Growing up, this writer firmly believed that the Japanese spoke fluent Hindi in their everyday life. Doraemon, the adorable cat robot, had finished a crash course before taking screen, and Pikachu the Pokémon had somehow evolved to pick up our slang. Two decades after we had a rude awakening, we sat face to face, or at least ear to ear over a call with the woman who fuelled our innocent misconception. Sonal Kaushal, now in her 30s, reveals that she was only 13 years old when she voiced the character. We can cut her some slack.

Kaushal voiced the character Doraemon from the eponymous Japanese series. PIC COURTESY/DORAEMON ON YOUTUBE

“I would spend hours in the studio. I had kept my alter-ego under the wraps at school because I didn’t want the attention,” she recalls. That worked fine until her dad showed up one day to pick her up, and accidentally outed her. “The next day, the principal announced it during the morning assembly. My classmates were shocked,” she laughs. Next week, the artiste will host young aspirants like her at an exhaustive five-day workshop on the art form.