[malshe]

As a die hard cricket fan I am pretty well aware of the talented Guyanese cricketers, most notably Shivnarine Chanderpaul. I think most of your Indian colleagues likely follow cricket so that could be a great way to start bonding with them. Of course, if you don't follow cricket then that's a useless advice!

Beyond this, I would suggest learning a little bit about the common topics we "Desi" people talk about at work. In the US most of us will talk about local issues way more than anything happening back in India. This is partly because India is quite siloed. So there is a good chance that people are talking about elections these days.

Btw language barriers play a huge role. I understand Spanish and Portuguese better than I understand many Indian languages. In many cases, I can't even figure out which language people are speaking. (As an aside, it is possible that some of your colleagues are not speaking Hindi but some other language altogether.) None of my Indian colleagues in my university speak my native language. Many of them don't speak Hindi. So we communicate only in English.

[kjellsbells]

Well, TIL! I had always assumed that Hindi was a sort of lingua franca in India, taught in the schools alongside the regional language. Guess that is not so, then? (Is there a lingua franca in today's India at all, then? English?)

[aadhavans]

Yes, for the most part. Not sure what you mean by "today's India", since India has never had a lingua franca (except for English).