Dreaming in Hindi: Coming Awake in Another Language by Katherine Russell Rich

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Pub. Date: July 2009
  
• 384pp

When Katherine Russell Rich lost her job with a Newyork-based magazine, she didn't do the usual rounds of employment agencies, nor did she sent out a barrage of resumes to other newspapers, instead, she travelled to India to learn Hindi!!!

She enrolled herself in an Hindi immersion course in the palace city of Udaipur where the school arranged for her (and the other students taking this course) to live with Hindi-speaking families so that they listen to and have a chance to speak Hindi everyday.

This book then, is not only a memoir and/or a travelogue but a wonderful and exciting exposition of how our minds change when we learn a new language and how we come out of the experience completely transformed!

I've always been curious about what a new language might do for me. After all,learning a new language isn't simply about learning a whole new bunch of words...it's about being able to use those new words to appeal to the cultural sensitivity of the people whose language you are learning and thus, you are actually learning to both think and feel like someone else from a different culture. How cool is that!!!

The possibility that learning a new language could change the core of one's identity, one's beliefs, the way one thinks about friends, family, surroundings and even the way one thinks about time, is just dazzling to me! For instance, according to a Newsweek article, the gender of nouns can have an effect on how people think about things in the world... take the noun "bridge" for instance. In German, the word for bridge, Brücke, is feminine. In French, pont is masculine. So when in experiements German speakers were asked to describe a bridge, they saw prototypically female features; French speakers, masculine ones. Similarly, Germans describe keys (Schlüssel) with words such as hard, heavy, jagged, and metal, while to Spaniards keys (llaves) are golden, intricate, little, and lovely. Guess which language construes key as masculine and which as feminine? :)

And then, there's the question of how people whose language you are trying to learn actually feel about you speaking in their tongue? Most are chuffed that you are making the effort, but Russel Rich felt that some Indians resented her for doing that. She says, “I think to Indians, sometimes it feels like I’m eavesdropping on a private conversation, like I’m breaking the fourth wall.”

Also, and this happens in India particular, speaking in English is the privilege of the classes and a status thing...address someone like that in Hindi and you might get a dressing down!

As Rich's language skills improve, she also uncovers darker truths about friends, neighbors and the country in which she lives. She happened to be in India the year Hindu-Muslim riots broke out in the nearby state of Gujarat. Rich is startled to discover the mistrust and fear her Hindu friends feel for their Muslim compatriots. Then, when she tells her rickshaw driver shukriya or “thank you,” he gets annoyed at her. Shukriya is a word with Urdu or Muslim origins. The “pure” Hindi word, he tells her, is dhanyavaad. I don't think any dictionary will tell you the difference between the two "thank you's", these are things you pick up only when you live with a language and its people.

I am grateful to Rich for turning herself into a guinea pig in order to study the effect of language on the mind even if her writing at times appears to be rather scattered and in random order...this is a book I think every body interested in words or language will enjoy and I daresay will seriously make you consider learning a new language!

Marrying Anita: A Quest For Love in the New India

• Hardcover: 320 pages
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• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; 1st edition (July 22, 2008)
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• Genre: Memoir, Travel, Cultural
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When Anita Jain, a 30-something, Harvard-educated, American-born Indian woman fails to find love followed by commitment in all the usual places in America, she decides to try her luck in her parents' homeland (India).

She chose India, not just because her parents hail from there but because, from what she has seen and heard, marriage or "shaadi" is very important to an Indian..."to an Indian, marriage is a matter of karmic destiny. There are many happy unions in the pantheon of Hindu gods...Shiva and Parvati, Krishna and Radha, Ram and Sita. Marriage is even enshrined in Hinduism as one of the four life stages" Yes, as a good Hindu one is expected to get married! Also, there are more men in India than women, 930 women to every 1000 men and our author figures her options were simply more plentiful in India!



So sure is she of being able to find a life partner there that she gives up her job with a respected NewYork daily and takes up one in Delhi, India. What she hasn't bargained for however, is that in the 3 decades since her parents got married, India has leapfrogged into modernity. According to Anita, young people in Indian cities are currently in the throes of a sexual revolution very similar to the one the U.S. experienced in the sixties with drunken hook-ups and friends-with-benefits being two rampant trends.

Also, young urbanites aren't really doing the shaadi.com ( similar to e-harmony but with a distinctly traditional Indian flavor), they’re meeting in clubs or online sites like Orkut or Facebook. However, despite these frequent social interactions with the opposite sex, young, single Indian women are not having much better luck on the marriage market either. Does this mean that arranged marriages may just be the answer to an unwedded person's woes? The author goes on to explore whether an organized system for marriage may actually work better than making young men and women responsible for finding their own life partners.

OK, so traveling 10,000 miles to find her "Mr. Wonderful" seems like a great premise for the chick-lit genre, but I think the candor with which Anita Jain describes her dalliances,her insecurities, suitor rejections and the astute observations she makes on how class, caste and economics play a huge role in the Indian marriage game elevates this book to more of a social commentary on modern India.

Let me hasten to add that the young people that the author speaks about in this book come from the urban demographic...people living in the metropolises like Delhi, Bombay etc. For the rest of India, dating and premarital sex is still frowned upon and 95 per cent of all marriages are still arranged -- alliances that are almost always determined by religion, caste and class considerations.

If you grew up in India in the '80's and live elsewhere now and have not visited India in a while, this book might shock the socks off you, don't say you weren't warned!

I'd love to hear from young people in India on this one....what are your thoughts on arranged marriages, dating etc.? Talk to me!

India : In Word and Image by Eric Meola

Photographs by Eric Meola

Introduction by Bharati Mukherjee

Published by Welcome Books

Hardcover, $60.00 ($69.00 CAN)




One of the perks of writing my blog, besides getting to know other bloggers of course, is receiving the occasional book to review, so when Welcome Books asked me if I would like to take a look at Eric Meola's new collection of photographs in his new book titled,"India : In Word and Image", I jumped at the chance.

After saying "yes" to Welcome Books I went about my work not thinking too much about it. So, the other day, when I received a box, a rather heavy box I should add, in the mail I quickly opened it (I was curious to find out why the package was so heavy, after all, this was just a book), and was delighted to find, not just any book, but a beautiful ,glossy coffee-table book, about the size of a school atlas, filled to the brim, (yes, all 272 pages of it) with sumptuous color photographs from all over India!!!

From India: In Word and Image (Welcome Books). Photographs © 2008 Eric Meola.
www.welcomebooks.com/india

As I leafed through the glorious pictures I found myself completely dazzled by Meola's beautifully-composed photographs. No matter the subject: a caravan of camel riders at dusk; sacred temple towers decorated with a phantasmagoria of multi-armed, blue-skinned Hindu deities ; man bathing in the Ganges or the absolutely stunning art detail of the 15th century Thikse monastery in the Indus Valley, all of Meola's photos are an invitation to share in Meola's skill with the camera and his love of India. And that's not all, Meola's images are interwoven with a personal essay revealing thoughts and insights on his trip to India as well as a feast of literary snippets from well known writers like Salman Rushdie, RK Narayan, Jhumpa Lahiri and so on. It is this ingenious approach - of examining India through fabulous photos and its literary heritage - that gives this book its edge. From India: In Word and Image (Welcome Books). Photographs © 2008 Eric Meola. www.welcomebooks.com/india

Celebrations, people and sacred architecture dominate the book and I am not surprised, after all, religion forms an intricate part of the social fabric of Indian life and with a pantheon that is tens of thousands of gods strong, religious celebrations are in abundance! This is Meola's second book. The first is a collection of photos from what he calls "The Last Places on Earth" where he covered Burma, New Guinea, Africa, India, the Galápagos Islands, Mongolia, India, and Tibet. He returned to India to devote a complete book to the country, because as he says in his personal essay from the book,

“What I see more than anything else is a nation embracing life. Every day there is a celebration, if not dozens, throughout the country, for that is what India is about — a continuous celebration of life and its mysteries.

“As a photographer, I am drawn to India because of the psychedelic colors that seem to permeate every facet of life. I go there for all the contradictions of a place that is like no other I have ever been to; but I am drawn to India because the people are blessed with childhood’s sense of wonder, which they have never lost.”

” From India: In Word and Image (Welcome Books). Photographs © 2008 Eric Meola. www.welcomebooks.com/india

"India: In Word and Image" is a beautiful way to get to know India. Leave it on your coffee table, not only will it look fabulous, but just watch how your guests will be drawn to it (I know I tried it!). Beyond it's silky cover, there's a colorful look at a country so vast that it would take several lifetimes to see it. Do yourself a favor and treat yourself to a copy this Christmas, its vibrant and warm pictures will give you several hours of joy over the cold winter.

About the Author

Eric Meola published his first book, Last Places on Earth, with Graphis in 2004. In 2006, Welcome Books distributed a book of his photographs of Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run: The Unseen Photos. Eric''s photographs are in private and public collections including the International Center of Photography, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the George Eastman House, and his graphic color images have appeared editorially in numerous magazines, including Life, Travel & Leisure, Esquire, and Time.

The Konkans by Tony D'Souza

• Publisher: Harcourt
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• Pub. Date: February 2008
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• ISBN-13: 9780151015191
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• Pages: 308pp

Some time ago I decided I had overdosed on the Indian immigrant story and decided to take a break from that particular genre but Tony D'Souza's "The Konkans" (a semi-autobiographical story of an Indian Catholic family's migration and assimilation into the US in the early '70's ) made me change my mind. My husband being from the Konkan community, I have a special affiliation with these people and I felt the book gave me the opportunity to get to know them better.



So, who are the Konkans? They are a people whose ancestors inhabited the Konkan coast of India. The Konkan coast has some of the most amazing beaches and includes Bombay, Mangalore and Goa among others cities. The Catholic Konkans are set apart from other Indians mainly due to their religion, food (they are one of the few communities in India that eat both, beef and pork) and their custom of giving their kids Christian names. Their ancestors were Hindus and Muslims originally but converted to Catholicism in the 16th century with the arrival of the Portuguese explorer Vasco Da Gama and a priest called Francis Xavier who traveled along with him for the express purpose of gaining more Catholics for the Church.

There are two main protagonists (brothers) in the story and both leave India for a new (hopefully better) life in the US. The older brother, Lawrence D'Sai, does everything to shed his Indianness like it was an old tattered coat he was ashamed of. He embraces western clothes, buys a house in the suburbs, marries a white girl from Detroit and set his sights on getting membership to the local country club.

Sam, his younger brother, found it impossible to sever his ties with India. Although he now lived in the US he continued to eat his Indian food, dress in his traditional lungi (garment)when lounging at home and regaled his young nephew Francisco (also the narrator) with stories from India,especially the history of the Konkani people.

Even though both these brothers had such a different approach to assimilation in the US, neither one was accepted by their adopted country which leads one to ask the question : does race/skin color decide how successful one is at assimilating into American society? Do white people find it easier to integrate into a predominantly white society than colored people?

I think Tony D'Souza is a great storyteller...his tone is relaxed and laid back and he infuses his characters with enough strengths and flaws making them very human and not cardboard cutouts. I think he gets the immigrant experience right, but as with many second-generation Indians I think he slightly exaggerates the complexities of the Indian society with its caste and class structure and may offend some Indian (especially Konkan) males with his portrayal of them, still, on the whole, I think he does an admirable job of putting his story together.

Along with the compelling telling of the immigrant story, there are many illuminating passages in the book describing the history and culture of the Konkan people...I especially loved reading about the Konkan wedding. The author writes about it with such exquisite detail that it gave me goosebumps! Another favorite was the page-long explanation for why some of us Indians are prejudiced when it comes to skin color. One of the final chapters in the book "The Americans" is particularly hard hitting as it describes the Goa inquisition and the drive to abolish Hinduism on the Konkan coast.

This is a book I am going to have to keep for my daughters, after all, it contains a part of their history within its pages.

English, Indian style

Indian- English

(culled from the Globe and Mail and The Daily Telegraph)

"Binoo John, a 50-year-old Indian journalist, has compiled a collection of expressions found in Indian English. His book's title, Entry From Backside Only refers to a phrase commonly used on signposts to indicate the rear entrance of a building.

Mr. John was inspired by years of reading Indian newspaper reports of politicians "air-dashing" to a destination, "issueless" couples (those without children) and people "preponing" (bringing forward meetings). Such phrases are entrenched.

In India, a driver, when asked what he does, may refer to his occupation as "drivery." Housemaids on their way to buy vegetables say they are going "marketing." Receptionists ask "What is your good name?" before informing them that the boss has gone "out of station" (out of town) with his "cousin-brother" (male cousin). A government official urged farmers in Rajasthan to grow "herbs in their backsides" (backyards).

English is finally being claimed by Indians as their own, instead of a relic of the Raj."

According to John, "...economic prosperity has changed attitudes towards Indian English. Having jobs and incomes, and being noticed by the rest of the world, have made Indians confident, and the same confidence has attached itself to their English."

While I have never used the term to "grow herbs in one's backside", I have to confess to being quite partial to using the word "prepone". It does sound so much more efficient than "bring forward to", right? I also use, on occasion, the phrase "love marriage" which simply refers to a marriage that has not been arranged by one's parents. Another favorite expression of mine and many other Indians, is "pindrop silence". Infact I was using it quite happily in my conversations with Canadians until my children pointed out that the term is not common parlance here.

Indian-English is a sub-genre that has taken on a life of its own, the phraseology might not always make sense to a speaker of English in the west, but it will delight and entertain you! It even has its own dictionary these days:

http://www.vsubhash.com/desienglish.asp

http://www.amritt.com/IndianEnglish.html