Sanju Samson surprised fans with his fluent Hindi and revealed how growing up in Delhi and near the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border helped him learn multiple languages and connect with Indian teammates.
IMAGE: Sanju Samson is fluent in four Indian languages. Photograph: BCCI
Key Points
- Sanju revealed he lived in Delhi while growing up, which helped him learn Hindi and Punjabi.
- He also explained his familiarity with Tamil, as his hometown Vizhinjam lies near the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border, where Tamil is widely spoken.
- Sanju believes speaking multiple languages helps him connect better with team-mates from different regions of India.
Sanju Samson's fluent Hindi may come as a surprise to a lot of Indian cricket fans. Being a Keralite, the overriding assumption is that Hindi won't be his strong suit.
But Sanju has laid to rest all doubts, explaining why he is fluent in not just Hindi, English and Malayalam, but Punjabi and Tamil as well.
The son of a Malayali policeman and footballer, raised in Police Colony, Delhi, Sanju lived in the national capital for about 8 years before moving home to Thiruvananthapuram where he honed his cricketing skills.
SEE: Sanju Samson speaks fluent Hindi. VIDEO: BCCI
In a video doing the rounds on social media, Sanju explains why Hindi and Punjabi come as easily to him as Malayalam and English.
'I didn't learn it (speaking Hindi) consciously. I grew up in Delhi for 7-8 years, so Hindi came automatically,' Samson says in the video.
He also revealed the reasons for him speaking Tamil.
'Where I come from, Vizhinjam, that is the border of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. So people speak a lot of Tamil there, we watch a lot of Tamil movies, so Tamil came automatically.
'So, knowing Hindi and Tamil helped me to connect a bit more with my Indian team-mates. I connect equally with Abhishek Sharma and Arshdeep Singh and equally with Varun Chakravarthy and Washington Sundar. So it's a blessing which automatically came and I really enjoy it.'.