Sea of Poppies: A Novel (The Ibis Trilogy)

by Amitav Ghosh

  +shikar: See below.

  +shikaree: ‘The mystery of the hunt (shikar)’.

  shoe-goose (*The Barney-Book): ‘Not being a bird at all, but rather a kind of cat [in fact a lynx], this word is unlikely to enter the annals of ornithology.’ In the margins, a note: ‘From Persian syagosh’.

  shoke/shauq (*The Glossary): ‘In its English incarnation this Arabic word came to mean “whim”, “hobby” or “penchant”. In Hind. the existence of a shoke is often indicated by the addition of the suffix báz (sometimes Anglicized to buzz). The proper English translation of Hind. addá-báz is therefore buck-buzz. (The term launder- or laund’ry-buzz is a cant exception and does not always refer to the whims of dhobis). When misused, this particle can cause some curious misunderstandings. Thus, for instance, a self-styled pundit was once heard to speculate that buzz when added to bawhawder was a reference to a well-known shoke of Alexander the Great’s (sometimes described as his taste for youthful bawhawdery). So wedded was the pundit to this view, that I was hard put to persuade him that he had got the matter completely oolter-poolter: Buzz Bawhawder was a medieval king of Malwa, famous for his shoke for the beautiful Rawnee, Roopmuttee. As for the matter he was speaking of, the correct zubben expression is of course udlee-budlee.’

  +shrob/shrab/shrub/sorbet/sorbetto/ sherbert/syrup/sirop/xarave/sharaab: Neel loved to collect derivatives of the Arabic root for ‘drink’, sh-r-b.

  +shroff: ‘The mystery of money-changing’, from which shroffage, which the Oracle defines as a commission charged for shroffing, or the examining of coin.

  +sicca rupee: ‘In my childhood, as I remember, this was already an antique kind of coinage.’ The Oracle confirms this, adding that these coins were issued in 1793.

  +silahdar/silladar: ‘This word, lit. “arms-bearer”, was one of many applied to mercenaries and soldiers of fortune’. See burkandaz.

  silboot (*The Glossary): ‘Like sirdrar, which is but the Hind. corruption of the undergarment known as a “short drawer”, this word for “slipper” has reentered English usage in an altered form.’

  silmagoor: From the Jack-Chits: ‘Could this be a lascar’s way of saying “sail-maker”?’ A marginal note, written long afterwards, confirms his guess with a triumphant‘!’: ‘Roebuck leaves no doubt of it.’

  sirdrar (*The Glossary): See silboot.

  soor (*The Barney-Book): ‘Pig, hence soor-ka-butcha, son of a pig’.

  tabar (*Roebuck): ‘Royal’ as applied to a ship’s rigging; see dol.

  +tael: ‘Another name for a Chinese liang or ounce,’ but a note in the margins specifies: ‘According to the Oracle, this weight equals 1⅓ oz. avoirdupois.’

  +talipot: Neel was mistaken in thinking this to be the English word for ‘toddy-palm’. The Oracle pronounces it to be a ‘South Indian fan palm, Corypha umbraculifera.’

  taliyamar (*Roebuck): Neel mistook this word to mean ‘bow-wave’ but was glad to be corrected: ‘Roebuck explains that this is the Laskari for “cut-water”, derived from the Portuguese talhamar. I remember having always heard the word spoken by lascars who were looking down from the bowsprit. Hence my error: I mistook the effect for the object.’

  tamancha: ‘Roebuck confirms that this was, as I remember, the common Laskari word for a lesser firearm.’

  tapori: From the Jack-Chits: ‘This was the lascar’s word for the wooden bowl out of which he ate – the equivalent of the English seaman’s “kid”. These were made of the plainest hollowed wood, and were bought in great numbers from bumboats. Apart from this there was also the metal khwancha – a large tray on which they ate together.’

  +tatty (*The Glossary): ‘Such was the term for a screen made of khus-khus grass. Although the word is perfectly respectable, being derived from the tamil vettiveru (from which vetiver), its resemblance to a common Hind. word for a certain bodily product tended to create misunderstandings. A story is told of a formidable BeeBee who issued a peremptory hookum to a timid chuckeroo: “Boy! Drop a tatty! Jildee!” The unfortunate lad was gubbrowed half out of his wits and complied with such celerity that the BeeBee was put utterly to rout.

  ‘To further complicate matters, those who were responsible for the maintenance of these screens were known, in certain households, as tattygars. Unfortunate indeed was the kismet of the khidmatgars who were thus designated, and it was no easy matter to fill these positions. It was because of such misunderstandings, perhaps, that this word is gradually yielding to its Hind. synonym khus-khus.’

  +teapoy: See charpoy.

  teek (*The Barney-Book): ‘According to the Barneymen, the Hind. thik became in its English avatar “exact, close, precise.”’

  +tical: A silver coin equal to a rupee.

  tickytaw boys/tickytock boys (*The Glossary): ‘These ghastly attempts at onomatopoeia were once the terms of reference for players of the tabla.’

  +tiff, to: ‘Ironic indeed that India should be the last refuge of this fine North Country English word, meaning to take refreshments (from which tiffin, lunch etc)’.

  tiffin: See above.

  +tindal: See lascar.

  +topas/topass: Neel would have been astonished by the Oracle’s gloss of this word: ‘A person of mixed Black and Portuguese descent; often applied to a soldier, or a ship’s scavenger or bath-attendant, who is of this class.’ See lascar.

  trikat (*Roebuck): See dol.

  tuckiah / tuckier (*The Glossary): ‘Sir Henry claims that this common Hind. word for “pillow” or “bolster” is often used in the same sense as ashram. I am baffled by this, I must confess.’

  + tumasher / tamasha / tomashaw / tomascia: Being a contrarian, Neel had a particular fondness for the seventeenth-century English usage of this word, in which it was spelled tomashaw or even tomascia, and had the sense of ‘spectacle’ or ‘show’, being sometimes thus applied also to rituals. He deplored the gradual debasement of the word, whereby it ‘can now scarcely be told apart from a petty gollmaul.’

  tumlet (*The Glossary): ‘Is it possible that this Hind. corruption of “tumbler” will reenter the English language and, like the notorious cuckoo, eject its parent from its nest? Would that it could be so!’

  tuncaw (*The Glossary): ‘The mystery of English turned this Hind. for “salary”, tankha, into an almost derogatory term, used mainly for servant’s wages.’

  +turban: See seersucker.

  turnee (*Roebuck): ‘This (as also tarni and tanni), were the lascars’ abbreviations of the word “attorney”, and it was applied always to English supercargoes. Phaltu-tanni, however, was their word for the Flemish horse, a very curious element of a ship’s tackle.’

  udlee-budlee: See shoke.

  upper-roger (*The Glossary, *The Barney-Book): ‘A corruption of Skt. yuva-raja, “young king”, says Sir Henry, to which the Barneymen add, apropos nothing, that the Nawab Siraj-uddowlah was similarly known to British wordy-wallahs as Sir Roger Dowler.’

  +vakeel: Lawyer, pleader. ‘One of the oldest mysteries of the courtroom, reputed to be a denizen of the English language since the early seventeenth century.’

  +vetiver: See tatty.

  +wanderoo: See bandar. In the margins of this a nameless relative has written: ‘In the jungles of English, only a little less antique than vakeel, dating back to the 1680s, according to Oracle.’

  woolock (*The Glossary): ‘Boats of this name were often to be seen on the Hooghly, but I recall neither size nor any details of their construction.’

  wordy-wallah (*The Glossary): This phrase, from Hind. vardi-wala, was used in English to mean ‘wearer of a uniform’. Those especially gifted in this regard were known as wordy-majors (or woordy-majors). Neel’s usage of these terms bore no resemblance to their proper definition.

  zubben/zubán: ‘Of this word,’ writes Neel, ‘I can find no evidence in any of my dictionaries. But I know I have heard it often used, and if it does not exist, it should, for no other expression could so accurately describe the subject of the Chrestomathy.’
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br />   Φ Whether this abbreviation refers to a specific language (Hindi?/Urdu?/Hindusthani?) or merely to all things Indian has long been a subject of controversy within the family. Suffice it to say that the matter can never be satisfactorily resolved since Neel only ever used this contracted form.

  α It needs here to be explained that the word Glossary, whenever it occurs in the Chrestomathy, is a reference to an authority that was, for Neel’s purposes, one of the few to be empowered with the right to award certificates of migration into English: to wit, Sir Henry Yule and A. C. Burnell’s Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive. Neel appears to have acquired a copy of this famous dictionary when it first began to circulate among a privileged few, in the 1880s, before it came to be known by the name Hobson-Jobson. Although his personal copy has never been found, there can be no doubt that the frequent references to ‘Sir Henry’ in the Chres tomathy are directed always towards Sir Henry Yule – just as ‘the Glossary,’ in his usage, stands always for the dictionary for which that great lexicographer was chiefly responsible.

  β The name Roebuck, when it occurs in the Chrestomathy, is a reference always to Lt. Thomas Roebuck’s pioneering work of lexicography: An English and Hindostanee Naval Dictionary of Technical Terms and Sea Phrases and also the Various Words of Command Given in Working a Ship, &C. with Many Sentences of Great Use at Sea; to which Is Prefixed a Short Grammar of the Hindostanee Language. First printed in Calcutta, this lexicon was reprinted in London in 1813 by the booksellers to the Hon. East India Company: Black, Parry & Co. of Leadenhall Street. Neel once described it as the most important glossary of the nineteenth century – because as he put it, ‘in its lack, the age of sail would have been becalmed in a kalmariya, with sahibs and lascars mouthing incomprehensible nothings at each other.’ It is certainly true that this modest word-list was to have an influence that probably far exceeded Lt. Roebuck’s expectations. Seven decades after its publication it was revised by the Rev. George Small, and reissued by W. H. Allen & Co. under the title: A Laskari Dictionary or Anglo-Indian Vocabulary of Nautical Terms and Phrases in English and Hindustani (in 1882): this latter edition was available well into the twentieth century. The Laskari Dictionary was Neel’s favourite lexicon and his use of it was so frequent that he appears to have developed a sense of personal familiarity with the author.

  χ The phrase Barney-Book, when it occurs in the Chrestomathy, is always in reference to Albert Barrère and Charles Leland’s Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant, which was yet another of Neel’s girmit-granting authorities. He possessed a well-worn copy of the edition published by the Ballantyne Press in 1889. His choice of shorthand for this work appears to be a reference to Barrère and Leland’s tracing of barney to the gypsy word for ‘mob’ or ‘crowd’. This in turn, they adduced to be, in one of those wild leaps of speculation for which they were justly famous, a derivation from the Hind. bharna – ‘to fill’ or ‘increase’.

  δ The reference here is to Admiral W. H. Smyth’s Sailor’s Word-Book. Neel possessed several copies of the edition that was printed in London in 1876 by Blackie. He held this work in a respect that verged on reverence and when the words ‘the Admiral’ appear in the Chrestomathy, reference is always to Admiral Smyth and his famous lexicon.

  ε ‘The Linkister’, when it appears in the Chrestomathy, is always in reference to Charles Leland and his Pidgin English Sing-Song: Or Songs and Stories in the China-English Dialect; with a Vocabulary. Charles Leland was, of course, one of the most prodigious lexicographers of the nineteenth century and he was another of Neel’s girmit-granting authorities. But being himself a master of the South China Pidgin, Neel appears to have disapproved, or disagreed, with it in some respects: hence the somewhat disparaging name.

  AVAILABLE NOW

  The second installment of the epic Ibis trilogy by

  “a writer of uncommon talent who combines literary flair with a rare seriousness of purpose” (The Washington Post Book World)

  * * *

  River of Smoke

  The Ibis, loaded to its gunwales with a cargo of indentured servants, is in the grip of a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal; among the dozens flailing for survival are Neel, the pampered raja who has been convicted of embezzlement; Paulette, the French orphan masquerading as a deck hand; and Deeti, the widowed poppy grower fleeing her homeland with her lover, Kalua. The storm also threatens the clipper ship Anahita, groaning with the largest consignment of opium ever to leave India for Canton. And the Redruth, a nursery ship, carries “Fitcher” Penrose, a horticulturist determined to track down the priceless treasures of China that are hidden in plain sight: plants that have the power to heal, or beautify, or intoxicate. All will converge in Canton’s Fanqui-Town, or Foreign Enclave: a tumultuous world unto itself where civilizations clash and sometimes fuse. It is a powder keg awaiting a spark to ignite the Opium Wars.

  Spectacular coincidences, startling reversals of fortune, and tender love stories abound. But this is much more than an irresistible page-turner. The blind quest for money, the primacy of the drug trade, the concealment of base impulses behind the rhetoric of freedom: in River of Smoke the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries meet, and the result is a consuming historical novel with powerful contemporary resonance. Critics praised Sea of Poppies for its vibrant storytelling, antic humor, and rich narrative scope; now Amitav Ghosh continues the epic that has charmed and compelled readers all over the globe.

  Read on for an excerpt!

  For more information, visit www.fsgbooks.com/RiverofSmoke

  One

  Deeti’s shrine was hidden in a cliff, in a far corner of Mauritius, where the island’s western and southern shorelines collide to form the wind-whipped dome of the Morne Brabant. The site was a geological anomaly – a cave within a spur of limestone, hollowed out by wind and water – and there was nothing like it anywhere else on the mountain. Later Deeti would insist that it wasn’t chance but destiny that led her to it – for the very existence of the place was unimaginable until you had actually stepped inside it.

  The Colver farm was across the bay and towards the end of Deeti’s life, when her knees were stiff with arthritis, the climb up to the shrine was too much for her to undertake on her own: she wasn’t able to make the trip unless she was carried up in her special pus-pus – a contraption that was part palki and part sedan chair. This meant that visits to the shrine had to be full-scale expeditions, requiring the attendance of a good number of the Colver menfolk, especially the younger and sturdier ones.

  To assemble the whole clan – La Fami Colver, as they said in Kreol – was never easy since its members were widely scattered, within the island and abroad. But the one time of year when everyone could be counted on to make a special effort was in midsummer, during the Gran Vakans that preceded the New Year. The Fami would begin mobilizing in mid-December, and by the start of the holidays the whole clan would be on the march; accompanied by paltans of bonoys, belsers, bowjis, salas, sakubays and other in-laws, the Colver phalanxes would converge on the farm in a giant pincer movement: some would come overland on ox-carts, from Curepipe and Quatre Borne, through the misted uplands; some would travel by boat, from Port Louis and Mahébourg, hugging the coast till they were in sight of the mist-veiled nipple of the Morne.

  Much depended on the weather, for a trek up the wind-swept mountain could not be undertaken except on a fine day. When the conditions seemed propitious, the bandobast would start the night before. The feast that followed the puja was always the most eagerly awaited part of the pilgrimage and the preparations for it occasioned much excitement and anticipation: the tin-roofed bungalow would ring to the sound of choppers and chakkis, mortars and rolling-pins, as masalas were ground, chutneys tempered, and heaps of vegetables transformed into stuffings for parathas and daalpuris. After everything had been packed in tiffin-boxes and gardmanzés, everyone would be bundled off for an early night.

/>   When daybreak came, Deeti would take it on herself to ensure that everyone was scrubbed and bathed, and that not a morsel of food passed anyone’s lips – for as with all pilgrimages, this too had to be undertaken with a body that was undefiled, within and without. Always the first to rise, she would go tap-tapping around the wood-floored bungalow, cane in hand, trumpeting a reveille in the strange mixture of Bhojpuri and Kreol that had become her personal idiom of expression: Revey-té! É Banwari; é Mukhpyari! Revey-té na! Haglé ba?

  By the time the whole tribe was up and on their feet, the sun would have set alight the clouds that veiled the peak of the Morne. Deeti would take her place in the lead, in a horse-drawn carriage, and the procession would go rumbling out of the farm, through the gates and down the hill, to the isthmus that connected the mountain to the rest of the island. This was as far as any vehicle could go, so here the party would descend. Deeti would take her seat in the pus-pus, and with the younger males taking turns at the poles, her chair would lead the way up, through the thick greenery that cloaked the mountain’s lower slopes.