–You will pick up on slang and start using random Hindi and Marathi in your everyday language. Here are some examples:
"Take nah?": Indians add "nah" at the end of almost all their sentences, you will do it too.
"Haan": Yes
"Kya hua?": What happened?/what's up?
"Kya?": What?
"Theek hai": Okay
"Accha": Good
"Ye kaya hai?": What is this?
–You may find yourself jamming with some local musicians at a local community center then going to watch some of them play that same night. (Befriending the music teacher at my school was a bahut accha* decision)
*"Bahut accha": Very good
Speaking of music…
–You may find yourself as the new bass player for the Music Basti* final concert.
*Music Basti: the music program at my school. The kids write an original song and perform it live on a big stage.
–You may find yourself sitting on the floor with your friends eating Chinese food and laughing your asses off. These nights make this place feel like home.
Speaking of home…
–Home will become this strange city. While traveling I had fallen sick with food poisoning and instead of wishing I was back home in California in my bed, I was wishing I was back in Pune with my friends and my host mom's dal chawel*.
*Dal chawel: rice and lentils
–You will most definitely find yourself in a group of people who exclusively speak Marathi to each other. It's exhausting asking someone to translate all the time, but sometimes they throw some English or Hindi in there and you'll feel like genius for understanding a sentence.
–You'll realize that how friends interact is pretty universal. We go out for chai, we hang out at someone's place, we cook together, we go see our friend's band perform, and we sit around and talk and laugh for hours.
–You find yourself discussing all major life decisions with your work friends during lunch break at school. This time is never short of laughs, complaints about the students, and the sharing of the food we've all packed in our tiffins.
–You will have friends that you want to keep forever. I already want to come back and my friends are already figuring out how they can come to California to visit me.
Speaking of coming back…
–You will always have a place to stay when you come back to visit.
Things That Happen When You Start Hanging Out With Locals
