Hindi at Princeton

An interview with Mekhala Devi Natavar
Department of Anthropology and Committee for South Asian Studies, Princeton University

by Mona Zaki

How did Princeton come to have a Hindi program?
I helped develop and co-directed the Hindi program at Duke University, from 1998 and 2004, as part of their Department of African and Asian languages. We had a vibrant program, and we managed to expand and offer both minor and major concentration in Hindi. I was hired at Princeton through the Princeton Institute of International and Regional Studies (PIIRS) to develop a four-semester sequence in Hindi and started teaching in September 2004. So now we are in our second year. Currently I have seventeen students enrolled in elementary and intermediate Hindi.

Have you noticed a change in the kind of student attracted to your language in the past or recently?
Few students enroll in Hindi to fulfill language requirements. The majority enroll because they want to learn Hindi in order to be able to talk to relatives in India, understand Hindi films and songs, and now that outsourcing is going to India from US companies, some students are considering jobs that include travel to South Asia for business. In previous decades, Hindi programs around the country were filled with students who were learning the language in order to do research work in anthropology and religion, or perhaps social work in the region. Increasingly, over the past ten years universities across the country have been witnessing a shift in that the majority of students are of South Asian heritage, many born and raised in the United States. Their parents were professionals who immigrated when American immigration restrictions were loosened in 1965. Hindi is spoken by one fifth of the world's population and Princeton has just started its program. Therefore it is most appropriate that Princeton has taken the step to include Hindi in the curriculum. The language is currently taught at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, Chicago, Berkeley, the University of Texas at Austin and others. Heritage students have a familiarity with the culture, but their parents may or may not be native speakers of Hindi so students may have a background in any number of regional Indian languages.

What materials do you use in teaching Hindi?
There is a need for better teaching materials. Currently, I use four or five separate text books because some focus on grammar while others give dialogues presenting real life situations. Ideally we should prepare a comprehensive textbook.

I dedicate equal amounts of time to written and verbal skills. The Hindi alphabet is written in the Devanagri script, which I teach in one week. I also offer Urdu for those who are interested. This course is now offered at Princeton on an experimental basis and was initiated due to student interest. Professor Gyan Prakash and the South Asia faculty committee encouraged the administration to bring it in, with the increase in student body being of South Asian background. The program is sponsored by PIIRS, along with Swahili which began two years before Hindi.

Half of my students went to India over the summer and so were able to use their language skills. One student was working as an intern on AIDS rights in the legal system in Delhi; an Austrian student at 20 started an NGO for homeless orphans at Pune; while a third Indian heritage student volunteered to work with a medical team in a village near Benares for several months. Currently, one student is doing a semester abroad in Delhi.

What do students expect to encounter when studying Hindi?
In addition to language instruction, every day we discuss current events. We show films, and attendance at campus events related to South Asia is required, which is followed by class discussions. Although students do take dictation and have daily assignments, the main focus is to be able to communicate verbally, so therefore, we have role-play exercises, skits and students also write short plays. I have no attendance problem because the students want to take the class and say its their favorite--even at nine in the morning! Most of the students are also involved in campus groups promoting South Asian culture through dance, theatre, and music. This is in addition to a Hindi-only table in the dining halls four times a week.

How did you get interested in Hindi?
I am not of south Asian background. I fell in love with India when I was nine and moved there at the age of 19 without knowing a word of Hindi. Satish Arora, a visiting professor from India was a colleague of my father at Smith College. His stories sparked my imagination, as did watching classical Indian dance at festivals. I lived in India for 15 years and my two children are both half Indian. I think this makes me a good language teacher in that I am not a native speaker and that often encourages my students to believe they too can attain a level of proficiency. Why India? My father, Ibrahim Abu Lughud, emphasized everyone's right to self-determination. India was my culture of choice.