At the risk of intruding, there is a concept from anthropology that underscores what is amiss.

There was one time I was with my parents at a Chinese restaurant they liked to go to.

I personally did not know the owner, who was tending to us; I tried to be polite to the owner, but I did not and do not know her name, and I am not really an acquaintance to her. My parents, being around that restaurant much more often, were acquainted with the restaurant owner, addressed her by name, and exchanged acquaintances’ talk.

And, that day, there was a drunken visitor who asked our (Chinese) hostess if she was Filipina, told her again and again, “I’ll marry you,” and otherwise tried to connect in other inappropriate ways.

The drunken visitor was making an atrocious violation of what is called “negative politeness”: showing respect for the other person by staying within appropriate bounds. My parents’ interactions, and mine, were within “negative politeness” by not overstepping boundaries, even if more conversation was appropriate for my parents. And that is precisely what the drunken visitor broke.

I think “negative politeness” concerns are active here. The problem isn’t a Westerner trying to learn Hindi or speak it with others; the problem is framing things in a way that violates “negative politeness.” It steps over people’s boundaries.

I find that when I am trying to make connections with people, if I try and show I know something, I have already set things off on a bad foot. If I just try to be with people, others may decide that I know something.

I’m not sure how well the author has learned that lesson.

At least there’s a prominent warning label…

I watch a loooooot of Hindi movies and listen to quite a bit of music that comes from said movies. I convinced two dozen of my pasty white friends to go see “Aaja Nachle” on my birthday two years ago and gave them all CDs of Indian film music as party favors. I have picked up only a few words of Hindi here and there from watching the movies, but I think it would be amazing to be able to understand the dialogues and lyrics without subtitles someday (especially the songs, which are translated so goofily sometimes, just to get a totally unnecessary English rhyme).

I have my degree in French, speak Italian, have also studied Latin and a little German, and have been taking Spanish lessons for two years. Learning Hindi would be a very normal and typical thing for someone like me to do: an enriching adventure for a language lover who loves learning something new. I have a dictionary of the common roots of Indo-European languages and I would totally dig learning any language coming from Sanskrit, so that I could appreciate even more the inter-relationships among languages. My brother is the same way (in fact, he gave me that book 25 years ago as a gift): going to Norway for two weeks inspired him to try to learn a decent amount of Norwegian; visiting Turkey, Turkish; when adopting two kids from Russia, he learned Russian in advance of the adoption.

Whatever Rich’s reasons were for learning Hindi may not sit well with some people, but for some of us, it boils down to a love of language and learning, and a tool that can help one enjoy another culture just a little bit better (when used appropriately, of course).

I don’t happen to share the view of some of the more sarcastic posters but do agree that it seems that more than a few Western academics learn many things about India just to say they “know” them. And we all know how many times their knowledge coincides with the truth.

So is it so shocking to see this kind of book? (And I agree that people should read the book before going on these rants! …Which is exactly what I’m going to do after hitting “Post”). ha.