My plane is late, so let me do a blog entry here from Mumbai airport.
To expand on an earlier point, I am learning to read Hindi. It's nice, and a real challenge. But, like many things, it is not as hard as it seems before you try.
For example, the above is Google's page in Hindi. I can make out some of it. The word right below "Google" is Bharat, the Hindi word for India. "BH" "R" and "T". The word next to Google on the button is "khoj". I can read it, but I forget what the word means. I assume "search".
Then, the most exciting part - the button on the right says "Aaj meri kismet aachi hai." This means, "Today my fate is good." The English version of the button says, "I am feeling lucky".
I read this all by myself! It's like a whole new world opening up, I feel like a kid again. Probably in large part because it has been more than 30 years since I have sounded out words.
I have noticed that many words in Hindi script are the English word itself - for example, अप्रैल is April. The अ is "Ah", the प्रै is "pr" and the ल is "l". April. English word, Hindi script. Don't worry about the apparent absence of vowels, let's just say they don't have vowels in exactly the way we do. Like Greek, Hebrew, and various other ancient scripts, Hindi gets the vowel sound in there in ways other than a single letter of "a, e, i, o, u".
Ok, flight is leaving, bye.
