Veteran lyricist Javed Akhtar and actor Madhoo have publicly backed Rashmika Mandanna after the actor was criticised for her Hindi pronunciation following her appearance on Koffee With Karan. Their comments turn the episode into a wider argument about whether language should be used to decide who belongs in Hindi cinema.
What started the conversation
On the show, Mandanna spoke about being trolled for her accent. The social media backlash that followed prompted Akhtar to write that mocking someone’s accent amounts to a “fake and baseless linguistic superiority,” adding that it “is not acceptable.”
Akhtar had first referred to Mandanna as a Tamil actor. After social media users pointed out her Kannada background, he acknowledged the error and said it did not change his support.
Madhoo’s longer memory
Madhoo’s response on Instagram was both a defence of Mandanna and a personal recollection. She said she watched the episode and admired the way Mandanna handled the criticism: the actor laughed about it, accepted the label and owned it, saying she is South Indian and has a South Indian accent.
Madhoo then described her own uneasy entry into Hindi cinema. She said she feared being judged for being South Indian, worked hard to improve her Hindi pronunciation, and tried to train with an Urdu teacher so she would not be “caught out” because of her accent. That is the part of the story that turns an insult into an institutional pattern: she was protecting herself from an exclusion she expected, not simply refining a skill.
It took her decades, she said, to accept her own accent. Early on, she was proud when someone said her Hindi was better than that of a native Hindi speaker. Today, she says, she is proud of being South Indian itself. The difference between her timeline and Mandanna’s is the point: Madhoo praised the younger actor for reaching that confidence much earlier in her career.
The career around the controversy
Mandanna’s own slate makes the argument concrete. She has worked across linguistic boundaries, with recent credits in Ranabaali opposite Vijay Deverakonda and Cocktail 2, an upcoming action thriller Mysaa dated for November 27, and Raaka with Atlee and Allu Arjun, fronted by Deepika Padukone, in progress.
- Mandanna addressed the accent trolling on Koffee With Karan.
- Javed Akhtar called the mockery “fake and baseless linguistic superiority.”
- Madhoo said she spent decades hiding her South Indian accent in Hindi cinema.
- Mandanna’s next release, Mysaa, is set for November 27.
Why this matters to Hindi cinema
Hindi film has always been a multilingual industry, drawing actors from several language traditions. The accent debate can quietly become a membership test: who is allowed to sound like an insider, and who is made to feel like a guest. Akhtar and Madhoo are pushing back on that framing.
The timing matters as well. Mandanna is not a newcomer seeking a break in Hindi cinema; she is a working actor with a release already dated. The conversation, then, is less about employability and more about the assumptions audiences still carry about a “correct” Hindi voice.
Neither Akhtar nor Madhoo is making the case that clear diction does not matter for an actor. The distinction they draw is between craft and contempt. One can be corrected in rehearsal; the other follows a performer into a question about origins, and that is precisely what they say should be retired.
Source: Cinema Express
Comments