Professional Documents
Culture Documents
EPILOGUE
The Ploughman settled the share More deep in the sun-
dried clod:-
‘Mogul, Mahratta, and Mlech from the North, And the
White Queen over the Seas –N
As the dust of the ploughshare flies in the breeze; But
the wheat and the cattle are all my care,
And the rest is the will of God.’
KIPLING, ‘What the People Said’
GLOSSARY OF INDIAN
TERM
Most of these terms are English renditions of words
originally in Persian, Sanskrit or Hindustani. I have
generally adhered to the spellings in Henry Yule and A.
C. Burnell’s work, Hobson-Jobson, but the usual
caveats apply: bheestie, for example, sometimes
appears as bhisti, beastie, and much else besides.
Kipling preferred bhisti for his hero Gunga Din, and
favoured dooli rather than dhoolie or doolie for the
Indian stretcher.
Akalis – Sikh regiments of religious enthusiasts
anna – one-sixteenth of a rupee
ayah – nurse, lady’s maid
babu – properly a term of respect attached to a man’s
name, but by extension an Indian clerk who wrote
English or sometimes, with a note of disparagement, an
‘educated Indian’
bat – language, especially soldier’sslang
batta – extra financial allowance
bazaar – market or street of shops; market-place bhail –
bullock
bheestie/bhisti – water-carrier
bibi – lady, but in the British context, Indian mistress
brinjarry – itinerant dealer, especially in grain or salt
budmash – knave, villain
bundook – gun; the common term for a matchlock, but
might be used colloquially for rifle or shotgun
chapatty – flat circular cake of unleavened bread, patted
flat with the hand and baked on a griddle
charpoy – bed
chatty – spherical earthenware water pot
congee-house – prison, especially a regiment’s lock-up,
where the regime was more liberal than in its guard-
room
crore – one hundred lakhs .