Assessment in Hindi

Let me begin with the confession: I am not good at Hindi. It is not my mother tongue. We do not speak Hindi at my home or workplace. I hardly have any friends with whom I converse in Hindi. I can read, write, and speak Hindi but it is very restricted. Today I realised how bad I am at Hindi.

Last night I had received an email from a platform. They had invited me to apply for a job at their company. I was ok with it because I had plenty of time to take the interview. It was supposed to be an AI interview so I did not even have to worry if I wanted to take it late at night.

Finally in the afternoon I decided to go ahead with the interview. I click on the 'Start interview' button. While doing so I did not know that I was entering the territory about which I hardly have any knowledge.

I landed on the web page of the company to begin with the interview. They instructions were easy to comply with - Allowing the access to camera and mic, speaking with the natural tone, looking at the camera while responding, not using any AI tools. I read through the instructions and I was ready to begin the interview.

As I started of the interview I realised it was going to be my worst nightmare. The position that had been offered to me was supposed to be Hindi language evaluator. As I had already started with the session I decided to go I had with it. I felt that failing would be better than chickening out.

Then came the first question where I had to respond within 30 seconds. 10 seconds were wasted in mentally translating English terms into Hindi. In remaining 20 seconds I responded in a messy blend of English, Hindi, and Marathi. I could not believe myself that I could not remember what a cat was called in Hindi.

Then came the next question where I was supposed to speak for a minute while responding to the question that had been asked. Here too I struggled and responded in another confused blend of multiple languages. By time I was ashamed the lack of fluency.

Then came a question that hit me like a wrecking ball. I was asked what was my favourite Hindi poem. This is when I realised that I do not have any favourite Hindi poem. The ones that I had been liking were the lyrics of Bollywood songs which cannot be considered into the category of poetry. I felt like hiding my face with shame while responding to that question informing that there is no Hindi poem that I like.

After completing the interview I felt that I should go underground for being such a horrible Hindi speaker. I was baffled to see how bad the fluency of my speech is in Hindi. I blamed it on to the lack of Hindi learning in my school which was only for 3 years.

I am not expecting a positive response on that job opening because I know myself that I have done a really bad job at the interview. Also I have no confidence to work in a field where native Hindi language proficiency us required.

But this is just an attempt to went out and let go off my chest. I will remember this glorious failure as a joke.