Manisha and I were talking about the adjective "lucky" today. There are a couple of choices for lucky in Hindi, either खुश किस्मत (which is my personal favorite, translating literally as "happy fate") or नसीबदार, used to describe a lucky person. There are also more formal terms not generally used in everyday conversation: भाग्यवान and भाग्यशाली. If you want to wish someone "good luck" there's not an obvious Hindi equivalent. शुभेच्छा comes from शुभ, which means good or auspicious, and इच्छा, a wish or desire. Instead of saying "good luck" you're having an auspicious wish for someone. As an alternative, you could also say शुभकामना as another way to say "good wish." The trickiest part of this, however, is how to find a picture that is "lucky" (no clover leaves on this blog). I went with the Hindustan Times image above, but would gold be more auspicious than silver? Are swastikas better than symbols from another religion? And what exactly does good luck and auspiciousness look like?
