South superstar Prithviraj Sukumaran opens up on language row
South superstar Prithviraj Sukumaran opens up on language row
In the midst of the release of his film Sarzameen, Prithviraj Sukumaran opines on language-based violence in India and why South actors fail to succeed in Hindi films.
He goes on to say that we forget that the ethos of this nation is “unity in diversity, not uniformity”.
Prithviraj might have embarked upon his career down South in Malayalam films, but over the course of his career, the actor has worked across languages, be it in the South or in Hindi.
However, in recent times, language-based violence has been escalating particularly in the state of Maharashtra. Amid his media interaction when asked about how the language is being used as a divisive tool and Prithviraj Sukumaran elaborates that maybe he is just old-fashioned because he comes from a time and generation where you grew up with none of this even being a topic for discussion.
The actor went on to add that he is a Sainik school product, and spent most of his schooling years in Sainik school and even at the schooling stage, he befriended people from the North and from different states. All had different languages being spoken amongst themselves. So, it was just part of who we are as a country. He just thinks that in the heat of all these discussions and conversations, we forget that the ethos of this great nation is unity in diversity, not uniformity, in spite of diversity.”
Prithviraj is amongst the actors from down South who have managed to strike a balance between Hindi and the South languages. However, the success rate of even South superstars in Hindi has been a bit skewed. Mention that to him and he says, he can’t speak for others, but not looking for a transition. He just looks for the next good script that comes his way. He has always said that if the next good script that comes his way is from the Assamese industry, he will go for it and if tomorrow, a Bhojpuri maker comes and narrates something really interesting, he would love to do it. He makes it known he is in the industry today from the sets of a Telugu film, he is into promotions of a Hindi film now and tomorrow, and that he is on way to shoot a Malayalam film.
But why do even big South names fail to connect as well with the Hindi audience? He doesn’t think anybody has an equation that is a fool proof methodology to understand what will work and what will not work. All of us make every single film hoping that it resonates with the audience and it works, because ultimately we make films for that. We will go wrong, hopefully we will learn and we will try again. We might fail again but that’s the only way to go about it. Having done this job for this long, he, for one, knows that nothing is permanent. If tomorrow, Sarzameen is a blockbuster, that does not mean that okay, now he has arrived in Hindi. It will all depend on the next script he chooses to do.
News Edit KV Raman
