Hindi's a funny old language, but it's even funnier on Indian TV. Listening to it is like listening to any truly foreign language – the words are a mystery but the intonation is often familiar – but Hindi has the added oddity of having a large number of English words and phrases that have been adopted and incorporated as standard.
Television is a particularly good medium because the diction is fairly clear. Watching a soap opera one night on my hotel room's TV (a rare luxury, especially if you can get anything beyond the standard terrestrial channels) I heard the following phrases in just five minutes: 'Hello', 'That's right', 'I'm angry', 'Try to understand', 'I am sorry, I am really very, very sorry', 'Murder case' and 'Mrs Sahid, please!', all surrounded by unintelligible Hindi. The credits at the end were in English, and as they rolled up the screen the announcer gleefully introduced the next programme, the first in a brand new series for Indian television. It was a particularly hilarious sitcom, the subject of which was the life of an English suburban couple who decide to become self-sufficient.
That's right, I was there to witness the introduction of India to The Good Life, taking its place among Heartbeat, Mind Your Language, 'Allo 'Allo and Are You Being Served? as classic English comedy being shown every night on Indian TV. Is it any wonder the Indian film industry is so different to the West, when Richard Briers is still considered funny? Goodness me...
