What’s an “Arunji?”

Still not feeling good but I am functional so I am taking my down-time to ponder some linguistics of the Hindi language.

Everywhere we go I hear this word. My grasp of Hindi is non-existent at this point and so I rely on Aaron for any translation issues but this is one word I keep hearing and can’t put into context as to what it means.

Is it slang? Perhaps a colloquial saying like in the U.S. where we interlace phrases “you know” or “like”?

Having locked onto this word and after hearing it for the 100th time in a day, I finally asked Aaron what it meant. “Me!” he say with a satisfied head wobble and pursed lips.

See, a big ice breaker with the folks here is not only does Aaron speak a decent amount of Hindi (which is pretty good for a white guy) but his name is also Indian. Only, instead of “Aaron” it is spelled “Arun” and the “Ji” is an ending which is kinda like “sir” but it can be used for both sexes.

Aha! So that elucidates a small fraction of the fast-moving, indecipherable, tongue-flapping that surrounds me constantly.

This also helps to explain why I have been called sir so many times. At first I was frustrated because I though that I was being mistaken for a large, Russian man all th time but now I know that at least SOME of the time it was actually just a literal translation (on the Hindi to English end) of “Ji” into “Sir”

And the remainder of the time….well… I guess it was me being mistaken for a large, Russian man.