16/5/1993,
Columban Fr David Arms has a Ph. D. in linguistics. He is expert in the Fijian language and in translation work. But he also spent some months studying ethnic languages in the southern Philippines and in Pakistan. He helped the Columban missionaries in those places by writing the grammar and a word list of the languages for them.
Early this month he went to a settlement here to study Fiji Hindi with a view to helping the Columbans in Fiji learn the local Hindi.He used to squat on a mat in the shade of a tree each day with a farmer who had no formal schooling. He knew that he would hear only Fiji Hindi from him, without any mixture of English or standard Hindi from the books. The farmer, Rishi Ram, was delighted to oblige. Having a priest with a doctorate come to learn from him raised his status in the settlement. He happily mixed the yaqona every morning and told his wife to have a nice curry ready for lunch.
Rishi Ram liked to smoke sukhi (dried leaf) tobacco while drinking yaqona. Today he found that he had left his tin of tobacco at the edge of the mat on which he and Fr David were squatting. It was just outside his reach. His wife was busy inside preparing and cooking the meal. He shouted for her. She came out. “Hand me my tobacco,” he barked. She obediently stooped down, picked up the tin of tobacco and put it in his hand. “Now carry on with the cooking,” he ordered.
“If I am ever reincarnated,” Fr David said to us afterwards, “I want to come back as an Indian man!”
by Fr. Frank Hoare
