On September 14, celebrated as Hindi Diwas, a video of two women reciting Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s Agneepath in chaste Hindi was shared on social media platform X. The women were not your average content creators but Lithuanian Ambassador to India Diana Mickeviciene and Third Secretary at the Embassy of Ukraine Olena Ilchuk.
In the video, the two women can be seen in a garden standing next to a whiteboard with “Rashtriya Hindi Diwas ki Shubh Kaamnaye” written on it with a black marker. They introduce themselves in fluent Hindi before reciting a few lines from the poem.
Hindi Diwas commemorates the adoption of Hindi as the official language of the federal government by the Constituent Assembly in 1949.
How though did Diana master the language?
She picked it up 30 years ago when she studied in India in 1994 and 1998 — however, when she stopped practicing, she forgot most of it.
She then decided to start learning Hindi by herself and did a short beginners‘ course at a university. Her self-study included watching movies and videos in Hindi. “Before my posting to India as an ambassador in 2022, I started learning Hindi with a teacher. I regularly have online classes with Shrinkhala, my wonderful young teacher, who I enjoy working with a lot,” said Diana.
On why she chose this particular poem to recite, she told The Indian Express, “I find Harivansh Rai Bachchan to be a wonderful poet whose powerful poems resonate beyond Indian borders. His verses sound incredibly appealing even without knowing the meaning of some words.”
“… we are living in the shadow of Russia’s war against Ukraine, and since I feel very deeply about Ukrainians suffering constant attacks, I also felt they are the ones who are now walking the Path of Fire – Agneepath – in the most literal sense. So I suggested reciting the poem together with Olena Ilchuk, a Ukrainian diplomat who also knows Hindi. And her connection to the poem was immediate!” said Diana.
She has recently discovered “Madhushala” — another poem written by Bachchan — which she is understanding with the help of her Hindi teacher.
She said she has had a “special connection to India” since her childhood which motivates her to keep up with her Hindi lessons. “It gives me a lot of insights into the culture, especially literature, helps me to do all my shopping, and makes me feel at ease. I can have a chai in a roadside dhaba and be able to tell people where I come from and what Lithuania is about.”
Other than Hindi, Diana has spoken fluent English and Russian since childhood. “… Later I learned reasonably good French, I also studied some German and Polish, I spoke some basic Spanish, and tried to learn Mandarin for beginners. And at university, I studied Latin, Ancient Greek and Sanskrit.”
Her mother tongue, Lithuanian is considered by scholars to be the closest living sister language to Sanskrit — having learnt both languages, Diana said she can testify to this. Both Lithuania and Ukraine have institutes where Hindi is taught like the Vilnius University in Lithuania and Kyiv National Linguistic University in Ukraine.
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