allow her voice performance to suffer on grounds of her accent. For months, the actress has been secretly practising her lines.

“It is tough, really tough because I don’t really understand Urdu. But I’m never the one to shun the urge to learn. I find it great fun. And my director Rahul Dholakia is very patient and chilled out,” Bipasha said.

Since Lamhaa tackles the sensitive issue of militancy in Kashmir, Dholakia is pretty adamant on getting every nuance right. He has asked sound recordist Manoj Sikka to monitor Bipasha’s diction.

“I'm putting my trust in Rahul’s team and the sound recordist,” said the actress.

According to Dholakia, who's supervising Bipasha’s dubbing, the actress has made the best effort possible to sound like an authentic Kashmiri Muslim girl.

“At the moment I’m simultaneously doing two very different jobs on two of my very different films. While I’m editing my social satire Society, I am supervising the dubbing of my film ‘Lamhaa. Dubbing the dialogues of a film with as vast a  historical-political canvas as Lamhaa is very tough. I wish I could devote more attention to Bipasha. But she’s doing a fine job,” said Dholakia.

While Sanjay Dutt, who plays an outsider, can get  away with his characteristic drawling dialogues, Bipasha and Kunal Kapoor, who play Kashmiris, have had to slog to do away with their Bengali and Punjabi twangs respectively.