Voice

I had occasion to listen to a recording of myself leading a meeting on Zoom, and was quite shocked at my voice and speaking style. For one, in my own ears my voice is quite harsh and I must constantly try to moderate it and file down its edges, but in the recording it seemed rather soft. So that was nice. Also nice: my desi accent survives – the meeting was with a group of people in the UK (though from all over the world) and I had thought my accent fades in that context to something unplaceable, but probably vaguely British inflected. But no, it’s still quite desi, which is pleasing. Less pleasing was my way of speaking, which I found distracting to watch and a bit irritating. I speak from the front of my mouth, at least so it appears on the screen, like a gentle snarl. I tried practicing speaking from further back, but it is quite hard. Not sure I’ll persist, though, as it’s not that often I have to watch myself speak on a video.