By Fakir Hassen, IANS
Johannesburg : One hundred South African students who have left for Hyderabad to pursue vocational courses had some rather unusual questions for the Indian Consul-General, Navdeep Suri, when he addressed them before their departure.
They will study for three months at the National Academy of Construction to qualify as plumbers, electricians, welders, carpenters and painters under a partnership programme between the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Umsobomvu Youth Fund here.
Would they also be exposed to the floods they had just seen on TV?
Would they be able to get beef in India as they had heard that the cow is sacred there?
Would they be allowed to celebrate Christmas in what they believed was a Hindu country?
Was crime as rife in India as it is in South Africa?
Would adaptation to local customs, language and culture be difficult?
Could Suri enlighten them on the role of ‘Mohammed’ Gandhi and whether they would be able to meet him!
The consul-general, taking every question seriously, explained to the students the diverse and rich culture and heritage of India that could be both phenomenally enriching and frustrating at the same time for those new to it.
The floods were far from inland Hyderabad in neighbouring Bangladesh, not India, he said; beef would be available at some places, although it was eschewed by the Hindu community; Christmas was celebrated in India just like anywhere else in the world; certainly there was some crime in India, as anywhere in the world, but Hyderabad, where the students were going, was a safe city where even women could freely walk about at night; and since English was widely spoken, there should be no communication problem.
On the culture question, Suri detailed the respect for elders that prevailed in Indian society. And as for ‘Mahatma’, not ‘Mohammed’ Gandhi, the students would have to go to another time zone if they wanted to meet him as he was assassinated in 1948 just after India’s independence, as Suri pointed out.