No No .. I don't Know Hindi....

Whenever my friends joked around in Hindi, I used to laugh along without knowing  what it could be. It took a year or two  at office, however, to be able to figure out when I was the butt of the joke sometime. I have offended India’s national language plenty of times in the past, just by speaking it with my I’m-sure-what-I’m-saying-makes-sense attitude. Since I grew up in the southern part of India, I had no real exposure to Hindi and as a result there was no necessity for me to learn it. It was when I joined Infosys-Mysore that I first decided to pick up what seemed to be a very simple language.

I had moved to Mysore where a lot of the colleague population spoke Hindi at home, and most of my Cricket team mates spoke in Hindi during our rides to the Cricket grounds. So I bought a book that promised to teach its readers spoken Hindi in 30 days. I was pumped and naive, and went about learning the language with vigor. After a couple of days, I decided to watch a Hindi movie to see how well I had picked it up. After watching 5 minutes of Om Shanti Om, I turned off the TV, closed the book and decided that I had better things to spend my time on. My uncle might have learnt Hindi by watching Amitabh Bachchan movies (10 a month, though I bet he was exaggerating) but I knew that this technique wasn’t going to work for me. The only Hindi I picked up from the celluloid were movie names and using phrases like ‘Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (Sometimes Happiness, Sometimes Sadness)’ and ‘Mujse Shaadi Karogi (Will You Marry Me?)’ in regular conversation would have been disastrous.

Later that year, I went to Pune with my colleagues on a official trip. My Hindi speaking friend taught me how to say ‘I do not know Hindi’ in Hindi (Mujhe Hindi nahin aati). According to him it was the most important line to know for a tourist. In hindsight, he couldn’t be further from the truth, because the shop keepers there are always on the lookout to rip off anyone who can’t speak Hindi. My limited knowledge of Hindi, however, did not stop me from haggling. While my friends were conventional in their approach, “Bees rupay nahin, Dus” (I can’t give you Rs.20, only Rs.10), I took my approach to a much higher level - “Kal Ho Naa Ho, bees rupay nahin, dus.” (There might not be a tomorrow, so I can give you only Rs. 10).

Currently, I have reached a stage where I can understand most of what my friends say when they speak in Hindi with their expression also, but I do not possess the guts to reply in the same language. With Guts, i can say the below sentence, "Ek Gowme Ek Kissan Rahathatha (Raghu Thatha?!)"..

Yes, i am living in India and having friends who are pundits in Hindi. but I Don't Know Hindi.!

Cheers,
Sudhan.