The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again… You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don’t. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won’t.
50 words from India
- A - atoll, avatar
- B - bandana, bangle, bazaar, Blighty, bungalow
- C - cashmere, catamaran, char, cheroot, cheetah, chintz, chit, chokey, chutney, cot, cummerbund, curry
- D - dinghy, doolally, dungarees
- G - guru, gymkhana
- H - hullabaloo
- J - jodhpur, jungle, juggernaut, jute
- K - khaki, kedgeree
- L - loot
- N - nirvana
- P - pariah, pashmina, polo, pukka, pundit, purdah, pyjamas
- S - sari, shampoo, shawl, swastika
- T - teak, thug, toddy, typhoon
- V - veranda
- Y - yoga
Sources: Hobson-Jobson, Oxford English Dictionary
Another author who has drawn inspiration from the dictionary is Tom Stoppard. In his play Indian Ink, two characters compete to use as many Hobson-Jobson words as possible:
- Flora: “While having tiffin on the veranda of my bungalow I spilled kedgeree on my dungarees and had to go to the gymkhana in my pyjamas looking like a coolie.”
- Nirad: “I was buying chutney in the bazaar when a thug who had escaped from the chokey ran amok and killed a box-wallah for his loot, creating a hullabaloo and landing himself in the mulligatawny.”
Happy 65th Birthday, India!
Here are some FJP links for the day. See here for our interview segments with Micha X. Peled, director of Bitter Seeds, an important, moving documentary about the crisis faced by India’s farmers. Relevant, considering how integral India’s farmer’s are to the country’s economy and identity, which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh acknowledges in his Independence Day Speech. For a great source on what’s going on with media in India, read The Hoot. For free speech issues in India specifically, see The Free Speech Hub.
Bonus: One of our favorite posts on India from the FJP archives about the last handwritten newspaper still in print.
Images: How India ushered in its first Independence Day from First Post. Reblogged from fuckyeahsouthasia.
The Last Handwritten Newspaper Still in Print?
The earliest forms of newspaper were handwritten and now ‘The Musalman‘ probably is the last handwritten newspaper in the world. This Urdu language newspaper was established in 1927 by Chenab Syed Asmadullah Sahi and has been published daily in the Chennai city of India ever since.
FJP: Wow.
Going one day.
BLOCKED OFF: Schoolchildren attended Independence Day celebrations at Delhi’s historic Red Fort, where Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed the nation Wednesday. (Adnan Abidi/Reuters)
으아 컬러
New to me, and fascinating. Thanks Rachel.
India cartoonist Aseem Trivedi’s arrest sparks outrage
Cartoonist Aseem Trivedi is being held in Mumbai on charges of seditionThe arrest of an Indian anti-corruption cartoonist on sedition charges has sparked widespread criticism.
Aseem Trivedi appeared in court in Mumbai on Monday and was remanded in custody until 24 September for cartoons allegedly mocking the constitution.
Mr Trivedi is also accused of insulting India’s flag. He is demanding the charges against him be dropped.
The cartoonist has been participating in the anti-corruption movement led by campaigner Anna Hazare.
(via BBC News - India cartoonist Aseem Trivedi’s arrest sparks outrage)
(Reuters) - A cartoonist detained on sedition charges for drawings that satirise corruption in politics was released on bail on Wednesday, cheered by hundreds of free speech activists as he left Mumbai’s main jail.
