Sacred Games
Page 122
Tu hi meri manzil A line from a song from the Hindi film Guide (1965): ‘You are my aim, my only destination’. Guide was based on R. K. Narayan’s novel The Guide.
Tu kahan ye bataa, is nasheeli raat mein…These lines are from the Hindi film Tere Ghar ke Samne (‘In Front of your House’, 1963): ‘Tell me, where are you, in this intoxicating night?’ See also He, chand taaron ne suna.
UP Uttar Pradesh, a state in northern India.
usal Colloquially, a collective term for the various pulses—moog, matki, masoor, waal, chavli and others—that can be used to make the typically Maharashtrian dish ‘usal’.
uttapam A southern dish, similar to the dosa, that is made from rice and lentils.
vada-pau A ‘vada’ is a fried potato cutlet, more or less. ‘Pau’ is Portuguese for bread. So the cutlet is put between slices of bread or in a sliced bread roll, and you get something like a vegetarian hamburger.
Vahan kaun hai tera, musafir, jayega kahan? A line from the Hindi film Guide (1965): ‘Traveller—who, there, is yours? Where will you go?’
Vaheguru The term for God in Sikhism. Vaheguru is eternal, formless, and beyond all qualities and descriptions.
Vallavh re nakhva ho, vallavh re Rama This is a line from a traditional Marathi song: ‘Row, o boatman. Row, o Rama’.
vatan Home, country. This is a tremendously emotive word that encompasses all the passionate feelings one has for one’s birthplace, for one’s native earth.
vediya Crazy guy, nutcase.
ye dil na hota bechaara Line from a song from the Hindi film Jewel Thief (1967). ‘If this heart weren’t so destitute…’
Yeh shaam mastani, madhosh kiye jaye This is a line from a song from the Hindi film Kati Patang (‘Drifting Kite’, 1970): ‘This beautiful evening intoxicates me…’
About the Author
VIKRAM CHANDRA was born in New Delhi. His first novel, Red Earth and Pouring Rain (1995), won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book and the David Higham Prize for Fiction. His collection of short stories, Love and Longing in Bombay (1997), won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book (Eurasia Region) and was a New York Times Notable Book. Vikram Chandra divides his time between Mumbai and Berkeley, where he teaches at the University of California. His work has been translated into eleven languages.
www.vikramchandra.com
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by the same author
RED EARTH AND POURING RAIN
LOVE AND LONGING IN BOMBAY
Credits
Jacket design and artwork © Crush Design and Art Direction
Copyright
SACRED GAMES. Copyright © 2007 by Vikram Chandra. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © DECEMBER 2006 ISBN: 9780061807268
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-113035-9
ISBN-10: 0-06-113035-4
ISBN-Canada: 0-00-200851-3
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