Eat, drink, and...speak Hindi?

It was precisely because of my shameless love of languages that my program matched me up with SCI as a worksite. Their theory was that I'd be terribly useful in the port, able to converse with seafarers from all over the world in their native languages. Alas, thanks to the cultural dynamics of the ships that berth in Port Newark, this has not proven to be the case. Every once in a while, I'll speak German with a captain or officer, but I honestly can't even remember the last time that happened. Occasionally, I'll go visit one of the ships with Puerto Rican crew and attempt to speak some Spanish (usually with disastrous results...), but as they all speak perfect English, that usually doesn't last long anyway. I have spoken French with exactly one seafarer to date (the cook from Madagascar). I have never had to speak Portuguese, and am frankly very glad of it. 

To my very great surprise, the language that has turned out to be the most useful in ship visiting is...Hindi. Now, bear in mind, my study of Hindi (and all things Indian, really) was limited to my freshman year of college. With one year of undergraduate education under my belt, I decided that studying languages and cultures of Asia wouldn't be at all useful to me in life and moved on to study such useful things as New Testament scholarship and all the Romance languages (I mean, clearly! These are useful, marketable job skills we're talking about here!). My Hindi books and flashcards were relegated to the back of my closet, where they accumulated a lot of dust and were never thought of again. 

Until this past September, when I found myself on a ship with an all Indian crew and had an astonishing thought: "Holy shit, this could actually be useful!" Not because it's necessary to speak Hindi with Indian seafarers (of which there are a fair few among the ships I get to visit); they all speak impeccable English. Not even because it provides comic relief when I say things like "How much peoples are on mine family?" No indeed - my study of Hindi is useful chiefly because it can be strategically employed to get me invited to lunch. And, as I've said before, there is generally no place I'd rather be than at lunch on an Indian ship. 

The reason for this post is that I was on pretty much the best Indian ship ever today. 29 crew, all Indian, from all over the subcontinent. This, of course, meant that there were about 100 different languages represented, and Hindi was not most people's mother tongue. I had spent an agreeable morning talking about comparative religion and linguistics with the Catholic first officer from Pondicherry (hence not a native Hindi speaker) and was actually just about to give up on lunch when the invitation came. "You can stay for lunch if you like, ma'am. There's only one problem: our food is...spicy." I enthusiastically try to reassure him in Hindi that I love spicy food and am greeted with blank silence. I repeat. Still no comprehension. He suggests I write it, which is a terrifying thought: my recollection of the Devanagari script is even rustier than that of my Hindi grammar. But I try. He still has no idea what I'm trying to say. The scrap of paper on which I have scrawled what I hope is "I like spicy Indian food!" is passed around to 4 different people before an interpreter is found. A conversation in a language I don't speak (perhaps Tamil?) ensues, followed by much laughter. Finally, I am informed that I have, in fact, written - in very formal, demanding, and misspelled Hindi: "I want a spicy (actually more like well-seasoned, I was told) Indian song!" No wonder they were confused.

Fortunately, my willingness to humiliate myself won me the seat of honor at an extraordinary Indian feast: fish curry, some kind of eggplant dish, daal, rice, pappadums, salad...served without spicy musical accompaniment, to my great relief. I was seated next to the captain, who was an incredibly gracious, fatherly Zoroastrian (!! So cool!! It was a great day for inter-religious dialogue) who kept leaping up from the table to give me gifts to take home. I walked out full-bellied and with a backpack stuffed full of pappadums and mango pickles (which...what the hell am I going to do with? anyone want them?). Amazing. 

The moral of the story, aside from "Do anything you can to get free, authentic Indian food" (which should be a no-brainer, really) is simply this: to all of you who would berate yourself for wasting college credits on ridiculous classes - don't. You never know when your Hindi (or Yoruba, or knowledge of ancient Chinese literature) will come in useful.