Doubtless many readers saw the recent article in the New York Times, profiling Katherine Russell Rich, author most recently of a book called Dreaming in Hindi — a memoir of a year spent in Rajasthan, learning Hindi.
Something about the article in the Times bugged me, starting with the following passage:
One store owner insists in English that she is not actually speaking Hindi; when Ms. Rich explains, in Hindi, that she studied the language for some time in Rajasthan, he retorts, in English, “They don’t speak Hindi in Rajasthan.†(This happens not to be true.)
When Ms. Rich returned to New York from abroad, she spontaneously spoke Hindi to a friend of a friend. “He told me that when I spoke Hindi to him, it was like a body blow,” Ms. Rich said. “I think to Indians, sometimes it feels like I’m eavesdropping on a private conversation, like I’m breaking the fourth wall.” (link)
Wait, couldn’t it also be that the people Rich has been accosting, taxi drivers and convenience store clerks, might simply find this persistent American annoying, and have refused to speak Hindi with her mainly to make her go away? Lady, I’m sorry if your being in New York means your newly-acquired Hindi is going to start getting rusty. But I got a job to do, and that involves speaking English to patrons as I sell them stuff, not teaching you how to pronounce “lajawab” correctly. Next in line, please?
The question has to be asked: why does Katherine Russell Rich want to learn to speak Hindi? Is it to communicate with Hindi speakers while living in India? That would be a perfectly fine reason, indeed, an admirable one. But I suspect that sadly her real desire was to a) get paid for writing a book where she can talk all about her Hindi lessons and her impressions of Rajasthan, only to b) promptly move back to Manhattan, where she’ll irk Hindi speaking New Yorkers with her persistent demands that they speak Hindi with her?
Another annoyance in the article is the presumption that people refuse to acknowledge a white woman who speaks Hindi because we desis like to gossip about Americans in our secret language:
To some people from India, Ms. Rich learned, it is insulting to be addressed in anything other than English, a language of the privileged. And for some immigrants, domain over a language unfamiliar to most Americans must feel like one of the few riches they can claim. (link)
I really don’t know where the author of the article got this idea. (Why not ask an actual Indian, Hindi-speaker before making the speculative statement that “domain over a language unfamiliar to most Americans must feel like one of the few riches they can claim”?)
Finally, there is the obligatory dis on second-generation, “heritage” students who take Hindi classes at their universities:
“A lot of Indians who were born here or moved here when they were very small want to rediscover the language,†he said. (Ms. Rich said that she had overlapped with such students at New York University, and that many were already proficient in the language, less interested in their heritage and more interested in an easy A.) (link)
I’ll have you know, Ms. Rich, that most second gen, Indian-American college students do not take Hindi for this reason. I myself took Hindi at Cornell, and my professor gave me a “B” in intermediate Hindi (I deserved it, but it still smarts: certainly not an “easy A”).
In fact, most Indian-American college students actually take Hindi to meet, and flirt with, other Indian-American college students. So there.Katherine Russell Rich has also produced a short, promotional YouTube video related to the book and this New York Times article, which as of this writing has had all of 127 hits, even with a link from the New York Times:
If you weren’t annoyed by Katherine Russell Rich before, I suspect you may be by now.
Katherine Russell Rich also has an amusing, but not exactly wonderful, first-person story about making out with a New York City fireman in an elevator here.
Her comments on ‘danger’ and her proximity to Gujarat, and ‘dining with kings’ – I mean – my god! Disgusting.
And Oprah selected her book ? She would have been fine without her weird personality and her exotic statements at the end. If she had chosen instead to study the language and discuss WHY students, immigrants, etc either spoke or did not speak the language instead of making huge generalizations, could have been an interesting read.
Yet, she chose to cast herself as the heroine of her own epic travails – choose your own adventure style.
And your point is… ???
Dude, if I had wanted to use a phrase that was simultaneously incendiary and unproductive, like that one, I would have. But I didn’t. I was actually trying to make the kind of point that can be supported by evidence and/or argued on the merits.
If you feel you need to put different words in my mouth, that’s on you.
You mean, like “narcissistic safari colonialist” or “blithe orientalist” or “insidious local allies or enablers”? My bad, then.
The specific phrase you took issue with is this one:
Do you disagree with that opinion, on the merits? If so that is fine, but why not simply say so?
The notion that this woman is a colonialist is so ludicrous, and they hyperbole of calling grocers and taxi drivers allies and enablers so laughable, that I don’t think my extrapolation was an exaggeration (this is not to mention the hysteria of the entire comment, or the use of “incendiary and unproductive” phrases that I mentioned).
If people here are arguing that it is not unique or noteworthy for an American to go to India and learn Hindi in an immersive manner, I’d be very curious to see substantiation of that argument. Or some explanation as to why her remarks are so offensive when they are not incorrect. And if she gets a book deal out of her efforts, what is so offensive about that?
For some reason, I didn’t notice this before, but the “Dreaming in Hindi” artwork that appears at the beginning of the video (and on the cover of her book) actually replicates the shape/appearance of Tamil (or other South Indian) script, not Hindi. 🙂
http://tinyurl.com/76ybfg
“where’s MY book deal?”
write a book.
Rahul,
Except that I wasn’t calling the grocers and cab drivers allies and enablers. I was calling the ACTORS who were enlisted to play those roles in the trailer the allies and enablers. Perhaps you didn’t read my comment properly. Here is the full paragraph:
The commenter to whom I was referring was Manpreet (#23) who said this:
I am sorry if I wasn’t clear enough in my comment.
Siddhartha
I agree with commenters who think what makes the video so
annoyinginsufferable is her supercilious attitude and her dubious motives for learning the language.She seems to believe that she is doing desis a huge favour by speaking to them in Hindi, and that kind of attitude would have been difficult to conceal even if she had the insight. Generally speaking, most Hindi speakers in India would appreciate a foreigner trying to speak their language, and there are quite a few who actually do ( eg. take a random sample from Pune’s Koregaon Park or Delhi’s Paharganj). On my last vacation in Delhi, I was approached by a group of American (from their accents) students, who pushed an ABD girl to the front. She asked me for some advice about shopping for ethnic stuff in Hindi. I spoke to her in my best Lucknowi, and made a heroic effort to help them out with something that isn’t traditionally one of my strong points (shopping for ethnic clothes).There are plenty of words that can be used to describes imbeciles. ‘Woh saala khajoor’ is how Munnabhai would say it.
Alright, change my sentence to “… and the hyperbole of calling these actors allies and enablers so laughable …” I did read your comment properly, which is why my response referred to multiple aspects and phrases in it, not just this one.
The best comment on this thread, by far.
Umm… she is referring to Hindi speakers in the US, New York, specifically.
No, she seems proud of the fact that she can speak Hindi, and thinks that makes her different/unique as compared to other Americans talking to Indians in the US. This is not outrageous, and if it is, I’d love to see some evidence to the contrary, as I asked.
Rahul,
If you’d like to discuss the ideas in my comment as opposed to dismissing them as “ludicrous” and “laughable,” feel free to drop me a line.
Siddhartha
I have read this writer’s memoir on breast cancer, and I wouldn’t take this latest book too seriously for its commentary on India. More than anything, it is probably a book more about herself and her inner and outer demons. She has spent a good part of the last 10 or 15 years surviving breast cancer, and I think she went to India after a romantic affair ended, and after she had been fired from her job, and had a second bout with breast cancer. So if she comes across a bit unhinged, it is probably because she is, and it seems like she went to India to find herself and to find meaning — kind of like how Alanis Morrisette did her “Thank you, India” pilgrim after her broken heart confessionals in Jagged Little Pill.
So, try not to take this book too seriously. I haven’t read this one, but I imagine it is in the same genre as “Eat, Pray, Love” (woman gets dumped/gets sick with western disease or whatever, is disillusioned with western love and relationships, seeks spirituality/travel to find herself), which is probably why Oprah has picked the book for her club.
Basically it is trash lit. There is a market for it so it makes sense that she got a book deal. It’s the kind of gimmicky ethnic lit that sells very well.
Americans going to India to study Hindi is not so uncommon as you think… (though by no means masses and masses) The most well-known submersion course is at the American Institute of Indian Studies: http://www.indiastudies.org/
They have many different language options available for Indian languages. The interest in the Hindi language program specifically have (I don’t have the exact statistics) increased a LOT. For example, the first summer program I did, there were around 20 advanced level students, and (I think?) 25 intermediate level students. That was the first year they did intermediate Hindi, and before that, I think 10-15 was the norm for advanced. The last time I went was for the academic year program– which used to boast anywhere between 2-12 students… the year I went we had an unprecedented 28 (or so). They also added beginning Hindi after that, and I think they had around 100 students last summer.
The numbers are rising rather sharply. The program had been around since I think the 1970s and up until maybe four years ago, the interest and attendance had been pretty steady. The number of applications was increasing dramatically as well.
Most of the students were grad students in the U.S., some undergrad, a few random people (generally you have to be enrolled in a University to apply). They also have two kinds of scholarships available.. FLAS (Foreign language and Area Studies Fellowships) which you can get through your University, or CLS (critical language scholarship) which is actually a government scholarship to encourage people to study ‘critical languages’. Both of those scholarships usually cover airfare tuition, room and board, etc, so it’s quite a nice deal.
Most people enrolled in graduate programs who require some sort of Indian language participate in one of the A.I.I.S. immersion courses. Other options generally are in the U.S. (like summer courses at University if Wisconsin Madison)… I know there are other language programs for foriegners in India as well, my boyfriend has been teaching two Hindi for Foriegners courses at JNU for the past two years…
The indianish font of the title on her web page for the book “Dreaming in HINDI” actually has the M, IN, G and H modified into Tamil and no Hindi letters, again showing the subliminal superiority of Lemurians over Scythians.
typo!: that submersion was supposed to be immersion… excuse.
Yes. Not being a khajoor, I get that much. And I, having never been to the US, New York to be specific, am talking about Hindi speakers in India reacting to firangs speaking to them in Hindi, a slightly different but related issue.
Her attitude says it all. And if you want evidence, we are still seeking funding for our randomised double blind study. Feel free to contribute.
I’m aware of immersion classes. To pick a very generous number from your comments, hundreds of Americans a year (maybe even a couple thousand) out of a population of 300 million? I’d call that uncommon, even if you restricted the base just to the population of New York City and all these Americans were from there.
Surely the instant outrage machine will fund it in copious amounts?
Yes, Rahul, I agree with you it is still uncommon… my point was that it is slightly LESS uncommon than people may think 😉 As in, a few hundred a year is more than one strange woman a screw loose… 😛
typo again (geez, whats my problem tonight?):
As in, a few hundred a year is more than one strange woman WITH a screw loose… 😛
If she hams it up, she is an insane colonialist who oppresses humble Indians trying to ply their trade, if Russell Peters does it, wow, what a genius with incisive cultural observations! And guess which one is more hyperbolic of the two?
Don’t most NRIs in the US who have Hindi, as their first language learn it at home? I would have thought that their parents would have taught it to them.
I am surprised that learning Hindi is made to be such a big deal; speaking shudh Hindi is quite hard as reading/writing it can be but colloquial Hindustani isn’t a difficult language to pick up. Was always surprised how many people could understand/speak at a basic level in SE Asia and Africa due to the immense popularity of Bollywood films.
Outrage? We haven’t burnt any effigies yet. Not even paraded donkeys. And we do that just to get volunteers for the control arm. You misunderestimate our funding requirements, noble Rahula..
Good to know what your minimal standards of outrage are! I did misunderestimate.
YOU INDIAN?? AMITOB BACHAAAN! SHAROOK! SHAROOK!
Good to know what your maximal standards of humour and irony are! I did misoverestimate.
“Don’t most NRIs in the US who have Hindi, as their first language learn it at home? I would have thought that their parents would have taught it to them.”
Of my desi friends, one could sort of understand the gist of Malayalam when spoken to him, but he could not speak it or read or write. He still wishes his parents had taught him. The other that I know, he heard a lot of Marathi and was able to speak it as a child, then kind of forgot it until he went to India for a long time and it came flooding back.
I think (thought I don’t know, just a general feeling) that children can be somewhat resistant to learning their parents non-English language in the U.S. because the U.S. is so English oriented and dominated. Kids just want to be like ‘everybody else’ and from a kid point of view, that might be speaking only in English. A few people in conversations have told me, “when I was little I refused to learn it, so my parents gave up… now I wish I had learned it then”. I remember this one guy in my beginning Hindi class who was a heritage learner asked the teacher what something meant (I think it was like “Hai Ram” or some other similiar expression). The teacher told him and asked him why, and he looked puzzled and said, “My mom was always shouting that at me and I never knew was it meant.” Then the guy and the teacher both laughed that his mom had been shouting “oh God!” or “God help me!” or some such exclamation and he had no idea.
What about others who have grown up in the U.S.? What were your experiences with learning South Asian languages at home?
Hmm… apparently the meaning of irony changed, and I didn’t get the memo. (this, btw, is sarcasm)
No, that memo was typed in Hindi. Ask Ms Rich. She might translate it for you if she is done drinking her free Lassi.
Ah, now I see what got your langot in a bunch. Good to see you thinking like an Indian! (which segment has been deemed by all to be hilarious, irreverent, and casually funny, wow, kanjoos super-saver desis on TV get me laughing everytime!)
No Rahul Baba, it’s not that kind of a thread. And please do not forget to mention the colour of the langot next time, for the sake of completion. And she definitely won’t be getting any free lassis or rabris in my shop. Not unless she successfully chants “kaccha papad, pakka papad” 108 times.
That seems to be the touchy issue here. Most ABDs don’t learn their mother tongue well enough and they seem kind of threatened that their heritage is being ‘appropriated’ by a non-Indian-American:) Most DBDs would be pretty blase about Ms.Rich’s take on Hindi, but would be glad to know that a foreigner made the effort to leran the language.
Thinking like an Indian, again! I’m impressed!
for the record, the chef in the beginning isn’t an actor, though he may be acting. that’s the actual chef at devi…a pretty damn good Indian restaurant with a great wine selection to boot.
so he’s the real deal, and as i’ve said before, the problem i have with the whole orientalism/exoticism thing is i can’t get any confirmation from the natives
I haven’t read every comment but I was entertained by her article and her video. And certainly was not offended. [I think opinions on this are going to line up as dbd .vs. abd, with the possible exception of Manju]. She sounds like she’d be amusing in small doses but annoying if around for extended periods. It seems like harmless fun, so that bit about Gujurat in her video seemed out of place.
I was going to make the point about the Tamil-like-English font instead of a Devanagiri-like-English font, but Rahul beat me to it.
With all due respect to your comment, Sidhartha, it suffered from a deficit of ideas and a surplus of hyperbole. (anyways, this is my last comment on your comment 🙂
Do not forget the counterweight of Lupus Saheb.
Lupus Saheb is a dbd
Lupus Solitarius:
Hahaha! Memories of my childhood!
For the record, I never took a Hindi class in college (I would have liked to, but as Saheli pointed out upthread, there were just too many other classes I had to take to fulfill my graduation requirements without spending an extra semester’s worth of tuition). I did learn to speak and write Gujarati when I was growing up, but I think people paint it as too cut and dry an issue. I was lucky to have a patient masi who happened to be willing to teach me. My parents, while fluent in Gujarati, had both gone to English standard schools, and just aren’t natural-born teachers. People underestimate that skill. On the other hand, my brother never learned to write Gujarati and can’t really hold a conversation in the language, though he can understand it. He just wasn’t as interested as a child. So YMMV.
Several of my cousins did take Hindi in college, and I can tell you that it was not an easy A for them, having only a cursory background in Gujarati (and maybe some Bollywood Hinglish) prior to the classes.
Ummm… that was the point of my comment. Sorry for implying that you are a khajoor.
Many dbds can speak their mother or local tongue, just by the process of osmosis, but often cannot read or write it, or at least not very well. And even among DBDs with inter-regional marriages who are now in the US, English is often the language at home, which means the kids don’t really get an opportunity to imbibe an Indian tongue without special effort. The “easy A” remark gives Indian American kids too much credit 😛
Okay, this is obviously not about ABDs who are threatened by other’s having a (very shaky) grasp of their parent’s language(s). I’m a DBD and I speak Malayalam and Hindi and understand Tamil and Punjabi well enough and I think she’s annoying as hell. Finding yourself in India is fine and all but don’t presume that makes you better than people who have grown up with the culture and experience what it means to be part of a culture, even in its diaspora. How is it any different than what we don’t like about any other kind of exotifiers? They pick and choose from a culture and don’t have to live with the negative aspects of it and expect to praised for how “worldly” they are. Eff you, lady!
Another reason random shop attendants might not want to speak to her is her accent. If that video didn’t have subtitles, I totally would not have been able to understand her.
No wonder Oprah picked her book. She’s the typical kind of crazy Oprah likes for her book club. Makes her and her audience feel all clever and cultured.
Good thing we can rest secure in the knowledge that we are better than them.
.
Aah…the sensitivity of a thousand oestrogen flowers in bloom..
…. and these types are more than likely to hook up with a Desi boyfriend/fiance/husband and claim that there is no eve-teasing in India (or that it is done only by a very few, “low class” ruffians, something their Desi boyfriend/fiance/husband tells them), all the while living in the West and visiting India only once every 3 years – first class all the way and being chaufered around by their in-laws who keep them in a protective bubble so that they never experience the negative aspects of it.
Who wants to bet me that this chick ends up with a Desi partner who tells her just that?
Ooooooooooooooh bet me, bet me puh-leeeeeeeeeeeeeese!!!!!!!!!!!
I so much need some moolah right now. (as in money, not the other kind of moolah, course – I’ve always had a thang for turbans…)
He! he! He called me hormonal! Wow, how am I ever going to recover from such a withering remark!
And, sorry to be doing this again, Lupusji, but ummm…. this was a reference to “Finding yourself in India is fine and all but don’t presume that makes you better than people who have grown up with the culture and experience what it means to be part of a culture, even in its diaspora.”
Whatever dude…..
In US generally its the blacks who surprise me by speaking in Hindi… probably because of some West Indian background. They seem quite delighted in doing so and it is equal fun for me. Her line about proximity to Gujarat is the best. I live 20 miles from Detroit, so maybe I should write a book about “extreme dangers” too.
Yep, that’s pretty special. Hoekstra would be jealous.
So true this pathetic legacy of colonialism. These same people infest the internet with their boasts of the “great advantage” speaking english has bestowed on them and other english-speaking indians. They do not want to be reminded of the disadvantages faced by the 90% of indians who do not know english…..