Ritik Roushan doesn’t have a specific memory of the first time he met Hugo. “Ask Hugo,” he says, with the confidence that only a friend can have for someone. “He will remember.” And Hugo does.
It was 10 years ago. Hugo Ribadeau Dumas was a 22-year-old student from Paris, on an exchange programme at the Jamia Islamia University in New Delhi, in the final year of his master’s. For his fieldwork in North Indian villages, he wanted to be able to speak Hindi. But Delhi was not helping – one look at him and everyone would proceed to communicate in English. He figured the Hindi-speaking eastern state of Bihar might be a good place for him to achieve his goal. He moved to its capital city of Patna.
