Abbas Tyrewala gets his mother-in-law to polish John's diction

Updated on: 12 June,2009 07:46 AM IST |
Subhash K Jha |

For Abbas Tyrewala, who's ready to shoot his second feature film 1-800-Love, getting the spoken word right is absolutely imperative.

For Abbas Tyrewala, who's ready to shoot his second feature film 1-800-Love, getting the spoken word right is absolutely imperative.

And considering how much John Abraham's Hindi needs to be polished up, Abbas needed someone fluent in Hindi before getting John to face the camera.

Ands so, Abbas has roped in his mother-in-law Veena Mehta to help John with his chee-chee Hindi. Says the Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na director,u00a0 "Amma (Veena Mehta) was the diction coach in Jaane Tu... If the cast sounded so cool, colloquial andu00a0 contemporary it was because they were coached by Amma to be natural.

The task in 1-800-Love is more uphill. John and my wife will have to sound like two people in loveu00a0 withoutu00a0 going overboard with rhetoricu00a0 and poetry. We needu00a0 the language of today's lovers without losing the basic essence of love. I am leaving John in my mother-in-law's hands at the moment. My workshops with him will start later. He's working so hard even with a broken ankle."

In due course

Mrs Mehta has already started working on John's far-from-shuddh Hindi. Abbas defends his hero. "Look, which actor today thinks and speaksu00a0 in Hindi? I guarantee you, John will be speaking fluently andu00a0 credibly once Amma is done with him.

Though he plays a London-based guy, his character is very Indian in speech and body language. I don'tu00a0want the cool urbane navel-revealing John in myu00a0film. He has to beu00a0smaller-than-life not larger."

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