Part 33 (1/2)

banyanfight (*The Glossary): 'A tongue-tempest', as recorded by Sir Henry, 'that ”never rises to blows or bloodshed” (Ocington, 1690)'.

banyan-tree: See banyan.

barbican: 'A sewer-or water-pipe,' as Sir Henry correctly notes, 'that leads back to the BabKhana of Kanpur'.

bargeer (*The Glossary): 'It is my conviction that this derivative of the marathi word for ”soldier” made its way into The Glossary not through the battlefield but the nursery, being employed, as it was in Bengali, to strike terror into the hearts of budzat butchas.'

bas! (*Roebuck): The Lieutenant glosses this as the Laskari equivalent of the English 'avast', but Neel believed it to be a sibling rather than a synonym, both being derived, in his view, from the Arabic ba.s.s, 'enough'.

bawhawder bahaudur bahadur: 'This once sought-after Mughal t.i.tle, meaning literally ”brave”, took on a derisive undertone in English. Sir Henry is right in noting that it came to ”denote a haughty or pompous personage, exercising his brief authority with a strong sense of his own importance”. Curiously, no taint of the derisive attached to this term where it would have been most apt - that is, in its application to the East India Company, which was known in Hind. as Company Bawhawder'.

bayadre: 'Those who believe that Portuguese was a language of the decks and had little to contribute to the bedroom would do well to note that bayadre is not a French but of Portuguese derivation (from bailadera - ”dancing girl”).' This was the euphemism that BeeBees used to speak of the women their husbands referred to as buy-em-dears - a motley collection of cunchunees, debbies, das.h.i.+es, pootlies, rawnees, Rum-johnnies and nautch-girls. Curiously, the word ”mistress”, which has a close Hind. cognate (by way of the Portuguese mestre) was never used in its English sense, it being considered quite unusual for a man to share his bed with his mistri'.

BeeBee/bibi: 'Why this word prevailed over its twin, begum, in being applied to the more eminent white wives of Calcutta, remains unexplained. In recent times, it has fallen out of favour and is now applied ironically to European women of low rank: this happened because there came a time when the great BeeBees began to insist on being called ma'amsahibs. Their employees shortened the prefix to ”mem-” (and occasionally, in the case of the most bawhawder of the tribe, to ”man-”)'.

begaree (*Roebuck): 'So, according to Lt. Roebuck, were the lascars accustomed to speak of those of their number who had been shanghaiied or impressed into service. Could it be that the word is a curious crossing of the English ”beggar” and the Bengali bhikari (of the same meaning) and the Hind. bekari, ”unemployed”?'

begum: See BeeBee.

beparee (*The Glossary): Neel believed that this Hind. word for 'trader', like seth, had found its way into English because the extraordinary proliferation of the meanings of banyan had rendered the word unusable in its originary sense.

beteechoot (*The Glossary): For the import of this expression see banchoot/barnshoot, but bearing in mind that it subst.i.tutes betee, daughter, for bahin, sister. 'Sir Henry ill.u.s.trates his definition of this term with some extremely apt quotations, among them the following: ”1638: L'on nous monstra une demy lieue de la ville un sepulchre, qu'ils apellent Bety-chuit, c'est dire la vergogne de la fille decouverte” [Mandelsle, Paris, 1659].'

bhandari (*Roebuck): 'This is the name that lascars use for cooks or storekeepers. I imagine that it may well be their word for ”quartermaster” as well'. This sentence is taken from the most unusual of Neel's notes - a set of jottings scribbled on the verso side of few playing cards. From the tiny handwriting, no less than the liberal splashes of seawater, it would appear that these notes were compiled in the course of a voyage on which paper was not easily obtained. Within the family these notes are known as the Jack-Chits, after the first of the cards to be found (a knave of clubs). Generally speaking the chits are Neel's earliest attempt to make sense of the s.h.i.+pboard dialect of the lascars: at the time of their writing he does not appear to have known of the existence of the Laskari Dictionary, but on acquiring a copy of Roebuck's lexicon, he immediately acknowledged the superiority of that great lexicographer's work and discontinued his own attempts to decode this dialect, which were undeniably of an unscientific and anecdotal nature. The chits are not wholly without interest, however; for example, this excerpt from the eight and nine of spades: 'To set sail is to find oneself foundering not just in a new element, but also in an unknown ocean of words. When one listens to the speech of sailors, no matter whether they be speaking English or Hind. one is always at sea: not for nothing is the English argot of sail known as a ”sea-language”, for it has long slipped its moorings from the English one learns in books. The same could be said of the ties that bind the tongues of Hind. to the jargon of the lascars: why, just the other day, we heard the tindals of our s.h.i.+p racing about on deck, shouting in the greatest agitation - hatheesoond! hatheesoond! That an ”elephant's trunk” had been sighted at sea seemed miraculous to all present and we went hurrying up to bear witness to this extraordinary visitation - but only to be disappointed, for the excitement of our lascar friends was occasioned by nothing more miraculous than a distant column of water, raised by a whirlwind. Evidently this phenomenon, known in English as a ”water-spout”, has in their eyes the appearance of an elephant's trunk. Nor was this the only time that day that I was to be deceived by the fancifulness of their usages. Later, while taking the air near the stern, I heard a lascar imploring another to puckrow his nar. I confess I was startled: for although it is no uncommon thing to hear a lascar speaking casually of the appendage of masculinity, it is unusual nonetheless to hear them referring to that organ in such high Sanskritic language. My surprise must have caused me to betray my presence, for they looked at me and began to laugh. Do you know what we are speaking of? one of them said to me. Placed on my mettle, I replied in a fas.h.i.+on that I thought would amply demonstrate my s.h.i.+p-learning. Why indeed I do know what you are speaking of, I said: it is the thing that is known as a ”jewel-block” in English. At this they laughed even harder and said no, a jewel-block was a dasturhanja in Laskari, while the thing they had been speaking of was a rudder-bolt known to the Angrez as a ”pintle”. I was tempted to inform them that the great William Shakespeare himself had used that word -pintle - in exactly the same sense as our Hind. nar. On consideration, however, I thought it best to refrain from divulging this piece of information. My shoke for the words of the greatest of dramatists had already gained for me the reputation of being an incorrigible ”Spout-Billy”, and offensive as this sobriquet was, I could not help reflecting that to be known as a ”Billy-Soond” would be worse still'.

bheesty bheestie beasty bhishti: 'The mysteries of water-carrying, the instrument of which trade was the mussuck. In the south, according to Sir Henry, the terms are tunny-catcher or tunnyketchi.'p>

b.i.+.c.hawna/b.i.+.c.hana (*The Glossary): 'Bedding or bed, from which b.i.+.c.hawnadar, or ”bed-maker”, an expression that must be used with some care because of the possibility of innuendo.'

b.i.+.c.hawnadar: See above.

bilayuti (*The Glossary): 'Strange that we should have become accustomed to using a version of the Turkish/Arabic wilayat to refer to England; even stranger that the English should adapt it to their own use as blatty. In its bilayutee form it was often attached, as Sir Henry correctly notes, to foreign and exotic things (hence bilayati baingan for ”tomato”). Sir Henry was however gravely in error on another such compound, namely bilayuteep.a.w.nee. Although he correctly glosses this as ”soda-water”, he is wrong in his contention that the people of Hind. believed bilayuteep.a.w.nee could confer great strength to the human body by reason of its gaseous bubbles. As I remember the matter, our wonder was occasioned not by the power of the bubbles as they were imbibed, but rather by the explosive detonations with which they were expelled.'

biscobra (*The Glossary): Neel took issue with Sir Henry's suggestion that this was the name of some kind of venomous lizard. 'Here is another example of a beautiful marriage of the eastern and western lexicons. The word ”cobra” comes of course from a Portuguese contraction of a Latin root meaning ”serpent”. ”Bis”, on the other hand, is certainly a derivative of the Bengali word for poison, which has been absorbed into English as bish, although with the sense of a ”blunder” or ”mistake”. It is impossible that such a term could be applied to a lizard, no matter how vengeful. In my opinion, it is none other than an English colloquialism for the hamadryad or King Cobra.'

bish: See above.

b'longi/blongi (*The Linkistere): 'Frequently mistaken as a contraction of the English ”belong”, this word is actually an elegant and economical copula, doing duty for the verb ”to be” in all its many forms. Imagine then the embarra.s.sment of the griffin who pointed to his wife's dog and said: ”Gudda blongi wife-o ma.s.sa.”'

bobachee: 'As a barkentine is to a country boat, a Kaptan to a Nacoda, a vinthaleux to a dumbpoke, so in the kitchen is a bobachee to a consummer. Each a potentate in his own way, they rule over a vast lashkar, consisting of spice-grinding masalchies, cabob-grilling caleefas, and others whose t.i.tles have mercifully lapsed from use. The bobachee, however, is the only culinary mystery to lend his name to the kitchen.'

bobachee-connah/bawarchee-khana (*The Glossary): 'On this latter term I am at odds with every authority who has given the matter any thought: whereas they derive it from Hind. khana, ”place” or ”room”, it is my intuition that it comes from the Bengali element kona/cona, meaning corner. This seems self-evident to me, for if the meaning of bobachee-connah were indeed ”cook-room”, then surely the proper locution would be ”bobbachy-camra”. That this variant does sometimes occur, is to me the exception that proves the rule. Similarly goozle-c.o.o.nuh/goozul-khana appears to me to be often wrongly rendered as ”bathing-room”: when applied to a place where a bathtub is kept, it must surely mean ”bathing-corner”. But so far as other connah/khana compounds are concerned, I will concede that it is often used in the sense of room: e.g. karkhana, jel-khana, babkhana and the like.'