Accents flow like a river: Smitha Ambu

She is a Kollamkaari and has no intention of losing that identity. But Smitha Ambu can easily switch to a dialect when she wants to. Her friends say the moment she gets down a train at Thrissur, she becomes a Thrissurkaari. When in Rome, she literally becomes a Roman. Perhaps that's what brought her to the sets of Udaharanam Sujatha, when director Phantom Praveen was looking for help to get his leading lady Manju Warrier to speak the Thiruvananthapuram Malayalam. Smitha, an actor and now a dubbing artiste too, came to the rescue. “Manju chechi had already spoken to the people in the neighbourhood, in Chenkalchoola, where the film was shot. She picked up some words they used. I was just there to make some corrections,” Smitha says.  

“Often, the Thiruvananthapuram slang is presented in a bad light. We decided not to make it the slang of one specific place, but to mix it up. Everyone in Thiruvananthapuram doesn't speak the language they are depicted to.” Smitha calls Manju Warrier a brilliant person and a hard working actor trying to make her part perfect in every way. “From 9 in the morning to 12 in the night, when we work, she hardly takes a break,” says Smitha. 

Manju who hails from northern Kerala and has the Valluvanadan accent was first told to cut the ‘flow’ that comes in northern slangs. “Most of the northern accents flow like a river. When it comes to Thiruvananthapuram, it starts like a river and ends in a waterfall,” Smitha says. It’s not just Manju she helped, but also the child actors who hail from places like Kannur and Kozhikode. After 14 years of theatre, Smitha is now trying her hand as a dubbing artiste. She has dubbed for Padmapriya in Madhupal’s film, which comes as a segment in the anthology Crossroads. She has also dubbed in a Kannada film. “That's where I was - in Karnataka - studying theatre for some period,” she explains. 

She continues to be active in theatre, having just done a production in Japan - for a silent play. One of her most known works is as Savithrikutty for Abhinaya Theatre, in a solo play. Smitha also appears in feature films. She played the mother of the girl child in Kochavva Paulo Ayyappa Coehlo, which is where she first met Phantom Praveen, who was there as an AD. She was the female lead in the film Velutha Rathrikal, and appeared in films like Chithrasoothran by Vipin Vijay. She is also a singer, performing in stage programmes.