Sea of Poppies

by Amitav Ghosh

  fulana-jíb (*Roebuck): Flying-jib. See dol.

  fuleeta-pup (*The Glossary): ‘A consummer’s mishearing of “fritter-puff” that found its way into the lexicon against all odds.’

  gabar (*Roebuck): Skyscraper or sky-sail. See dol.

  gadda / gudda / gadha / gudder (*The Glossary): ‘Why is it that when the sahib borrows a Hind. zoological term, it is only for the purposes of abuse? It is, of course, impossible to deny that gadha is often used in Hind. to mean “fool”, but it is true also that the ass is the familiar of the Lord of Mysteries, Vishwakarma.

  Ooloo/ullu, similarly, may well sometimes be used to mean “fool”, but who can forget that the owl is also the familiar of the goddess Lakshmi? As for bandar, it has none of the abusive implications of its English usage, being employed rather as a term of affection or endearment, in the sense of “mischievous”.’

  galee / girley / gali (*The Glossary): ‘Oaths, obscenities; from which girlery, the equivalent of the Bengali gali-gola – pertaining to abuse’.

  +ganta/ghanta: ‘Bell, from which Hind. “hour”. But to “ring your ganta” is considered girlery.’

  gavi (*Roebuck): Topsail. See dol.

  ghungta: See dooputty/dupatta.

  girlery: See galee.

  girmitiya: ‘The genius of the Bhojpuri language,’ writes Neel, ‘derives this memorable term from the root girmit, which is a corruption of Eng. “agreement” [or indenture]’.

  +godown: See backshall.

  gol-cumra (*The Glossary): See cumra.

  +gomusta/gomushta: ‘For this mystery of the daftar there can be no simple definition, for he is to be seen discharging as many functions as can be said to exist in such a place: he writes accounts, he dumbcows, he gub-brows, he serves as a druggerman when needed. All that can be said of him with any certainty is that the title could not come to him until he had gained the Burra Sahib’s ear.’

  goolmaul/gollmaul (*The Glossary): Neel took issue with Sir Henry’s definition of this word as ‘mix-up’: ‘It is patently evident that this word was once merely Hind. slang for “zero” (literally “circular thing”). In this sense it referred originally to a conundrum or puzzle. It was only by extension that it came to mean “mix-up”, but of late it has been so overburdened by this connotation that it is now generally used to signify an uproar, or a great fuss.’

  goozle-coonuh/goozul-khana (*The Glossary): See bobachee.

  gordower (*The Glossary): ‘A type of Bengal boat as ugly as its name.’

  grag (*Roebuck): Grog, from which the term by which taverns were affectionately known: grag-ghars.

  griblee (*Roebuck): Graplin, der. Eng.

  +griffin/griff: See pucka.

  gubber (*The Glossary): ‘That this bandooki coin bore a resemblance to the Hind. for “cow-dung” gave it many added uses in the dufter, for the cranny could not be dumbcowed for saying to a Burra Sahib: “Sir, may your pockets be weighed down with gubbers.”’

  gubbrow/ghabrao (*The Glossary): See dumbcow.

  +gup: ‘Talk, gossip; but never in English, gup-shup, which is so much the better expression.’

  +halalcor/halalcore: ‘In English this, like harry-maid and muttranee, was one of many titles for the mysteries of toiletry.’

  harry-maid (*The Glossary): See halalcore.

  hathee-soond (*Roebuck): See bhandari.

  hazree/hazri (*Roebuck): Muster (‘from which’, adds Neel, ‘we have chotee hazree, which wakes the sahib in time for the daily mustering’).

  hoga (*The Barney-Book): ‘This word is a fine illustration of the changes that occur when an expression crosses from Hind. to English. The Hind. original ho-ga is usually employed to mean “will happen” or “will do”. In English, on the other hand, the word is almost always used in conjunction with a negative participle, to imply strong disapproval. Thus was a notoriously starchy BeeBee heard to exclaim, on finding her husband in the arms of a Rum-johnny: “Not in my bichawna dear; just won’t hoga.” ’

  +hong: ‘In southern China this word was applied indifferently, in English, to a certain kind of trading establishment, a company of merchants, a set of buildings, and even to certain boats kept by merchants: hong-boat’.

  +hookum: ‘The Laskari word for “command”.’

  hubes!/habes! (*Roebuck): This was the Laskari equivalent of the English nautical hookum, ‘heave’, and Neel was so struck by Roebuck’s notes on this term that he copied them down verbatim: ‘[When issuing this command] sometimes a little abuse is necessary; as for instance “Habes sálá!” “Bahin chod habes!” or “Habes harámzuda”!’

  +hurkaru/harcara: See dufter/daftar and chit/chitty.

  hurremzad/huramzuda/harámzáda etc. (*The Glossary): See badmash.

  istoop/istup (*Roebuck): ‘I can still feel it between my fingers, that vile oakum, endlessly picking, picking, picking . . .’ From the Portuguese estopa.

  +jadoo/jadu: Magic, conjuring (‘where -from the common usage, jadoo-ghar for Freemason’s Lodge’).

  jalebi/jellybee: See laddu.

  +jammah/jama: ‘The only reason why this word may fail to achieve the same eminence as the compound, pyjama (literally “leg-clothing”) is that it is too general, being applied to all clothing.’ See also kameez.

  +jasoos: Neel was intrigued by the English spellings of words related to this common Hind. term for ‘spy’ – jasoosy (spying) and jasooses (spies).

  jaw/jao (*The Barney-Book): See chull.

  jawaub (*The Glossary, *The Barney Book): ‘This borrowing of the Hind. for “answer” was never a persuasive migrant, its function in English being limited to a single sense, which Barrère & Leland describe thus: “If a gentleman proposes to a lady and is refused he is said to have been juwaubed.”’

  +jemadar: ‘In my youth, as I remember, this word designated the second-highest rank for a sepoy, following upon subedar/soubadar. But of late the usage has changed somewhat, and is often applied to bhistis, and also to some of the mysteries of toiletry.’

  +jildi/jeldy/jaldi: The Oracle’s recognition of this word appears to have been a cause of much jubilation, for one of my predecessors has noted the definition in full: ‘Haste, as in phrases on the jildi, in a hurry, and to do or move a jildi’.

  jillmill (*The Glossary): ‘Bandooki shutterwork’.

  +joss: ‘It was in Macao that I learnt the correct etymology of this term, which derives not from a Cantonese root, as I had imagined, but from the Portuguese Dios. Hence its use in all matters pertaining to worship: joss-stick, joss-house, joss-candle, and of course joss-pijjin, meaning “religion” (from which derives the usuage joss-pijjinman to mean “priest”).’

  kalmariya (*Roebuck): ‘A sail-emptying calm, the word being derived, or so Roebuck tells us, from the Portuguese calmaria.’

  +kameez/kameeze: This word’s entry into the caverns of the Oracle would have amazed Neel, who believed that it was doomed to a pauper’s grave. ‘My reasoning rests on two pillars, the first of which is that the tunics that are known by this name could just as well be designated by a near-synonym, kurta. There are those who point out that a kameeze is a longer and more elaborate garment – but should it not then be described by the more euphonious term angarkha? The scond reason why the word kameeze is unlikely to survive is because of the grave challenge posed by its near cognate, the English chemise. There are those who will object, no doubt, that kameeze derives from the Arabic qamís, while the English chemise (like the Portuguese camiz) is descended from the Latin camisia. No credence can be accorded to this argument, however, for the good reason that the Arabic qamís may itself be descended from the Latin. In any event there can be no doubt that kameez and chemise are close kin; nor can it be doubted that the latter is so rapidly usurping the territory of the former that the phrase “pyjama-chemise” may soon come to replace the name of the ensemble that is now known as the sulwaur-kameeze. Such a change is wholly to be welcomed: might not the notoriously pugnacious Afghan, for instance, undergo a beneficial
change of temperament if he could be persuaded to abandon his prickly kameez in favour of the cooler and more flattering chemise?’

  karibat: The discovery of this word in *The Barney-Book gave Neel the greatest pleasure for it had become, by the last years of his life, so obscured with disuse as almost to be archaic. It is clear from his notes that he remembered a time when this word, which joins the Tamil kari with the Bengali bhat ‘rice’, was commonly used in English, to mean ‘an Indian meal’. In that sense it stood not just for ‘curry-rice’ as some might think, but was rather an English equivalent of such phrases as ‘have you had your rice?’ the meaning of which can best be expressed as ‘have you eaten?’ Although unable to recall with absolute certainty, he had a vague memory of even having heard people say, in this sense: ‘have you karibatted?’

  +kassidar/khasadar: See burkundaz.

  ket (*Roebuck): Cat o’nine tails (but Neel notes that he often heard this most dreaded of chawbucks referred to as a koordum, which usage Roebuck corroborates, adding that it derives from the Portuguese cordão).

  +khalasi/classy: Although usually spelled as classy, this Bengali word for ‘boatman’ was generally used in a derogatory sense, to mean ‘a low kind of person’. Neel would have been astonished to learn of its entry into the chambers of the Oracle.

  +khidmutgar/kitmutgar/kistmutgar/ kistmatgar etc.: ‘The variety of English spellings for this word is truly astonishing and had led to many misconceptions. Among the many speculations about its origins the most febrile are those that attach to the variant kismat+gar. Some have suggested that the term originally referred to astrologers, a great number of whom were once employed by every household. It was even suggested to me once that the proper meaning of the word is “one who follows his master’s kismat” (“Surely, sir,” I could not help retorting, “such a person would be a budkismatgar?”). In fact the term is the literal equivalent of the English servant in the sense of “provider of service”.’

  khubber/kubber/khabar (*The Glossary): ‘Only the naïve would take this word to mean “news” in the sense signified by that term in English. For if that were so then its derivate, kubberdaur/khabardar, would mean “bearer of news” instead of “beware!”’

  +khud: ‘Once, in an argument, a self-styled pundit cited this word as an instance of a loanword that remained unchanged in meaning after traveling between languages. “But if that were so,” I said, “then surely khud in Hind. would possess the same connotations as the English ‘chasm’ or ‘gap’, would it not?” “Why so it does,” he said. “So then tell me, sir,” I asked, “how often have you heard anyone say in Hind. that there lay a great khud between them and their fellow men?”’

  +khus-khus: See tatty.

  khwancha (*Roebuck): See tapori.

  kilmi (*Roebuck): ‘mizzen-’; see dol.

  +kismet/kismat: ‘Great reams of buckwash have been written about the superstitious implications of this word. In fact it derives from the Arabic root q-s-m, “to divide” or “apportion”, so it means nothing more than “portion” or “lot”.’

  +kotwal: See chokey.

  kubberdaur/khabardar: See khubber.

  kurta: See kameez.

  kussab (*Roebuck): See lascar.

  kuzzana/cuzzaner (*The Glossary): Neel felt that the administrative use of this word, to refer to district treasuries, was unduly restrictive. ‘Why, as Sir Henry has shown, En glish travelers were using this word as early as 1683, hence that famous passage of Hedges Diary, in which he reports a demand for eight thousand Rupees to be paid into “ye King’s Cuzzana”.’

  +laddu: There has been much familial dissension over whether Neels’ expectations for this word were fulfilled. He imagined that it would find its way into the Oracle in its Laskari sense, in which it referred to the top (or cap) of the mast. But instead, this word, like jalebi/jellybee, has been anointed only in its incarnation as a sweetmeat. Yet it is a fact that the sweetmeat, like the cap of the mast, took its name from the roundedness of its shape, hence Neel’s intuition was not wholly at fault.

  lall-shraub / loll-shrub / lál-sharáb (*The Glossary, *The Barney-Book): ‘This phrase was so commonly used that to say ‘red wine’ was considered pretentious’. See also sharab/xarave etc.

  +langooty/langoot/langot: ‘Well was it said of this most abbreviated version of the dhoti that it substituted a “pocket-handkerchief for a fig-leaf”.’

  lantea (*The Glossary): ‘Curious that the Oracle overlooked this common Chinese boat while anointing the rarer Malay lanchara.’

  larkin: ‘What a mademoiselle is to a madame, so was a larkin to a BeeBee, being nothing other than the corruption of Hind. larki, “girl”.’

  larn-pijjin: See pijjin.

  lás/purwan-ka-lás (*Roebuck): ‘A lazy shortening’, Neel notes, ‘for the Portuguese word for yardarm: laiz.’

  +lascar: ‘Almost to a man the lascars will say that their name comes from the Persian lashkar, meaning “militia” or “member of a militia”, and thus be extension “mercenary” or “hired hand”. That there is some connection between these words is beyond question, but I am convinced that the strictly nautical usage of the term is a purely European introduction, dating back perhaps to the Portuguese. In Hind., of course, the term is applied to foot-soldiers, not sailors, and almost always denotes a plurality (so that it would be absurd to say in Bengali, as one well might in English, “a lashkar of lascars”). Even today a lascar will rarely use this term to describe himself, preferring instead such words as jahazi or khalasi (the anglice of which is the curious classy); or else he will use a title of rank, whereby the seniormost is a serang, followed by tindal and seacunny. Nor does this exhaust all the gradations of lascar ranks, for there are others such as kussab and topas, whose functions are somewhat obscure (although the latter seem usually to serve as ship’s sweeper). It is not perhaps surprising that there is no special Laskari word for the lowest in the ladder of rankings: as with the English “ship’s boy”, this unfortunate worthy is so often mocked, taunted and kicked that he is more butt than boy, and to speak the name of his rank is almost offensive (and the terms by which he is generally known do indeed serve as something of an insult: launda and chhokra – the anglice of which are launder and chuckeroo). Thus it happens that a lascar’s most frequent use of the term lascar corresponds more closely to its Hind. or Persian usage than to the English, for he generally employs it as a collective noun, to mean “crew” (lashkar). The strangest part of the curious odyssey of the word lascar is that it has now re-entered some Hind. languages (notably Bengali), in which it is used in the European sense, to mean “sailor”! I am persuaded, however, that where this is the case, the word is a recent intruder, introduced through the nautical dialects of Portuguese or English.’

  +lashkar (*Roebuck): See above.

  latteal/lathial (*The Glossary): See burkmundauze.

  +lattee/lathee: ‘There are those who claim that this is merely a “stick”. To them I say: Well, why do you not try the sound of fiddle-lattees and see how well it serves? The word is actually a part-synonym for “baton”, since it is applied only to that incarnation of the stick in which it is both an instrument of chastisement and a symbol of imperial authority. By this token, it is the Englishman’s version of Hind. danda, which derives of course from dand, meaning “rule” or “authority”.’ Elsewhere Neel notes that a lathi was never to be mistaken for the kind of walking stick that went by the name of penang-lawyer, ‘with which’, as the Admiral so aptly remarks, ‘the administration of justice was wont to be settled at Pulo Penang’.

  launder/launda: See lascar.

  +linkister: Neel would have taken issue with the Oracle’s derivation of this word as a corruption of ‘linguister’. He believed it to be, rather, a colloquial extension of the word ‘link’ – one that came to be applied to translators because it so perfectly fitted their function.

  loocher (*The Glossary): ‘The ease with which this derivative of the Hind. luchha has come in
to English has much to do with its resemblance to its synonym “lecher”: but this too is the reason why it will, in all probability, soon lapse from use.’

  loondboond/lundbund (*Roebuck): This cognate of launder was the curious Laskari word for ‘dismasted’. Speculating on its origins, Roebuck writes, ‘perhaps from nunga moonunga, stark naked,’ which in turn prompted Neel to observe: ‘How plain the English and how vivid the Laskari, which should be translated, surely, as “dismembered”? Could it be that Roebuck knew neither of lunds nor bunds, and nor, possibly, of their relation to each other?’

  +loot: ‘I am persuaded that this is another word that English owes to Laskari, for this derivative of the Hind. lút probably first found employment on the Company Bawhawder’s ships when applied to captured French vessels (in the sense of “prize” or “plunder”).’