Move over Hinglish, its Kitchen Hindi in South Africa

A mix of Hindi, English and Zulu is becoming popular among Indians in Durban. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Dec 8, 2011, 23:31:20 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, Durban

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If Hindi in India has become Hinglish, South African Indians are a step ahead. They have a mix of three languages, Hindi, English and Zulu --- the local South Afrian language, and call it "Kitchen Hindi".

"The mix is very popular with second and third generation Indians," said Ela Gandhi, granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi, who was member of parliament from Durban from 1994 to 2004. "You can call it evolution of South African Indians in their own unique way".

There are about three lakh people of Indian origin in Durban, biggest settlement of Indians in a city outside India. Unlike, United States or United Kingdom, a vast majority of Indians live in concentrated areas in Durban away from ghettos where natives Zulu people like and posh areas of white population.

Being here for more than 100 years has had social impact on local Indians, as Gandhi said, and one such evolution was in their language.

Such is the popularity of the Kitchen Hindi that there is a FM radio station called Hindvani, whose jockeys present Hindi songs in typical kitchen Hindi. "We have present programmes in the language our listerns best understand," said one of the reporters, who had come to cover the climate change conference in Durban.

So, an unasuming radio jockey at Hindvani gave a brief discription of a popular Lata Mangeshkar song in kitchen hindi. For an Indian, one could understand that it was a Mangeskar Song from film Guide of Dev Anand, who died recently. The rest was in Zulu.

Suresh Kumar, a local taxi driver, whose forefathers came from Gujarat in India in early 1900, just understands a little bit of Hindi such as Namaskar (welcome) and some Hindu religious prayers. "For me, it is now Zuluised form of Hindi," was his reply when asked whether he can speak Hindi. Another Indian Mohammad-ul said the language is very popular in community social interactions and at home.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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