NRI Rohit found it a good connection for the children of overseas Indians living in Europe with the culture and language of their country.
Rohit is a Non-Resident Indian (NRI) in Germany’s Jena. He works in an IT company and mostly happy with the work, weather, and overall situation.
The only worrying thing for him is language, not for him, but for his two daughters. Because his earlier place of work was Singapore, where both the girls picked up English and Chinese, he was conversing in Hindi at home but somehow feeling the girls were not picking up the language well and lapsing into Chinese due to their school where most of their friends spoke Chinese.
He got excited after hearing about a ‘Hindi ki Pathshala’ (School of Hindi) in Germany. He found it a good connection between the children of overseas Indians living in Europe with the culture and language of their country.
“The first thing that you miss while on a foreign land is your mother tongue. Any word that is closer to your own acts as an immediate catalyst for a long friendship that ultimately becomes a ground for social and cultural exchanges.”
The reason for his excitement was also the person taking the session on the virtual mode. He was from Lucknow, his own city in the Indian State of Uttar Pradesh.
The ‘Pathshala’ (school) was organised in the German capital Berlin on Saturday. Lucknow’s senior litterateur Sanjeev Jaiswal ‘Sanjay’ joined online as the chief guest in this programme.
“The first thing that you miss while on a foreign land is your mother tongue. Any word that is closer to your own acts as an immediate catalyst for a long friendship that ultimately becomes a ground for social and cultural exchanges,” said Rohit explaining his situation.
Some Indian parents have changed their residency statuses due to job compulsions, living in faraway countries as NRIs.
They know one day they have to come back to India after a scheduled assignment, but the crucial time spent away from India gives them a feeling that they are detached from the country’s social, cultural, and educational values. They adopt a fear that their children may lose track of the Indian-ness, and while going back, they may feel out of place in their own country.
The session, according to Rohit, was quite interesting. A mix of a cultural and educational programmes. He, however, put stress on more and frequent interactions for the sake of continuity and overall understanding of Indian culture and language among NRI children.