Hindi 101

Nikau

Te reo o te iwi 

Coming to Mumbai certainly sits high amongst the many highlights of my own experience of this tour; however one thing in particular I believe that has served to be very helpful for me would be my learning of the basics of their mother tongue Hindi. Being a fluent speaker of te reo I hadn't struggled too much with picking up pronunciations of certain tags and phrases passed onto me by the different characters and individuals I've had the pleasure of interacting with. Although I am not 100% sure that my spelling of these phrases is correct, I gather the sounds made while reciting them wouldn't be too far off from the real deal. So, here goes something:

As far as a simple greeting goes I have thus far managed to begin conversation with my hands pressed together at chest height, saying a simple namaste/hello- done in sync with a head bow as a sign of respect towards the person I am addressing. I would then follow this with mera nam Nikau hei/my name is Nikau, mei New Zealand se aiahu /I am from New Zealand. Tu mara nam kiahe?/what is your name? The conversation wouldn't usually drag on any longer than this apart from a few shared laughs- however on top of this I managed to pick up a few more helpful phrases to add to the mix: muje maf karo/sorry or forgive me; which became very useful as we manoeuvred through large groups of people, danyavad/thank you, chalo!/Let's go! And tike or acha/good. 

For me, making an effort to learn their language, thus immersing myself further into their culture has been a humbling and integral part of my own personal journey here so far. It's about building that bridge; closing that gap between the two different worlds, two different peoples, two different understandings of life and how we view things, and binding them together as one. And it is through language, I believe, this can be done. 

Ahakoa he iti, he pounamu: Although it may not be a lot, it's the effort I have found matters most. At the absolute core, we are all the same: just people looking for love and others to share life's many wonders and beauties with. 

On this trip I feel like I have only just begun to truly realise this in its greatest form.