Several dozen words have been ‘looted’ from Indian tongues and paraded before the world as English—chappal, pyjamas, ginger, jungle, juggernaut, loot, bandicoot, curry and mulagatawny, to name a few. Then there are phrases like koi hai, which was once heard in planters’ clubs and officers’ messes and got morphed into a noun, but has gone out of use along with the Somerset Light Infantry.
Noun, yes; it’s mostly nouns that have been accepted into the king’s tongue. When it comes to verbs, English purists act snooty. Why else are they still not accepting ‘prepone’, a fine verb we thought could be administered as an antidote to the ‘postponing’ poison that has entered our babu-ruled lives? We developed the word in our great middle-class laboratory so to avoid the delays of our postponement culture in the government and the bureaucracy. We offered it free to the English-speaking world, but they have been spurning it as an ‘ugly Indianism’.
Denne historien er fra January 28, 2024-utgaven av THE WEEK India.
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Denne historien er fra January 28, 2024-utgaven av THE WEEK India.
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William Dalrymple goes further back
Indian readers have long known William Dalrymple as the chronicler nonpareil of India in the early years of the British raj. His latest book, The Golden Road, is a striking departure, since it takes him to a period from about the third century BC to the 12th-13th centuries CE.
The bleat from the street
What with all the apps delivering straight to one’s doorstep, the supermarkets, the food halls and even the occasional (super-expensive) pop-up thela (cart) offering the woke from field-to-fork option, the good old veggie-market/mandi has fallen off my regular beat.
Courage and conviction
Justice A.M. Ahmadi's biography by his granddaughter brings out behind-the-scenes tension in the Supreme Court as it dealt with the Babri Masjid demolition case
EPIC ENTERPRISE
Gowri Ramnarayan's translation of Ponniyin Selvan brings a fresh perspective to her grandfather's magnum opus
Upgrade your jeans
If you don’t live in the top four-five northern states of India, winter means little else than a pair of jeans. I live in Mumbai, where only mad people wear jeans throughout the year. High temperatures and extreme levels of humidity ensure we go to work in mulmul salwars, cotton pants, or, if you are lucky like me, wear shorts every day.
Garden by the sea
When Kozhikode beach became a fertile ground for ideas with Manorama Hortus
RECRUITERS SPEAK
Industry requirements and selection criteria of management graduates
MORAL COMPASS
The need to infuse ethics into India's MBA landscape
B-SCHOOLS SHOULD UNDERSTAND THAT INDIAN ECONOMY IS GOING TO WITNESS A TREMENDOUS GROWTH
INTERVIEW - Prof DEBASHIS CHATTERJEE, director, Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode
COURSE CORRECTION
India's best b-schools are navigating tumultuous times. Hurdles include lower salaries offered to their graduates and students misusing AI