The Accent I Code-Switch Into at Work

on client calls i soften my rs and speed up my consonants. not because anyone asked. because i've learned that "clarity" in corporate india often means sounding like the training video. then i go home and my mother says i sound like a news anchor and i don't know which version is the performance anymore. maybe both. maybe neither. the work version gets the project. the home version gets the food. i need both to survive.

On client calls, I soften my Rs and sharpen my consonants. Nobody asked me to. I learned anyway, because in corporate India clarity often means sounding like the training video.

At home, my mother says I sound like a news anchor. She is not complimenting me. She means I have brought the office into the kitchen.

I used to think one version was fake and one was real. I no longer believe that. The work voice gets the project approved. The home voice gets the second serving. Both are survival strategies in different economies.

Code-switching is not dishonesty. It is fluency in a country that still pretends there is one correct way to speak if you want to be taken seriously. The cost is subtler than discrimination and heavier than inconvenience: you start to wonder which voice you would use if nobody were listening.

I have not answered that yet. I am not sure I want to.

Know someone who should read this?