My husband is a Punjabi.
I am a Maharashtrian. 

When we first met, my Hindi was not very good. We couldn’t connect. When I moved to Chennai, my entire team was from Northern part of the country. They refused to speak in any other language. They are not comfortable in English. Even the ones studied in English medium. So my Hindi improved slowly. When I reconnected with my husband(then just a friend) after 4 years, my Hindi was a lot improved. We instantly bonded! I am glad to have learned Hindi. It is very useful, and in my case extremely lucky for me as it helped me get to know and marry a wonderful man. 

It was so annoying initially that these people from the north insisted, rather expected that everyone must learn Hindi. I have had so many arguments with such entitled people. But weirdly, in Chennai an auto driver lectured me that I should learn Hindi as it is widely spoken. I guess he was an outlier. But for some reason I keep meeting outliers. A Tamil colleague of mine told me that his father was very much against the anti-Hindi movement and made sure his kids learn Hindi. Made me think…

I wish it were Sanskrit though. I am learning it with my daughter. Teaching some words to my husband as we learn. And in the process speaking the shudh samskritized Hindi instead of urdu based bollywoody Hindi. It’s a beautiful language. The shudh Hindi! Try it! Atleast because it can be useful. Don’t be opposed to it because of some nutcases who are trying to enforce it on you. The problem is them, not the language!