interesting experience

[Lambodara]

Friends;

As an amatuer indologist (and now a laboring sanskrit student) i always pay close attention to all my encounters with Indian culture.  This past weekend i was at my local convenience store where the clerk has become a good aquaintence over the past year.( he was born and raised in India)  I was telling him of my travel plans for this fall and my intention of learning rudimentary hindi so that i could communicate better when in major cities in the north.  His response was immediatly shocking to me.  He told me at great length how though most people believe they are speaking hindi, they are actually speaking Urduu.  This seems a bit of a rediculous claim considering that none of the hindi liturature i have seen displays an arabic alphabet. so my question is this: is there any value to this claim? Also, is this a reletively common claim?  

Namaskar

Stephen J Brown
University of Rochester.