Glossary to accompany Salman Rushdie
This is as yet a rather small glossary of colloquialisms used in
Rushdie's books. If you would like to see a word added to this
collection, or wish to point out an inaccurate definition, send mail to
rushdie-gloss@trill-home.com.
Thanks to Charles Cave <charles@jolt.mpx.com.au>, who came up with
the idea for this page and gave me the first list of terms to include,
to Paul Levesque <levesqp@ere.umontreal.ca> who brought so many
of these words to my attention, and to Marijke Emeis
who inspired me to finish adding the
list of terms I'd made while reading the Moor.
Sometimes Rushdie uses words which play on English words. I
haven't included those here. Saying them aloud would usually help you
figure out what's happening.
- angrez
- An Englishman. angrezi is the adjective, and can also refer to the
language English
- asli
- real
- ayah
- nurse, generally hired to take care of children, there's some
spillover from the "English governess". Perhaps the best
example would be Ms. Braganza.
- baap-re
- An exclamation that most closely resembles 'oh my god'. Though baap
is father it conveys the same intonation.
- babuji
- babu often refers to a clerk/bureaucrat/semi-anglicized
intellectual. ji is a simply a suffix often added to denote a tone of
respect. Babuji is generally used as a mode of polite address
.
- bachchi
- a little girl
- bahurupia
- literally one who can take on many visages/shapes. Rushdie uses it
to refer to a troupe of masked actors in the Moor.
- bania
- A term that is sometimes used to refer to a 'class', alternatively
money-lender or shop-keeper.
- baysharam
- shameless; bay (without) + sharam (shame)
- beedi
- tobacco rolled in tobacoo leaf to make a rudimentary cigarette, very
cheap but quite harsh on your throat
- begum
- queen. In colloquial Urdu it is also used to refer to one's (or
another's) wife
- bewaqoof
- idiot, fool
- bhaenchod
- an abusive expletive suggesting the addresse has an incestuous
relationship with his sister
- Bharat-mata
- literally mother-India, Bharat is another name for India, mata means
mother but is often used as a term of respectful address
- bilkul
- exactly, absolutely
- brinjal
- and baingan, are names for the eggplant.
- bumboo
- bamboo
- chamcha
- Literally "spoon", a wealth of amusing etymological notes
exist on this word. My personal favourite is a derivation from the verb
form that means "to make love by caressing, kissing or talking
amorously" and on better days from the Middle English noun
signifying a chip or splinter. It is generally applied when referring
to a flunky.
- channa
- is almost a catch-all for all sorts of roasted nuts and beans
sold by hawkers in India. In particular it refers to certain types of
gram.
- chapat
- a slap. This is real Bombay slang
- chattri
- literally umbrella. Also refers to the architectural structure
resembling an umbrella in shape, that is often noticed on North Indian
forts and palaces.
- cheese
- [As used on pg. 97 of The Moor's Last Sigh] thing
- chhi-chhi
- accompanied with a slight wrinkling of the nose is an expression of
distaste or shock at seeing something dirty (filthy) or obscene
- chhota peg
- Chhota means small and peg refers to a shot of an alcoholic drink.
A "chhota peg" is a drink made with approximately two fingers of
hard liquor. The term is either Anglicized Hindi, or Indianized English.
- chils
- some sort of bird
- chipkali
- a lizard, generally the common house-lizard. The creature is
harmless but there are a considerable number of myths and superstitions
associated with it.
- chokra
- "boy", quite informal, perhaps closest to "garcon"
- chowkidar
- watchman (literly one who inhabits the "chowki", police
station or guard house.
- crorepati
- a person who is worth more than 1 crore (=1,00,00,000), generally
used to refer to someone who is extremely wealthy
- darshan
- personal vision. Often used to refer to a meeting with a religious
figure, or a place/idol believed to embody the spirit of a particular
figure.
- dekho
- look! an imperative
- djinn
- The Arabic elf in a bottle/lamp, genie to the Disneyized
Alladin
- dupatta
- a rather large scarf worn by women to compliment a salwar-kameez (a
long shirt and a pair of pants). The dupatta is often used to cover
the head and is a mark of propriety, not unlike the pallu of a
sari which performs the same function.
- ek-dum
- all at once, suddenly
- ghats
- slope, hills, the adjective is ghati (also used as a perjorative
reference to people from the hills, sort of like hill-billy). There are
two mountain ranges (on either side of the Deccan plateau) called the
Western and Eastern ghats. When Rushdie uses it, it would generally
refer to the Western Ghats, which are the first thing one encounters on
moving from Bombay to the mainland.
- ghazal
- From the arabic 'to talk with/of women'. The ghazal is a poetic form
with its roots in Persian literature. Ghazals are intended to be sung,
the most famous ghazal singers of this century are probably Jagjit and Chitra Singh.
- halva
- a sweetdish. Comes in many different varieties and can be made of
many different ingredients (carrots, walnuts, pumpkins, etc.) what binds
them together is the manner in which they're cooked, generally by
mashing the fruit/vegetable and cooking it with milk and sugar. My
favourite is the walnut variety as made by one shop in Karachi (never
seen the place, but my brother in law gets me some everytime he's in
Pakistan).
- hamara
- ours
- hartal
- strike. Popularized by Gandhi as a form of civil disobedience, it's
now common for shops in Bombay to be forcibly shut down by the local
politician's goons at the slightest excuse.
- Hindustan
- literally the land of the Hindus. The word Hindustan was coined by Arab
traders in the 6th century, they used the word 'Hindu' to refer to anyone not of
the Muslim faith who resided in India. The Arab traders began to use
the term Hindustan to refer to the sub-continent, it is a combintion of
the word 'Hindu' and the term 'stan' or place.
- idli and sambar
- a light south indian dish; an idli is a light steamed rice cake
(when eaten alone, it's easy to choke on, quite dry); sambar is a
vegetable gravy often just a little spicy
- jadoo
- magic
- jhunjhunna
- something that tinkles, or a tinkling sound
- jopadpatti
- a ramshackle collection of huts in an urban environment, perhaps
even slum.
- khaddar
- Coarse cotton, generally home-spun
- khalaas
- finished. Bombay slang, or Bambaiya
- khansama
- the Hindi/Urdu term for a cook.
- kismet
- fate, luck. Yup, this is the word the epitomizes the famed Indian
fatalism.
- lafangah
- idler, shiftless, good for nothing. An adjective that rolls off
Indian tounges nicely, and often accompanies lafangah, is
loafer.
- lathi-charge
- a "lathi" is a stick, typically longer than a person's
forearm. In this case it refers to the rather long truncheon carried
Indian police. A lathi-charge is an offense mounted against an unruly
crowd by a group of police (or army) personell armed with
truncheons.
- mame
- a white woman. Usually spelt as 'mem', the term refers to any
European/North American woman and was commonly used to refer to English
women. Memsahib is derived from or related to this word and has now come
to mean the more generic 'mistress'.
- maro
- hit! an imperative that conjures up images of a crowd of people
beating a pick-pocket.
- masala
- is the Hindi word for spices. In informal phrases it generally
refers to a hodge-podge of elements mixed together to add spice to
the final product.
- masala-movie
- Entertainment of the sort Bombay excels at producing, a
pot-pourri of action, sexual innuendos and comic relief, as they say, a
masala movie has "something for everyone"
- mirch
- chilli, sometimes even spice
- motu-kalu
- literally, the fat one-dark one
- mausi
- mother's sister. Another of the endless precise names for various
relations.
- namaskar
- a greeting, almost similar to namaste. Often accompanied with a
gesture of holding the palms against each other in front of one's
chest, this is a HIndi term.
- nautch-girl
- literally dancing-girl; nautch is a corruption of the Hindi/Urdu
word for dance
- nimbu-pani
- lemonade, made with real lemons, water, sugar and spiked with pepper
& ice
- pagalpan
- madness
- saag
- Most often a dish made out of spinach which has been boiled for
a long time, till it's only a paste. saag can also be made from other
vegetables
- sahibzada
- alternatively used as son, successor or heir. At times sahibzada is
used as a disparaging term to refer to the pampered and less than energetic
heir of a particularly distinguished family.
- salaam
- A contraction of the arabic salaam-alaikum. An informal Urdu
greeting
- salah
- advice or thoughts on a particular matter. Not to be confused with
sala, a perjorative term which literally means brother-in-law but
suggests an intimate relationship with someone's sister.
- samjao
- to make another understand, to help someone look at things in
another light; sometimes used as a mild threat.
- Sarangi
- a stringed instrument, rather like a fiddle. A more
detailed explanation is available from SPICMACAY at RPI
.
- soo-soo
- penis. soo-soo also means to urinate.
- takalluf
- formality, ceremony or elaborate courtesy, generally towards a
guest
- tamasha
- literally a performance, particularly that of a play, but in a
perjorative sense has come to denote a farce
.
- tikka-kabab
- kabab should be familiar, a tikke is just a little piece. Generally
tikka kabas are made entirely of meat that has been barbecued on a
skewer.
- titli-begum
- butterfly-queen
- wallah
- is almost like the word "smith" as used in English
last-names. It can sometimes be appended to one's last name to reflect
the hereditary profession, in common parlance it simply means "one
who is engaged in".
- waugh-waugh
- also written as wah-wah, an appreciative exclamation, sort of like
wow, but without the suggestion of awe. Often used satirically.
- yahoody
- literally Jew, this word has Hebrew origins. "Biblical
scholars use 'Israelite' (as distinguished from 'Israeli', meaning a
citizen of the post-1947 state of Israel) to refer to the people of
ancient Israel down to the Return from Babylonian Exile. 'Jew' comes from
the Hebrew yehudi, meaning a Judahite, or Judean, a descendant of
Judah, who was Jacob's (Israel's) fourth son and heir, the historical
carries of the Blessing of Yahweh, first given to Abram (Abraham).
'Hebrews' tends not to be used anymore for the ancient Israelites;
'Hebrew' refers to what is now the language of contemporary Israel, and
to what was, in its ancient form, the Old Canaanite language of the
Bible". from Harold Bloom's "The Book of J".
Salman Rushdie |
Subir Grewal | rushdie-gloss@trill-home.com