Year in India: An Overview
HUF’s Year in India is based in Lucknow, a celebrated center of Urdu language and culture. From Lucknow, HUF students make visits to other key cultural centers such as Jaipur, Rajasthan.
The Year in India is a crucial and exciting component of HUF’s primary mission of bringing students to professional competence. It is the heart of the HUF program and is compulsory for all HUF students.
The Year in India offers a unique opportunity to become ‘immersed’ in Hindi and Urdu in academic, professional, cultural and domestic contexts, and complements Flagship courses already completed on the Austin campus. The organization of HUF’s India curriculum mirrors the sibling relationship between Hindi and Urdu, with specific training in technical aspects of both, but also with daily exposure to the public use of the common language that some speakers will define as Hindi and others as Urdu! In addition to language courses taken for UT credit, students are tutored by professors from Indian universities in courses that count towards their major.
HUF’s Year in India is a collaboration between UT and the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS), which is a consortium of American Universities that has offered language programs in India since the 1960s. Students receive language training from experienced AIIS teachers while enjoying the benefits derived from AIIS’s many years of organizing ‘study abroad’ programs for American students. A HUF program coordinator is onsite in India to assist students and to facilitate their academic and cultural activities, working closely with the HUF team in Austin. The AIIS offices, HUF, and UT-Austin’s International Office provide a network of organizational support.
Slideshow: The Year in India is a unique experience which immerses HUF scholars in the fascinating historical and cultural contexts of the Hindi-Urdu tradition. Click on the image above to view more pictures of the Year in India
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- The Year in India is based in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, a historic center of the Urdu tradition and a thriving modern city. Above, HUF’s Year in India Director Ahtesham Khan speaks to HUF scholars at the AIIS Lucknow campus.
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- HUF scholars participate in a seminar course on the economic system of Mughal India led by Dr. Ruquia Hussain from Aligarh Muslim University.
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- Opportunities to study alongside native speaking university students is a unique aspect of the Flagship approach to overseas immersion. Pictured above is the campus of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), an elite business school at which a number of HUF scholars have taken Business Honors courses.
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- A number of pre-med HUF scholars have completed internships at the prestigious King George Medical College in Lucknow.
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- HUF scholars interested in government and politics have taken advantage of Lucknow’s status as the capital of the largest Indian state (by population) and completed internships with local political groups. Above, Shan Khan speaks at a rally in support of affirmative action for women as part of his internship with a Muslim women’s advocacy group.
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- HUF scholars Uruba Niazi and Ramu Kharel completed internships with an NGO that works with basic literacy and health education among Lucknow’s slums.
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- Uruba Niazi (facing the blackboard) fine-tuned her conversational and professional Hindi-Urdu skills by teaching elementary school classes and working with local school teachers.
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- Guided visits to key cultural and historical sites are a unique component of the language courses taken during the Year in India. Above, HUF scholars visit Agra fort, the walled royal city of the Mughals. Shah Jahan’s Taj Mahal is in the background.
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- HUF Associate Director Syed Akbar Hyder accompanies HUF scholars during their tour of Agra fort.
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- Dr. Hyder often uses the remarkable historical and cultural setting of HUF’s Year in India to contextualize key themes in HUF scholars’ study of the Urdu tradition.
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- HUF scholars visit Pushkar, a long-standing center for religious pilgrimage and trade, in the heart of the Hindi speaking region of Rajasthan.
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- During the Year in India, HUF scholars visit Jaipur, a major center in the Hindi tradition.
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- HUF scholars (L to R) Shan Khan, Chelsea Aldridge, and Sofiya Merchant converse with a folk musician in Jaipur, Rajasthan.
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- Scholars have frequent exposure to multiple Hindi-Urdu vernaculars during their time in India. Above, Shan Khan converses with a rural Rajasthani woman.
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- The curriculum also incorporates visits to local non-governmental organizations (NGOs). With an estimated 3.3 million registered organizations, India has by far the largest NGO sector in the world. Above, HUF scholar Will Williams interacts with an employee at a weavers’ cooperative.
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- HUF scholars also a visit an NGO that works with the disabled. Above, Ramu Kharel practices his Hindi with a patient.
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- Jaipur has long been famous as a center for textiles. Above, HUF scholars visit the colorful grounds of a cloth dyeing factory.
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- HUF scholars meet with the Governor of Rajashtan, Shilendra Kumar Singh.
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- The Year in India allows HUF scholars a chance to develop a sensitivity to the vernacular diversity placed under the Hindi-Urdu umbrella. Here, HUF scholar Ramu Kharel converses with a paan vendor in Varanasi, an ancient and modern religious center where an eastern variety of Hindi predominates.
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- (L to R) Ramu Kharel, Uruba Niazi, and Sanjay Gulati at the Varanasi ghats on the river Ganga.
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- HUF scholars are immersed in many of the popular religious traditions practiced in the Hindi-Urdu region of North India. Above, Sofiya Merchant and Will Williams participate in the nightly ‘Aarti’ ceremony at the Varanasi ghats.
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- (L to R) Grant Davis, Ramu Kharel, and Chelsea Aldridge celebrate Holi, the festival of colors, at the AIIS campus in Lucknow.
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- HUF scholars visit the traditional home of Kabir, a medieval poet whose influence on the Hindi tradition still reverberates throughout north India.
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- HUF’s Year in India is based in Lucknow, capital of the state of Uttar Pradesh. Lucknow is celebrated as a major center of Urdu, deeply imbued with the refined courtly culture of its heyday during the late-Mughal nawabi period. From Lucknow, HUF students make visits to other key cultural centers such as Jaipur, Rajasthan.
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- The Year in India is a unique experience which immerses HUF scholars in the fascinating historical and cultural contexts of the Hindi-Urdu tradition.The Year in India is a unique experience which immerses HUF scholars in the fascinating historical and cultural contexts of the Hindi-Urdu tradition. Click on the image above to view more pictures of the Year in India.
The Year in India is based at the AIIS center for Urdu and Hindi in Lucknow. As the capital city of Uttar Pradesh (a state whose population of over 170 million dwarfs all but five or six countries in the world), Lucknow has a diverse and vibrant culture offering excellent opportunities for students to engage with the living language. Students also spend time visiting other cities within the Hindi and Urdu region; in particular the AIIS center in Jaipur, Rajasthan, complements the Lucknow experience with a very different cultural and regional flavor. While focusing on standard Hindi and Urdu, students will encounter some regional dialects of both, giving an appreciation of the multifaceted character of the linguistic culture of Northern India.