theek hai

i met a german friend's german friend last night who has worked in india this year from feb to sep. i asked him if he had picked up any hindi and he said he has learnt "theek hai". silly as it might sound, theek hai is right up there on the top of the list when it comes to typical indian things. my brazilian flatmate gui brought it to my notice first of all. there are some soap operas featured in brazil where they demonstrate indianness. his most vivid memory is theek hai and arranged marriages and he asked me what was the significance of this term. so i tried to think by saying it myself and he immediately reacted, "you did the indian head wiggle!" so apparently when we say theek hai, we automatically nod our head sideways. non-indians dont understand why these two go together, why a sideways nod is supposed to mean what a nod means and they can never do it both together. with one exception. elie, a mexican lebanese classmate - started with teasing us and now even in class he says yes with a sideways nod.

another classmate - mexican - gonzalo was in india for the first time this summer for a wedding and he pointed out theek hai, beedi, awesome food and crazy traffic. tariq - saudi arabian - who makes fund of everything, likes to feature an educational video about how and why indians use our left hand in the cafeteria. arranged marriage one of the biggest puzzles that people are fascinated with. how can you spend your life with someone whom you have only met for a few hours? how can your parents be so involved in who you are going to spend your life with? how do you search? what about caste system? what about matrimonial websites? how about the meeting between prospects? and then the celebrations itself. why do indian weddings take 7 days? why are there so many people, colours, ceremonies, hours, dresses, sweets, decorations, blah blah blah. i have had intense discussions with ana and melih trying to tell them why its not so different than finding someone yourself and why we trust our parents to do as good a job as ourselves. we made a spoof of the whole concept for our diwali night celebration. complete with dialogues like: "beta sari zinadagi padi hai usko janne ke liye", "US mein naukri karta hai, intelligent hai, chess khelta hai, sporty hai" etc etc. and we didnt miss the every 5 min breaking into a dance ala bollywood movies. the crowd of 170 people couldnt stop laughing.

other things for which i have had the pleasure to note a non-indian's reaction, there is the rangoli, dandiya, diya dance, colourful glittering clothes, spicy food, high intake of milk and yogurt and limited capacity for beer. can you imagine how happy one feels to listen to a hindi song in a european bar, or club? or to just sit back and listen to classic hit songs - jagjit singh, ghulam ali, nusrat fateh ali khan and so on.. then the hindi language itself. once manhar and i had a discussion of why its difficult to teach the script. for example, take the range of nasal sounds - anusvar, chandra bindu, - and the rules regarding where to use what. was fun and i even had the pleasure witnessing his literary genius. leaving you to enjoy it here - thanks to manhar's friend who works in a telecom company in afghanistan and at some point of time took the effort record photonic ramblings..

http://www.cypherpunk.blogspot.com/2003_01_26_cypherpunk_archive.html