Language Etiquette

Yesterday morning, as I was waiting in a conference room for a meeting with a different group from my company, two guys entered the room chatting in Hindi(an Indian language). After saying their hellos and introducing themselves to me, they continued with their Hindi conversation while we waited for the others to show up. The conversation was just a casual chit chat. No biggie. What irritated me was the language of the conversation. I do speak Hindi, but they did not know that. One of my pet peeves is that I cannot stand people talking to each other in an different language when there are people around who do not understand that language. I do not appreciate that even in a personal setting, but I think it is a big 'no no' especially in a professional environment

My company outsources a lot of its IT work to reputed Indian companies. As a result we constantly have a lot of young Indians coming to our office for short term as well as long term projects. In addition to that we have several employees of Indian origin like myself. As a result one gets to hear a lot different languages being spoken around the office. I have to say though that its not just us Indians who are guilty of this practice. At my work place I do get to hear Spanish, Mandarin(I'm guessing!) and a bunch of other languages that I don’t recognize. While I understand that it is natural to want to speak in your own mother tongue, I think people should realize that it makes other people uncomfortable. It makes them wonder if you are talking about them or about something that you don’t want them to know.
At my previous company, there were a bunch of Desi(Indian) guys who used to sit in a training room along with some American employees. They would speak in an Indian language all the time. One day, one of the American ladies asked me if they were talking about her. I told her that I din’t think they were talking about anything related to the work place. The truth was that I myself did not really understand their language. I doubt that the lady really thought they were talking about her. I think it was just her way of showing her disapproval.
When I first joined my current company there was an Indian girl who used to sit across from me. Like me, she was from Bombay. She would always come up to me and start a conversation in Hindi. Instead of telling her directly that I did not want to carry on a conversation in Hindi, I started replying in English, hoping that she’d get the message. The message was apparently lost on her because one day she came up to me and asked me why I wasn't comfortable with Hindi in spite of being from Bombay. I told her that I was comfortable with Hindi and then went on to explain my reasons for not carrying out a conversation in Hindi. She thought for a minute and said “ I agree with what you are saying, but you know, if we speak in English people around us will know what we are talking about! “ Answer that! It sure did leave me speechless!