Read The Case of the Love Commandos Online
Authors: Tarquin Hall
The Case of the Love Commandos (33 page)
| PAPAD | a thin, disc-shaped crunchy snack or appetizer usually made of ground lentils or chickpeas and cooked with dry heat. |
| PAPRI CHAAT | a popular snack found in northern Pakistan. Papris are crisp dough wafers cooked in oil. They’re filled with potato, chickpeas, chillies, yogurt, and tamarind chutney and topped with chaat masala and crunchy noodles. |
| PARANTHAS | flat Indian wheat bread pan-fried and served with yogurt and pickle. Often stuffed with spiced potatoes, cauliflower or cottage cheese and eaten for breakfast. |
| PATIALA PEG | measure of liquor equivalent to 90 milliliters—that is to say, about 50 percent larger than a shot glass. Originated in the Punjabi city of Patiala. |
| PHAT-A-PHAT | “hurry.” |
| POORI | puffy wheat bread deep fried in oil. |
| PRASAD | offerings of fruit or sweetmeats sanctified in front of deities during prayer and then passed to devotees to consume as blessings. |
| PUJA | prayer. |
| PUKKA | Hindi word meaning solid, well made. Also means definitely. |
| PURSE | Indian English for handbag. |
| RAAT KI RAANI | night-blooming jasmine. |
| RAJMA CHAWAL | red kidney beans cooked with onion, garlic, ginger, tomatoes and spices. A much-loved Punjabi dish eaten with chawal, rice. See recipes in The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken . |
| “RAM! RAM!” | a form of greeting in Hinduism, Ram being an avatar of the god Vishnu and considered by many as a deity in his own right. |
| ROTIS | an unleavened bread made from stone-ground wholemeal flour known as atta. |
| RUDRAKSHA BEADS | a large broadleaf evergreen tree whose seed is traditionally used for prayer beads in Hinduism. |
| SAAB | “sahib” meaning “sir.” |
| SAFARI SUIT | a square-cut short-sleeved jacket with a broad collar unbuttoned at the top, epaulettes and four pockets, worn with long pants; usually khaki or sky blue and popular in India until the late 1990s. |
| SAHIB | an Urdu honorific now used across South Asia as a term of respect, equivalent to the English “sir.” |
| SALLA | derogatory term, expression of disgust. |
| SALWAR KAMEEZ | baggy cotton trousers and long shirt. |
| SANYASSI | a Hindu who has renounced all his material possessions and adopted the life of begging for survival. |
| SCOOTIE | a scooter or motorbike. |
| SHAADI | Hindi for “wedding.” |
| SHATABDI | Shatabdi trains are known in India as being “superfast,” but that’s a relative term. They do, however, offer the fastest service between the country’s major cities. |
| SHIKHARA | this term, which in Sanskrit means “mountain peak,” refers to the rising tower in the Hindu temple architecture of north India. |
| SHIVA | a Hindu god. |
| SHLOKA | a verse from the Hindu holy scriptures. |
| SHUDRA | fourth in the pecking order of castes, traditionally ordained to serve the Vaishyas (agriculturalists), Kshatriyas (warriors) and Brahmins (priests) above. |
| SHU SHU | peepee, go to the toilet. |
| SIGRI | rudimentary stove often fueled with cow dung. |
| SINDOOR | a red powder used by married Hindu women and some Sikh women. During the marriage ceremony, the groom applies some to the parting of the bride’s hair to show that she is now a married woman. Subsequently, sindoor is applied by the wife as part of her dressing routine. |
| SONF | fennel. |
| SUBZI | vegetables. |
| TAMASHA | a form of theater in western India, but in colloquial Hindi it means a public spectacle. |
| TARKARI | a spicy vegetable curry. |
| TEEN PATTI | “three cards,” also called flash, a gambling card game popular in South Asia. |
| THANDA | cold. |
| THARRA | cheap country-made booze. |
| TIFFIN | a lunch box, invariably made of stainless steel and consisting of a number of round containers that stack on top of one another. |
| TIMEPASS | Indian English for lazing about, doing |
| something trivial to pass the time of day. | |
| TRIBALS | term used to describe indigenous tribal people of India. |
| TULLI | drunk. |
| UTTAR PRADESH | the most populous state in India, with a population of more than 200 million people, it is also the most populous country subdivision in the world. |
| VISHNU | in almost all Hindu denominations, Vishnu is either worshipped directly or in the form of one of his ten avatars. The most famous of these are Ram and Krishna. |
| WALLAH | generic terms in Hindi meaning “the one.” Hence “auto wallah,” “phool (flower) wallah,” “chai wallah,” etc. |
| YAAR | equivalent to “pal,” “mate” or “dude.” |
| ZEBU | a type of cattle that originated in South Asia; characterized by a fatty hump on the shoulders. |
Tarquin Hall, a British writer and journalist, has spent almost a decade living in South Asia. He is the author of the Vish Puri mystery series—
The Case of the Missing Servant, The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing
, and
The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken
—in addition to dozens of articles and three works of nonfiction, including the highly acclaimed
Salaam Brick Lane
, an account of a year spent above a Bangladeshi sweatshop in London’s notorious East End. He and his wife, Indian-born journalist Anu Anand, live in Delhi with their two young children. Tarquin can be reached through his website and blog
www.tarquinhall.com
. Puri sahib also maintains his own site
www.vishpuri.com
and is active on Twitter
@vishpuridelhi
.
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