A New Direction and a New Favorite TV Show

I'm happy to announce that I'm taking this blog in a different, more inclusive direction. Up to now, I've focused quite specifically on language-learning issues. But the more time I spend learning Hindi and enjoying Indian culture, the more I realize how deeply intertwined they are. For example, my wife and I are now watching the late-80s TV serial production of the Mahabharat; as each episode progresses, I gain a little more mental fluency with Hindi, a little more skill recognizing individual words, phrases, and grammatical word order. I refresh my memory of all the different, often formal/Sanskritic ways to say the same thing: किंतु (kintu) and परंतु (parantu), rather than the more modern पर (par) or लेकिन (lekin), all meaning essentially "but." So it makes sense to me to include my responses to Indian culture in this space. Frankly, I'm hoping this change will also noodge me to post more often and reach more readers.

For this first "cultural" post, I want to tell you about my new favorite Indian TV show. As I discussed in an earlier post, I followed Pavitra Rishta for some time, but now it's gone off the air. I enjoy Neeli Chatri Waale even more!

Here is how Zee TV describes the show on its official web page:

"1.2 billion People pray to 330 million Gods every day, reason being people generally thank or blame God for whatever happens in their lives. There is a perennial search for God. We have all wondered at one point or another, what will happen if we come face to face with God one day? What will we ask of him? And one day, you actually meet God on earth. What if there are no miracles? What if God does not look the way you always imagined him to be? Rather than giving you answers, what if he has more questions for you? Questions that make you introspect and listen to your own inner voice. How will your life change? These are just some of the questions faced by Bhagwan Das, the protagonist of Zee TV's weekend fiction show 'Neeli Chhatri Waale powered by Vinod Appliances who has the privilege of meeting and befriending God. The show explores a unique relationship between man and God as his friend. Based on the philosophy of 'God is within us', 'Neeli Chhatri Waale powered by Vinod Appliances is a light-hearted drama highlighting Bhagwan Das and his relationship with Lord Shivaye who emerges in front of him - not as the hallowed, much revered avatar but as a young, smart, contemporary youth wielding a blue umbrella. Catch Bhagwan Das on a journey of listening to his inner voice through conversations with God."

This is a wonderfully profound and unexpected question to focus a soap opera upon! But pardon me, please, while I disagree a bit with Zee TV's description. To describe the show as being "based on the philosophy of 'God is within us'" is to suggest that the fundamental premise of the show is different from what it is. This sounds like our humble hero Bhagwan Das is thinking deeply, meditating off by himself, "listening to his inner voice" only, not anyone else's. His first name, meaning "God," supports that interpretation. But the whole point of the show is that Shiva truly does exist, truly is Bhagwan-sahib's friend, and truly does talk with Bhagwan about his ordinary human problems. Shiva even tells Bhagwan regularly, in kindness, "You are my most beautiful creation."

This point is all-important: Bhagwan Das hears, sees, and talks with Shiva; that is the given circumstance upon which the whole show rests. Other people don't see or hear Shiva, but Bhagwan emphatically does. He's not an extraordinarily pious/religious man, and he's not delusional. Nor does the show ever explore these possibilities. God is not only within Mr. Das, who (actually) sees Shiva as a "young, smart, contemporary youth" wearing modern clothing, like so.

(Note how this quotation, too, is misleading in the same way described above. So is the hashtag phrase "#DilKiAwaaz": "voice of the heart" or "inner voice.")

Once in a while we see Shiva in his classical form, as on the left below. But most often, he appears as on the right.

Now, ponder this for a moment: imagine Shiva is your friend, and you see him all the time. You can ask him anything. Would you not listen? This is the source of most of the show's humor: Bhagwan Das rarely listens before (comic, minor, temporary) damage is done. Then he'll sadly nod his head and take Shiva's advice, sure, but not until.

Bhagwan is thoroughly an आम आदमी (aam admi), "ordinary man." He invites light-hearted derision, with roughly an equal amount of sympathy. Look at him more closely with his family (and Shiva). He's chubby and not particularly handsome. His son--no pageant winner himself--openly displays disrespect. His father is exasperated with him. His wife looks aggravated enough to bounce the rolling pin in her left hand off his skull.

The atmosphere in his office, not pictured here, is no calmer: he has the moderately embarrassing job (for a proper middle-class urban Indian) of marketing and selling...underwear. His boss yells at him and/or threatens to fire him constantly. No wonder Bhagwan himself quite understandably looks heavenward for assistance with all this. Surely most viewers can relate to some of these circumstances.

So, Bhagwan Das, an ordinary man, miraculously has Shiva as a close friend. Who can say why? (It's not explained, just given.) He has an ordinary hectic life and an ordinary bickering family. He experiences ordinary troubles. In one short story arc, Bhagwan and his wife Bobby become irritated with each other. The husband is convinced that the wife must lounge around the house all day and waste money on luxury items; the wife is convinced that office life is nothing but chatting and coffee-drinking, followed by coming home to criticize her. Piqued, they vow to trade places for a month; the expected amusing blunders then follow--he can't manage the housework or make the money stretch far enough, while she can't stand the pressure at the office. In another story arc, Dad has a heart attack and lingers near death for several days in the hospital, while Bhagwan begs Shiva to spare him a few years more. These very common troubles keep the show relevant and relatable for its target middle-class audience.

Bhagwan has Shiva's ear and assistance, yet he continually disregards Shiva's wisdom. Bhagwan must ignore Shiva's advice if this show is to work as an entertaining comedy. This is true for two reasons. First, if Bhagwan faithfully and humbly followed his divine friend's advice, the show would be essentially religious instruction. The clear message would be, in every moment of the show: "Like this most sensible man, follow Shiva's advice. This is how you do it. You may not be so fortunate as to have Mahadev in your presence, but you have the next best thing--this show. So listen and obey." Indian television already abounds in straightforward religious instruction. There are many "God-man" shows on the air, in addition to the numerous classical/mythological representations of the gods. For example, at Christmas 2012 I took this short film of a TV show (called just Ganesh, I think?) that mostly showed religiously themed conversations between Shiva and his son Ganesh.

Neeli Chatri Waale airs among soap operas and other light entertainment. It markets itself to ordinary middle-class viewers. It's entertainment, not religion. It's purely entertaining (as opposed to instructive) only so long as Bhagwan ignores Shiva's necessarily wise advice.

Second, the show's funniness depends upon Bhagwan's foolishness. You really have to see the show to believe how it milks every little moment for its humor. (You can find Hindi-language episodes, unsubtitled, on YouTube and here at the show's official website under "Episodes.") Every line receives a double-take or funny look; every second line is accompanied by a "humorous" sound effect (exaggerated laughter, the "wah-wah" trombone sound that means "oops," etc.). Bhagwan invites mild, humorous derision nearly every moment by not listening to Shiva. Again, any of us would surely listen to Him if He were right there in front of us; so, when Bhagwan doesn't have enough common sense to do so, we can't help but join Shiva in laughing at him, shaking our head in amused disbelief: "Can you believe this silly human?"

If you've clicked the link to the official Neeli Chatri Waale website already, you may have noticed the "Ask Shivaye" tab. Zee TV offers you the chance to have your own questions/problems addressed by Shiva! I tried it.

I selected "I hate my job" for my example, though that's not true. It didn't seem realistic for me, at age 50, to choose the last possibility--"My parents are forcing me to pick a career of their choice"!

Shiva finally offered a solution--well, a nonspecific, impressionistic solution.

"Apne dil ki awaaz suno, dheere dheere sab kuch samajh aa jayenga," computer-generated Shiva tells me: "Listen to your inner voice, [and] slowly you will understand everything."

Chal do...krpya

चल दो.
[chal do/go away]
I said it, and I'm not proud of doing so.
Back when I first started falling in love with India, I started imagining going there; and when I imagined going there, I pictured one big fat greasy fly in the ointment. Namely, though I'm not at all wealthy by American standards, I would be by India's standards--so I'd be swarmed by people (I mostly imagined children, but why not adults also?) who are positively crushed by poverty. How could I say no, but then, how could I help everyone? There was no helping the problem: I would stand out, as a very white 6'4" American tourist, and I would seem wealthy, and actually be so relatively speaking, so I'd be in a pickle every time I went out in public. (I apologize for the selfishness built into this train of thought.)
But when my wife and I went to Delhi, Agra, and Mumbai in 2012-13, this hardly happened at all. Mostly we encountered beggars at red lights in Delhi, one at a time and through the glass of the car window. We spent our time in monuments, restaurants, and middle-class establishments of various kinds, so we were never overwhelmed by crowds of the tragically poor as I imagined. Our driver and our travels insulated us.
During my recent trip (December 2014-January 2015), Oklahoma Study Abroad and my travel group ventured farther afield. We spent a couple of days in Pushkar in particular, and encountered a wider variety of people. This is where I learned to say "चल दो."
We took a fantastic camel safari--a one-hour camel ride, beginning about sunset, during which we rode out into the desert. There a local group entertained us with some local music and dancing by firelight, accompanied by platters of delicious Rajasthani food. Anyway, the camel handlers included several children. One little guy in particular, about seven years old, I'm guessing, stuck to us with unbelievable tenacity. He mimed an eating motion, putting invisible food from his fingers into his open mouth, then holding out the open hand in our direction. He wore ragged, dirty clothes and no shoes. His face was dusty. He would not give up; he begged for a solid hour while the safari got set up. He stood looking at me, begging, for many minutes. I grew more and more uncomfortable. I had only 500-rupee bills on me (about $8.20 American each), and that seemed too much for the circumstances. I finally said the thing I'd heard our Indian guides say to the aggressive hawkers crowded around Amber Fort and Delhi's India Gate: "Chal do." Go away; get lost; scram.
"चल दो." But I felt so bad saying it that I added, a couple of beats later: "क्रप्या" [krpya/please].
"Get lost...please."
भगवन मुझे माफ़ करें. [bhagwan maaf karein/may God forgive me.]

Big Gora, Pukka Translator

One key milestone in any language learner's journey is translating, in the moment, without a dictionary, without hesitation, effectively. Spontaneously understanding and making oneself understood. Bridging the language gap in real time.
During my first trip to India two years ago, I didn't have any single interaction that I can honestly say qualifies as that. But now I have!
Let me make a brief observation or two here before I tell the story. (Granted, "the story" is probably only really dramatic and/or meaningful to me, but then I guess that's the nature of most blog writing, isn't it?) First, my travel group very sweetly and generously gave me a lot of credit for being able to read and speak Hindi. It felt kind of funny: I've been working on it for a few years now, but only now was I receiving any recognition for it--as if I'd offhandedly learned it on the plane ride over. My fellow travelers noticed, and congratulated me for, reading signs and talking with people (our drivers and guides) in what I know is the Hindi of a small child. Second, I can tell that my fluency is improving a lot, even if my vocabulary hasn't expanded much recently. I can speak in sentences, and understand them when others speak them, without having to think nearly as much as I used to about issues like word order and postpositions. I even worked in a couple of (I'm told) idiomatic phrases: "अलग-अलग" [alag-alag/separately] and "तंग करना" [tang karna/to harass or bother (literally, to make narrow)].
The story. Very nearly all my attempts to employ Hindi were ones I chose. We had two guides with us most of the time, BP and Jeet, both native Hindi speakers and excellent speakers of English. Jeet, a Sikh 30-year-old with a vast collection of beautiful, spotless turbans, seemed to get a kick out of teaching me. When someone needed to speak with non-English-speaking locals, or our only-Hindi-speaking bus driver, BP or Jeet did it. One day, though, both of them were off on other errands. We were on our way to the Dilli Haat for some shopping, when suddenly someone in the back of the bus spotted a glasses-repair shop on a side road that we needed to visit. Busy Delhi streets have four parallel lanes: the two wide ones in the center for through traffic, plus a narrower lane on each side for closing in on individual shops and offices. My goal was to alert our driver as quickly as possible, so he didn't miss the turn onto the narrower street, that we wanted him to turn around here and stop in front of that business over there.
Turn around here came out as "जाये यहाँ। कृप्या।" [jaie yahaan. krpya./Please go there. Please.] I made darned sure I used the respectful "आप" form, so the "कृप्या" was probably gratuitous, but better safe than sorry.
Stop in front of that business over there came out as "ठहरिए यहाँ के सामने।" [thaharie yahaan ke samne/Please wait facing over there.] "ठहरिए" tumbled out, though I'm told "इंतज़ार करना" (literally, "to do waiting") is the more common way to say that. "के सामने" is closer to "facing," whereas "के आगे" [ke aage] would be a more accurate way to say "out front of."
But hey, Anil just nodded his head and did exactly what I was trying to ask him to do. He never even looked confused. I give him full credit for reading the mind of a bumbling gora--but I'll also count this as my big moment as an English-to-Hindi translator!

Back to India!

Next week I return to India! The only way I could be more thrilled would be if my wonderful wife were coming with me!
I'm going for two weeks, leading a group of students and alumni from my university, along with trip organizer extraordinaire Christian Alyea from Oklahoma Study Abroad. We're hoping this will be the first India trip of many. Ideally, we'll do this every year, between fall and spring semesters when India is a bit less boiling hot than usual.
We'll spend about a week in the Delhi area, including an overnight trip to not-that-far-away Agra. Then we have a couple of days in the south, in the Kochi area, traveling on a backwater boat and visiting a beach resort. We'll wrap up with a couple of days in Jaipur.
Naturally, I'm working on my Hindi. I'm at that in-between, frustrating stage--which I'm still in with French--where I recognize most of the words, and the subject of the conversation, but I'm lagging considerably behind the speed of the chat with my comprehension.
Here are a few phrases I'm working on, to say while I'm in India.

"This food is really delicious! Please give me some more!" [Ye khana bahut swadisht hai! Krpya mujhe kuch aur dijie!/ये खाना बहुत स्वादिष्ट है! कृप्या मुझे कुछ और दीजिए!]
"Excuse me, where is the bathroom?" [Sunie, bathrum kahan hai?/सुनिए, बाथरुम कहाँ है?]
"How much does this cost? Are you completely crazy?" [Iska daam kya hai? Kya aap bilkul pagal hain?/इस्का दाम क्या है? क्या आप बिलकुल पागल हैं?] (Note: this one amuses me. I use the respectful form of "you," "aap," though of course the content of the sentence would suggest the more familiar "tum.")
"I want to live here. May I do that?" [Main yahi rahna chahta hoon. Kya main us karun?/मैं यही रहना चाहता हूँ. क्या मैं उस करूँ?]
"How well do you like Pomeranian dogs?" [Kitne aapko kutte Pomerania se pasand hain?कितने आपको कुत्ते पोमेरानीअ से पसंद हैं?]
"If I bring several cats with me, that's okay, right?" [Agar main kai billiyan mujhse laoon, ye bilkul thik hai, na?/अगर मैं कई बिल्लियाँ मुझसे लाऊं, ये बिलकुल ठीक है, न?]
" I think I lost my passport. Now I can't go home. I will ask my wife to meet me here!" [Main sochta hoon ki mera pasport bhula. Ab main ghar nahin lautna sakta. Main meri patni se yahan mujhse milne punchunga./मैं सोचता हूँ कि मेरा पासपोर्ट भूला। अब मैं घर नहीं सकता। मैं मेरी पतनी से यहाँ मुझसे मिलने पूँछूँगा।]

If I do indeed come back, I'll tell you all about the trip and show some photos!

Shuddh Hindi?

A few years ago, when I was just getting started learning Hindi, I started a Facebook page called "Hindi and Sanskrit Learners." The Sanskrit was there in the title because one very self-motivated grad student I knew wanted to learn it, and of course it's the mother of Hindi. I figured we could encourage and motivate each other.

I had no idea then about what I know now: to a certain conservative type, that combination of words--"Hindi and Sanskrit Learners"--signals a whole worldview in shorthand, one that I find repugnant.

Let me back up to where I first began getting inklings about this whole thing. There's a wonderful memoir called Dreaming in Hindi: Coming Awake in Another Language.

Katherine Russell Rich published this account in 2010. She describes moving to first one dinky backwater Indian town and then another and learning Hindi full-time, as a sort of extended timeout from life. If I could somehow take my wonderful wife, and our adorable pets with us, I'd love to do this myself. Rich says she became "near-fluent" in that time; she could completely understand any Bollywood film without subtitles. (Wow!) Each chapter contains a well-researched meditation on a related concept: how learning a second language influences our first; how adults learn vs. how children do; the relationship between Hindi and Urdu, and so on.

That last topic was introduced with a little anecdote. One day she took a bicycle rickshaw somewhere, and when she paid the driver, told him "शुक्रिया" [shukriya/thanks]. He glared and told her she should instead tell him "धन्यवाद" [dhanyavaad/thank you]. The former is considerably less formal, and therefore much more commonly used. An equivalent in English, as I understand it, might be something like "Thanks" vs. "I am grateful to you." His annoyance was at her use of an Arabic-root word rather than a Sanskritic one. Maybe an American equivalent would be expressing annoyance at someone for saying "Gracias," on the grounds that it's a "foreign word." To the driver, "shukriya" is a foreign word, "not Indian."

I did this reading a few years ago, and since then, I've learned more about this kind of Indian conservatism. There's a party, the BJP, that expresses the value of "India for Indians," meaning these "outside," "foreign" influences--American/Western values, Arabic/Urdu words, and religions other than Hinduism (especially Islam)--are simply not welcome. These "foreign" things "aren't really Indian."

The phrase used to describe this ideal as applied to language is "शुद्ध हिन्दी" [shuddh hindi/pure Hindi]. The phrase, and the attitude, has a lot in common with the sentiment expressed by, for example, the crowds of "real [white] Americans" currently screaming at buses full of desperate immigrant children. "Pure Hindi!" The attitude finds Bollywood Hindi, Muslim-influenced Hindi, impure, corrupt, not-Indian.

Back to my well-meaning Facebook page. To me, Hindi is Hindi. If it's in my dictionary and/or my Teach Yourself book, it's Hindi. I don't know (though now I'm starting to) whether a given word's roots are Sanskrit or Arabic; it's all new to me, all equally not-my-mother-tongue. Also, I consciously try to live an inclusive, tolerant attitude: a Hindu and a Muslim are equally my siblings. In fact, one of the reasons I love India and her culture so much is the frequently-expressed ideal of diversity.

About a year ago, I guess as a result of improved search capabilities on Facebook, some "shuddh Hindi" folks started joining the page. They thought because of my title, "Hindi and Sanskrit Learners," that I was one of them. Sanskritic Hindi only; away with those filthy Urdu words. More joined. One poster began encouraging members to join his other, "more Sanskritic" page instead. Then someone began posting, almost daily, subtly pro-Hindu (and anti-anything else) religious messages with old-fashioned Sanskritic wording. The page had become its own entity, one I didn't like or support now though I'd started it.

So I left it. Let the "shuddh Hindi" folks talk to each other without me.

The attitude makes me sad. I love all of India, all her languages, all her cultures, all her diversity, सब कुछ भारतिय [sab kuch bhaaratiy/everything Indian].

Dhire dhire!

धीरे धीरे!
That means, essentially, "slowly, slowly," or maybe "gradually" or "a little bit at a time." I think anyone who's ever studied another language has that response all the time: "Please just slow down a little!" Apparently linguists have found that there's no significant difference in the respective speeds at which different languages are spoken; but of course, the languages you don't know as well and struggle to keep up with seem to move lots faster. One's native tongue has to be spoken super-superfast to seem like it's going that speed--like in the old Federal Express commercials.

1970s Federal Express Commercial

Nevertheless, I blame Shah Rukh Khan for the high speed at which Hindi barrels toward me.
Maybe if I knew more about Indian popular entertainment I'd have additional guilty parties to name, but for now I blame him! In several of his movies, especially everyone's sentimental favorite Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, he adopts a persona that is goofy and hyperactive.

He never stops moving, twitching, mugging; he speaks a mile a minute. See this, for example.

SRK in DDLJ

He's still one of the world's biggest movie stars, so he was bound to be copied. Uday Chopra in particular seems to be channeling hyper-SRK most of the time. It comes across (to me) not as funny and appealing--just as hyper and annoying.

Maybe that's why Uday Chopra hasn't made many movies lately--no one wants to listen to him!
I've become a fan of the Indian soap opera Pavitra Rishta. I checked out several, and this one (for me) has the best combination of elements I'm looking for: things actually happen (as opposed to one American soap I watched for about a year just out of morbid disbelief in what I was seeing--Passions; any simple conversation there could be repeated and rehashed for weeks); moment-to-moment implausibility is held to a minimum, by soap opera standards; and most importantly, it features current everyday Hindi that I can use to practice and improve my fluency. (I also, by the way, like Qubool Hai, but it features a lot of Urdu, so it's not as useful.)

A longish digression on Pavitra Rishta: the show did something very strange a few months ago, something I'm still trying to process. The man and woman on the far left and right of this picture were (in, yes, one of the more implausible elements) supposed to be husband and wife, parents of the female behind them. (The two women look the same age to me.) The husband in back--Arun, was it?--was an aggravating hothead, always picking fights with his wife. The older and younger couples were the main characters, then there was also a major subplot in which the older couple's adopted son was frighteningly stalking a beautiful young doctor. This doctor was engaged to marry someone else, but the stalker "knew" she was "destined" to be his, so he would never be turned away. Anyway, the stalker apparently kidnapped the pretty young doctor, killed her in an accident (?), and ran away. Cut to: it's now 20 years later, just like that. There's no warning or explanation, it just is. (Despite the fact that cell phones and other prominent markers of technology were current with ours now, 20 years ago, and in the new timeline still are.) Somehow this crazy stalker guy, still alive and well in Mumbai despite his horrible alcoholism, has five kids but no (living?) wife, including a beautiful 20something daughter whose love life is at center stage.
But get this. Said daughter looks exactly like Archana, the implausibly-young-looking mother pictured above, did those twenty years ago, although there's no blood relation or even contact between them. (For now.) Even the alcoholic stalker was only Archana's adopted son. Archana is now old, grey, and tired, and lives with her husband (who did not visibly age) somewhere in Canada. The show's focus stays on the circle of people around the young daughter in Mumbai, named Ankita, with occasional brief reminders that Archana and her family are still out there, much older now.
Ankita is married to a "mad genius" named Naren. For reasons just now beginning to be explored, he has a persistent delusion that his wife's name is Ahana, and he always calls her that. She'd married him for his money, to help her family, which was socially and financially devastated by the drunken father's perpetual bad behavior; however, Ankita/Ahana has now fallen in love with Naren, living up to the Indian ideal "Marriage first, then love."

Now, at last, to the point: Naren is a fast talker to rival the Federal Express guy! Check him out here, especially at about the 1:00 mark.

Naren talks fast on Pavitra Rishta

Look what you've done, SRK! Just LOOK at what you've done!
धीरे धीरे!
And शुक्रिया भगवान को लिखित भाषांतर के लिए! [shukriya bhagwaan ko likhit bhaashaantar ke lie/thank God for subtitles!]

Chalte chalte

First, let's get this out of the way: I didn't get the Fulbright for fall 2014. I spent about a week feeling very depressed, then another two coming out of it very gradually. Damn. That was going to be my excuse/occasion/motivation to work super-hard on my Hindi in 2014; now I'll just have to do it for its own sake!
One thing I'm amused by about Hindi, which actually it shares with English, is the repetition (or echo/rhyme) of words, and the use of two similar words together, for effect. Think how often we do this in English:
Hustle and bustle, wear and tear, willy-nilly, shilly-shally, kitty cat, puppy dog, tick-tock (also used in Hindi), and so forth.
One really common instance is चलते चलते [chalte chalte/gradually, over time]. Here it is in one of my all-time favorite Bollywood numbers, from Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi: it's "Phir Milenge Chalte Chalte" [see you later, down the road].

Phir Milenge Chalte Chalte
The wonderful (and earlier-posted) song "Dard-e-disco" includes लम्हा लम्हा [lamha lamha/from moment to moment].

Dard-e-disco
Here are a few more I've learned that I especially like:
अलग अलग [alag alag/different-different, separately]
एक एक [ek ek/one each]
कौन कौन [kaun kaun/which various people]
बड़ा बड़ा [baraa baraa/great big]
मीटिंग-शीटिंग [meeting-sheeting/ meeting or anything of the kind. This is an example, too, of the vast potential of echo words to convey mocking. That usage is very common in English-language novels with Hindi-speaking characters; they import this tendency into English, all the time.]
नौकर-चौकर [naukar-chaukar/servant of some kind (the words both mean "servant"]
गप-शाप [gap-shap/idle chatter, gossip. This approaches to onomatopoeia, I think--kind of like saying, "Blah blah blah."]
सब हैम लोग तालियां बजाइए [sab ham log taliyaan bajaie/let's all clap hands] for repeating words in Hindi!