Words

Bombay duck, hobson-jobson, big cheese, minaret – words are cultural signifiers, slices of history made up of letters. In Words, Farrukh Dhondy reveals a certain landscape of India through a joyful exploration of Indianisms and Indo-British usages, including slang, choice curse words and colonial coinage. He cites Anglo-Indian dictionaries and Cockney kids, Parsi grandmothers and bartenders, foul-mouthed neighbours, history books and tour guides. Dhondy’s musings on etymological evolution bring to light the social, moral and often less-than-moral beliefs and behaviours these sayings stem from.Just goes to show – whether it’s an earnest chat or gossip, we are saying more than we realize.