Sea of Poppies (82 page)

+choola/chula
: ‘Another of those words in which the experience of migration has wrought a subtle shift of personality. In
sahiby bobachee-connahs
the word usually referred to an oven, whereas in Hind. it was used for a stove with an open fire (from which, the Laskari
chuldan
for “galley”). Often these stoves were portable, the combustibles being loaded into a clay or metal balde. It is this perhaps that has misled some
pundits
into thinking that the Laskari dish, “galinha balde,” or “balti chicken”, was named after a certain kind of stove. One does not need to have observed the preparation of this dish to know that this is pure
buckwash
, for if it were indeed
thus named, then surely its name would have been “choola chicken”.'

choomer (*The Barney-Book)
: ‘In English the use of the Hind. loan word for “kiss”,
chumma
, was used always in the sense of “peck on the cheek”, and was never applied to deeper amatory explorations. The misleading term “kiss-miss” does not refer to the
mystery
of the
choomer
. As many a furtive
classy
has discovered, the whispering of this word in the city's disreputable gullies will lead not to a
charterhouse
, but to a handful of raisins.'

+chop
: ‘Another word of Hind. origin (from
chhãp
, “stamp” or “seal”) that has passed fluently from the English argot of India into the patois of southern China. It is not, however, related to
+chop-chop
, “quick, quickly”, which is of Cantonese derivation (from
k'wái-k'wái
); it is this latter form that yields the ugly vulgarism
chopstick
, none of the blame for which can be pinned on Hind.'

+chop-chop
: See above.

+chopstick
: See above.

+chota/chhota/choota/
: Scrawled upon the back of the two of clubs in Neel's
Jack-Chits
are these words: ‘
Chhota
is to
burra
as peg is to mast: hence the common Laskari locution
chota-peg
, often used synonymously with
faltu-dol
.'

+chota-hazri
: See above. ‘How Barrère & Leland have managed to come to the conclusion that a
chota-hazri
corresponds to the “auroral mint julep or pre-prandial cocktail of Virginia” I will never understand, for it usually consists of nothing more than toast and tea.'

chownee (*The Glossary)
: ‘A great pity that this fine Hind. word for “military encampment” came to be replaced by the dull Anglo-Saxon “cantonment”.'

+chuddar/chadar
: ‘In no field of meaning has English relied more heavily on migrants than in referring to the clothing of womens' heads, shoulders and breasts. Yet, even having absorbed
shawl
,
chuddar/chadar
, and
dooputty/dupatta
, it still has no word for that part of the sari that serves the same function, for both
ghungta
and
ãchal
remain strangers to the
Oracle
. The
cumbly/kambal
(“blanket”) can scarcely be offered as an alternative.'

chuldan (*Roebuck)
: See
choola/ chula
.

chull (*The Barney-Book)
: ‘Barrère & Leland reveal their ignorance by giving this the gloss of “make haste”, a meaning that belongs more to the imperative
jaw! Chull
has much more the sense of the French
allez
or the Arabic
yalla
. One searches in vain for a good English equivalent, “come on” being hardly as expressive.'

chup/choops (*The Barney-Book)
: ‘Another word that has migrated through the nursery, being one of the
few exhortations to silence that can be considered polite.'

chupow/chupao (*The Glossary)
: ‘Despite its present currency, this emigrant is unlikely to find a permanent seat in the House of Verbs, since it serves no function that is not already discharged by the English “to hide”.'

chute/choot
: ‘This word's popularity is largely due to the one notable advantage that it possesses over other more specific anatomical terms: to wit, that it can be applied to all human beings, irrespective of gender, in the full confidence that the subject will be in possession of a few such. This is possibly why it enjoys such widespread use, both in Hind. and English, the difference being that in English it is rarely used in the absence of some other paired element (
ban-/betee-
etc.). One exception is the cant term
chutier
, which is used abusively to imply an excessive endowment in regard to this aspect of the anatomy.' See also
banchoot/barnshoot
etc.

cobbily-mash (*The Glossary)
: ‘This was, of course, not a mash at all, but a preparation of dried fish (being a corruption of the Bengali term
shutki-maach
.)'

+cockup
: This was of course one of many words that perished in the abattoir of Victorian prudery. Being uncommonly fond of the fish to which it referred,
lates calcarifer
(bhetki/
beckty
), Neel refused to recognize that this term was greatly endangered: he certainly bears some of the responsibility for its extinction.

+compound/kampung
: There was for long a feeling within the family that this word ought not to be included in the
Chrestomathy
, since the fact of its having gained entry into the
Oracle
in both its forms would provide a convincing refutation of Neel's pet theory (according to which, words could never migrate in pairs – see
bandar
). These anxieties were set at rest when a wordy-wallah pointed out that these words are neither homonyms nor synonyms: they are merely variant spellings of the same word.

conker/kunkur (*The Glossary)
: ‘This word has nothing whatever to do with water- or horse-chestnuts. It is a corruption of the Hind.
kankar
, “gravel”, and is used in the same sense.'

+consumah/consummer/khansama
: See
bobachee
.

+coolin/kulin
: ‘In no way to be confused with “coolie”, this was the word used to refer to the highest rung of certain castes.' A contracted form has recently gained some currency in
classy
circles: “cool”.'

cot
: See
charpoy
.

cotia (*The Glossary)
: A vessel from the Kerala coast that was only rarely to be sighted on the Hooghly.

cow-chilo (*The Linkister)
: ‘Often have I heard this item of the South China patois being used to disparage the Chinese
and their regard for women. Yet the expression is merely a badly matched pairing of words, the first being a corruption of the Cantonese
kai
.'

cranny/karani (*The Glossary)
: See
carcanna
.

+cumbly/kambal
: See
chuddar
.

+cumra/kamra/camera (*The Glossary, *Roebuck)
: Neel gave the credit for the introduction of this item of Portuguese nautical usage (
camara
), into the languages of Hind., English included. In its original nautical sense, it was used of course to mean ‘cabin', but by virtue of conveniently expressing the idea of partitioned space, it has reverted to the sense of its Latin avatar, in which it meant ‘room' or ‘chamber'. ‘The curious use of
gol-kamra
(literally “round-room”) to mean “drawing-room” is unlikely to survive.'

+cumshaw
: See
baksheesh
.

cunchunee/kanchani (*The Glossary)
: See
bayadère
.

cursy/coorsy/kursi (*The Barney-Book, *Roebuck, *The Glossary)
: From the
Jack-Chits
. ‘This Laskari word is not derived from the common Hind. word for “chair” (
kursi
) as many suppose: it is, in my opinion, a corruption of the English nautical term “cross-trees”, for it too refers to the perch that is formed by the junction of a yard and a mast. But the resemblance is not accidental, for it is in this seat that the lascar enjoys the few moments of leisure that fall to his lot.'

+cushy/khush/khushi
: ‘In Laskari this was the equivalent of the English nautical usage “cheerily”. To the lascar, then, goes the credit for inventing the English meaning of this word, which was carried onshore by sailors.'

dabusa (*Roebuck)
: ‘Roebuck avers that any cabin may be so designated, but it is a truism that every vessel is a world unto itself, with its own tongues and dialects – and on the
Ibis
this term was applied, always and exclusively, to the “tween-deck”, which should properly have been the “beech-ka-tootuk”.'

+dacoit
: ‘This word', writes Neel, ‘although universally known, is frequently misused, for the term applies, by law, only to miscreants who belong to a gang of
at least
five persons.'

dadu (*The Barney-Book)
: ‘Strange that this English gypsy word for father should be the same as the Bengali for “grandfather”; no less strange that the Eng. gypsy for mother,
dai/dye
, should be the same as the common Hind./Urdu for midwife.'

+daftar/dufter
: This was another word which had already, in Neel's lifetime, yielded to an ungainly rival, ‘office'. This too carried down with it a
lashkar
of fine English words that were used for its staff: the clerks known as
crannies
, the
mootsuddies
who laboured over the accounts, the
shroffs
who were responsible for money-changing, the
khazana-dars
who watched over their treasuries, the
hurkarus
and peons who delivered messages, and of course, the innumerable
moonshies
,
dubashes
and
druggermen
who laboured over the translation of every document. It was the passing of the last three, all concerned with the work of translation, that most troubled Neel; those were the words he would cite when Englishmen boasted to him of the absorptive power of their language: ‘Beware, my friends: your tongues were flexible when you were still supplicants at the world's
khazanas
. Now that you have the whole world in a stranglehold, your tongues are hardening, growing stiffer. Do you ever count the words you lose every year? Beware! Victory is but the vanguard of decay and decline.'

dai/dye (*The Barney-Book)
: See
dadu
.

+dak/dawk
: Neel believed that this word would eventually yield to the English ‘post' even in India, but he was convinced also that it would find its way into the
Oracle
, not on its own steam, but because of its innumerable compounds –
dawk-bungalow
,
dawkdubba
(‘post-box') etc.

+dam/daam (*The Glossary)
: ‘Sad indeed that India's currency took its name from
rupya
(Skt. “silver”) rather than the more accurate Hind.
dam
, “price”. I well remember a time when an
adhelah
was half, a
paulah
a quarter and a
damri
an eighth of a
dam
. A tragedy indeed that the word, like the coin, was driven to beggary by a counterfeit – in this instance, by the misinterpreting of the Duke of Wellington's comment of dismissal (“I don't give a
dam
”). What the Duke had meant to say, of course, was something in the order of “I don't care a tu'penny” (
dam
), but instead he bears the guilt of having put into circulation the damnable “damn”. At this remove we can only speculate on how different the fate of the word would have been had he said, instead, “I don't give a
damri
.”' On the margins of this note an anonymous descendant has scribbled: ‘At least Uncle Jeetu wouldn't have ruined the last scene of
Gone With the Wind
by shouting at Rhett Butler: “A
dam
is what you don't give, you idiot – not a ‘damn' . . .”'

+daroga
: See
chokey
.

dashy (*The Barney-Book)
: See
bayadère
. ‘This word is said to be derived from
devadasi
(temple dancer), hence the frequent pairing
debbies
and
dashies
.'

+dastoor/dastur
: Because Neel always gave precedence to nautical usages he assumed that this word would come into the
Oracle
because of the Laskari usage, in which it was the equivalent of ‘stu'nsail/studdingsail' (see also
dol
). He allowed, as a long shot, that its homonym, which designated a Parsi religious functionary, might also stand a good chance of inclusion. He was wrong on both counts: the
Oracle
unaccountably has chosen to gloss it as ‘custom' or ‘commission', from which usage it derives
dastoori
,
destoory
etc. These last Neel ruled out, because their meaning was so close to
bucksheesh
.