India Post News Service
VILNIUS: Dinner with a professor of Indology. That evening in Vilnius, the capital of Lithunia, my itinerary read rather trite. As is wont I hastily conjured the image of a bearded man with a few wrinkles and a mop of salt-ed hair.
That is how professors are supposed to look. Or so I thought. But when Deimantas Valanciunas walked in through the door, the staid image and the insipid evening changed. Instead of a haggard academic there was Deimantas, all of 27 and brimming with his love for all things Indian. "Mera naam Deimantas hai. Mujhe Hindi bahut pasand hai."
Before Deimantas could finish the sentence, distractions fell my way - a tongue twister of a name, tightly pulled back long pony tail, the black jacket offsetting his porcelain skin and absolutely immaculate Hindi.
"Beer is Lithuanian religion, but I love aloo paranthas and samosas," he tips his beer mug and adds hurriedly. He talks of Raj Kapoor and Madhubala, of Kabir and Surdas, of Bhaktikaal poetry and Bimal Roy films and of the city Agra as if he had lived there for centuries.
For a living, he teaches Hindi at the Center of Oriental Studies, Vilnius University, and intersperses his conversation with the ancient connection between Lithuanian language and Sanskrit. "They hail from the same proto Indo-European family and if you listen carefully, you would notice the similarities," he adds, picking words like dumas, vilkas and dievas in Lithuanian that have uncanny resemblance to dhumas, vrkas and devas in Sanskrit, respectively.
As Deimantas rattles off the linguistic gyan, I get further intrigued. What would get a Lithuanian so interested in Hindi, I wondered. "What got me interested?" he repeats chirpily. "Hindi films", he answers without a blink. Before I could slam it as a quip of a raconteur, Deimantas unfolds his Bollywood connection. Not too far in the hoary past when Lithuania was still under Soviet occupation, all cinemas in Vilnius screened Hindi films.
As a kid he would often tag along with his mother to watch an impish Raj Kapoor serenade a gorgeous Nargis or an almost surreal Madhubala croon pyar kiya to darna kya. Lithuanians could hum a Mukesh or a Rafi and dinner table conversations often skewed to the latest Hindi hits.
The lilt of an unfamiliar language so fascinated the young Lithuanian that he decided to study Indology at the newly opened BA Program for Comparative Asian Studies at Vilnius University. Under the syllabi, it was imperative to study Hindi and Sanskrit.
Perhaps that explains the beginnings but he owes his perfect diction to a scholarship that took him to Agra for a one-year course in Hindi at the Kendriya Hindi Sansthan. That was in 2002. That was his first visit to India. From a city that barely has 6 lakh people to a land cluttered with umpteen people, for Deimantas it was a strange tryst.
But nothing daunted him, not the sea of human, not the repetitive clamour, not even the spicy food. Not even the mustachioed guard who would lock the hostel gates at 6 pm and stand at the gate with a rifle in hand. He had a chore to do - to keep the women from sneaking in! "I loved Hindi so much that nothing else mattered."
During that one year not only did he pick up the nuances of the language but also the intricacies of an elaborate biryani that he can dish out in a jiffy now. Back in Vilnius, Deimantas misses India and the Indian friends who lovingly called him hira (deimantas literally means diamond).
For the young professor, Hindi has spilled beyond the putative syllabus. He often screens Hindi movies for his 13 students. Hindi films for him are not an easy escape from the everyday rigmarole, for him it is the perfect alibi to know more about Indian society, culture and traditions.
And when time permits and he has had his share of Bimal Roy, Raj Kapoor, Mehboob and the social Hindi films of the 50s, he is found researching the link between Hindi films and Sanskrit theatre. When occasion comes, he celebrates Indian festivals like Diwali with his students. When Deimantas calls a city a nagar and a hostel a chatravas, you know that Hindi for him is not merely a tool in the classroom, it runs in his sinews.
When India beckons desperately, he takes the Finnair flight from Vilnius to Helsinki, buckles his seat in the 6-hour direct flight from Helsinki to Delhi and soaks in the typical Indian winter and warmth. He has been to India five times and is already planning another one.
Deimantas gets candid about his two passions - Hindi language and Hindi films. Even his dreams take cue from these passions. Someday he wants to translate the poems of Mirabai into Lithuanian and someday he hopes to bum into Rekha, his favoruite Hindi film star. Until then, Deimantas soaks in Indianness eternally.
To many, the young professor who speaks Hindi without a drawl seems such an anomaly, for me he is the accent that connects two diverse worlds. Seamlessly. Without a lisp.
Print
Top
