Watch Your Language Blog

Mac and cheese in Hindi, doodh!

About a year ago I spent a month travelling through India with my wife and 3-1/2 year-old son. Very quickly it was established that my son, Ivan, had an intense distaste for Indian food.

While we were busy devouring things like bhel puri, undhiyu, and mustard-y Bengali fish dishes, we also had to make sure there were kid staples like grilled cheese sandwiches or chicken fingers close at hand. Not always easy.

The last leg of our trip was in Mumbai where we stayed with my wife's extended family. By that time Ivan was so desperate for pasta that I went out scouring neighborhood stores for a package of macaroni and cheese. When I finally found one at a Jain provisions store and brought it home, the family cook would not hear of letting me prepare it myself. So we managed, despite an enormous language gap, to get the pasta shells boiling.

The crucial stumbling block came when it was time to add milk to the finished pasta and cheese-like powder. I tried a variety of hand signs I thought universally signalled milk but he just looked at me as if I were deranged. I managed to hold him off while I dashed a quick e-mail from my Blackberry to a Hindi-speaking colleague who quickly replied that, as far as Hindi is concerned, "doodh" is the term for milk. It all finally came together and toddler-meltdown was averted, but, doodh, what a close call! - Tom (Brooklyn, NY)


From the Living Language newsletter.

Tags: Hindi, newsletter, story
November 26, 2007