My name is Meenakshi, I‘m a lawyer back in India. I just moved to London for my masters. It‘s been just two months since I got here so I don‘t have a lot of experience with writing in London, but I have a lot of experience writing back home (India).

So back in India, at least, like academic writing, you have a lot of similarities with how it is here. Like the process, the approach. However, I think there‘s a lot more importance being given to referencing here. You can get by in India, even if you‘re not, like if you‘ve referenced every source. And I think you plagiarism tests in London are extremely strong, which I think is really, really good thing, and then we should be taught more of that, probably in undergrad or postgrad back home. But when it comes to like professional writing, it‘s pretty much similar. Consistency, the use of vocabulary, punctuations, grammar. the way you structure most of these very similar. At the end of the day as a lawyer, you have a lot of these template agreements, which essentially followed with just basic content differences specific to that particular, like matter you‘re dealing with. Other than that, I genuinely don‘t feel a lot of differences, maybe just just the English way of speaking. I guess, like our writing, I think the vocabulary choice is slightly more, I‘d say sophisticated here. Slightly informal writing is also allowed in India, even if it‘s academic work. Oh, and another thing that I‘ve noticed is in India, they tend to over-complicate sentences. You‘ll have longer sentences, lots of commas. However, here I‘ve noticed that people prefer like shorter sentences, which is one point per sentence. Which, again, I think is a good thing. It makes it easier for the reader.
But other than that, it‘s pretty much the same.

Legal profession, it‘s pretty much the same. I think in Dubai it‘s a lot more similar to how it is heard in London. There‘s a huge Western influence in Dubai, and for most people, it‘s I think most people in the legal field, at least places I‘ve worked at, they tend to they‘re either from the west or they‘ve studied in the West. So a lot of the influence of writing comes from here (United Kingdom).
But, but if you were to look at, say, court level, or like the local levels, English isn‘t that primary way of of like documentation. It goes back to Arabic. So in most of these documents, you see, which comes from, say, like regional firms, it‘s often the Arabic translation, like the English translation of the Arabic text, that you get. So sometimes, when it comes to coherence, it‘s slightly difficult.
But other than that, if you were looking at formal writing again, it‘s very similar to how it is here in London, shorter sentences, much better use vocabulary, trying to keep it as short and to the point as possible. India tends to get slightly more like descriptive when you write.

Well, I think it used to be a lot more descriptive, and then now it‘s, -it‘s trying to be shorter. But I don‘t think it‘ll ever reach a point where it‘s as short as how it is written and written. Because I think Indians just love a lot of clarity and context around what is being talked about.

Okay, the first, first difference is probably going to be, there‘s a lack of songs opportunity in Hollywood movies. That‘s like the core of Indian cinema. It doesn‘t matter if you just look at Bollywood. So the issue - Bollywood is essentially just the Hindi speaking community. It‘s their industry. There‘s 28 official languages in India.
So the place I come from, it‘s called Mollywood. So, one thing that runs throughout [Mollywood] is the opportunity for songs.
I think in Hollywood, you have a lot of these comical movies, a lot of these comedies, animated movies. Or you have extremely raw movies, day to day life, just nothing to extravagant. Or you have the extreme James Bond like movies, action packed movies.
Whereas in Bollywood, in Bollywood, there tends to be a lot of these fantasy intertwined with everyday life, just, - just no logic movies. It‘s, it‘s no logic, but it‘s so well written sometimes that you‘re like, “Yeah, cool. This could happen, I don‘t know, maybe“. Or you have extremely realistic movies with with, it‘s just a simple, happy family, relaxed movie, but with so much like character and depth, which I think sometimes Hollywood movies don‘t have. It‘s probably a day, somebody‘s like day. But then it‘s shot as a full three hour movie.

Yeah, but it‘s, it‘s so well written, you don‘t feel bored for a second. It‘s, it‘s pretty nice. I like it. I like the fact that Indian movie gives a lot more thought into each character sometimes, and not just the story. It like, I think I like that.

No, no, no, it‘s getting me outside, so I‘m staying at home.

Um, okay, the first thing is, at least for me, like, if you, if you look at it from an everyday person. Like watching the movie, and know who somebody who is, you know, who has bank, rich parents money, just just like a layman watching movie. I think a character which you can relate to.
So you have a lot of movies coming out, especially from where I am, where they just like, like your neighbor, somebody you see every day. You can relate to that character. They do things in the movie that you do every day, or they discuss situations, or they‘re put in situations where the reactions very similar to how you react to that situation. And I‘ve seen so somebody I know actually works in the film industry. She‘s an actress. The way they‘re trained is they‘re actually put in those situations. They, they take a month to go sit down with these people, understand, live with them. So then they have a better understanding of how to portray these characters. And it‘s written in such a way. It‘s often written by a lot of these directors who come from those backgrounds.
They‘ve not gone to film school, they‘ve not gone to they‘ve not learned it professionally. They realize they like storytelling and cinemas are the best way forward. So they they understand the characters they write.

I don‘t think any school is a waste. I mean, obviously you learn the - sometimes you go to film school, you don‘t learn it the hard way. Whereas, if you if you‘re not a trained professional, you often have to learn it the hard way, so that part becomes easier, and obviously you learn a lot more, and you‘re not restricted to your bubble.
Film School is a good thing, but I feel like [couldn‘t figure out this word] is great because even if you don‘t go to film school, you still have access to creating.

Um, well, my my main interaction has been with my 15 year old cousin, where he can‘t speak the Mother Duck because he‘s gone brought up here. Yeah, half of the time I have issues with understanding what it means, because you have a lot of words you use here in everyday parlance, which you don‘t use in India, obviously. So that‘s, I think, the most difficult part for me.

Well, he‘s also Gen like z turning Gen alpha. So I mean, what the hell is skibidi?

Kibidi, ki. Kibbity, skippity, s, k, i, b, i, d, y, d, I,

Skippity, yeah, skippity.

You‘re Gen Z as well, aren‘t you?

What? Okay, I‘m Gen Z, yeah.

S, K, I, B, I, D, I.

S, K, I, B, I, D, I. B, as in basketball.

But also something that I‘ve noticed in India is even in informal writing, you tend to use a lot of regional words. And it just becomes a part of you. So even if I text someone like, sure, I have to knowingly, like, filter myself and just be like, Okay, I can‘t use these because, of course, you‘re not going to understand because it has an element of, we anglicize a lot of these local words. For example, if I had to say, you say pocha fai pocha in Hindi means clean, like use of mob. But then you just add fail to it, and then you make it an accepted English term, which it‘s not an English term, yeah, so you mix a lot of regional language with English when you text casually back home, yeah, yeah. So that‘s that‘s something that I have to consciously refer to myself.

My generation, most of us write in English, because, I mean, well, I‘m again speaking on behalf of just a very small like maybe 20% of the population. We are privileged kids who could go to say English medium schools. We were taught in English. We did undergrad in English. We worked in a Metro City, so we interact with a lot of people who don‘t speak our own language. We‘re put in a situation where you have to use English with the other person to understand.