Love Indian culture, but hate Indian roads: Foreign students

BATHINDA: Students from various foreign countries, who are in India as part of student exchange programmes, voiced their love for Indian culture and its hospitality and also expressed their concern towards the bad condition of roads and lack of traffic sense.

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, January 29

Students from various foreign countries, who are in India as part of student exchange programmes, voiced their love for Indian culture and its hospitality and also expressed their concern towards the bad condition of roads and lack of traffic sense. The students are currently participating in the ‘Global Village’ of the annual cultural festival ‘Vibgyor’ of Baba Farid Group of Institutions which began today.

Ayah and Nasraa, both students from Bahrain, said that they didn’t find any great difference between Bahrain and India as the cultures are very similar and also because there is a large Indian population in Bahrain. “Though we don’t have any Indian friends, we know a lot about Indian culture. Indian food is amazing too,” they said.

They, however, added that they were scared of travelling on Indian roads. “Vehicles come towards you from all directions and the condition of roads is really bad. Travelling is a scary experience. The roads and traffic management is much better in Bahrain,” the 18-years-olds stated.

“Aapse mil key khushi hui,” and “Dhanyawad” are some of the Hindi phrases and words that Naweed Hamkar from Afghanistan frequently used during his interaction with students and guests at the fest. When asked about his knowledge of Hindi language, he said, “Bollywood films are a huge hit in Afghanistan. All cinema goers are crazy about Hindi films and that’s also how I learnt little Hindi.”

Twenty six-year-old Mahmoud from Egypt also displayed his knowledge of Hindi language. “At the Azhar University where I am working as a technical support hand, there are courses in Urdu and Hindi languages. I pursued the course for a while and now I am using what I learnt at the university,” he said.

So smitten was Alice by the Indian culture that she got mehendi applied on both her hands after she reached Chandigarh. “I am going to spend five weeks in India as part of the project and have decided to get to learn as much as I can about the Indian culture. I loved henna designs when I saw these and got the same done on my hands as well,” said the 20-year-old from Taiwan.

On the first day of the fest, while there were only 10 interns from seven countries, namely Ukraine, Brazil, Taiwan, Bahrain, Egypt, Afghanistan and Indonesia, nine more interns from Russia, Morocco