In this episode we sit down with Rajiv Ranjan to discuss all things Hindi. We learn about Rajiv's remarkable journey from growing up in rural north-east India to MSU university professor, scholar, and author. We discuss the relationship between Hindi and Urdu, as well as Sanskrit and Hindi. We hear about the making of his textbook, Basic Hindi I, and the reasons for making it free and open-access. Rajiv shares with us some of his favorites from the vast world of Hindi literature, and we get a preview of his upcoming series of online Hindi courses at Yogic Studies, HINDI 101 | Elementary Hindi I. Speaker Bio Dr. Rajiv Ranjan is a professor of Hindi and Urdu language at Michigan State University. He received his PhD in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) from the University of Iowa in 2016. He has been teaching Hindi and Urdu languages in the U.S. since 2010. In addition to his classroom-teaching experience, Rajiv has also taught online at MSU and at Kean University. He taught an immersion program for the South Asia Summer Language Institute (SASLI) at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and he has also taught in a study abroad context for the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) in India. Rajiv has published an Open Educational Resource (OER) Hindi textbook Basic Hindi I. Rajiv’s primary area of research is generative approaches to SLA. His research interests also include socio-cultural approaches to SLA, second language writing and speaking, language pedagogy, and morpho-syntax. Links HINDI 101 | Elementary Hindi I Basic Hindi I