A-1 English Name:______________________

Heat and Dust, by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Some Terms

These are some terms that pop up in the novel, but which are not necessarily explained. (Some other terms, such as hijra on pp. 9-10, are explained within the text.)

dacoit—Dacoity (Urdu: ڈکیتی, dakaitee) means armed robbery. Dacoit (Urdu: ڈکیت, dakait) means a bandit. The word Dacoity is the anglicized version of the Indian word dakaitee (or ڈکیتی) which comes from Dakoo (ڈاکو, meaning "armed robber"). [Source: Wikipedia]

H.H.—His Highness

I.C.S.—Indian Civil Service

syce—a stableman or groom for horses

bearer—a porter, someone who carries things for someone else

solar topee—a pith helmet, one of those generally white British colonial helmets. (“From the Hindi sola or shola, the name of a plant, and topi, a hat. The spelling ‘solar’ probably rises from misunderstanding shola as the English solar.”) [Source: Wiktionary]

Mutiny, the—The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a period of armed uprisings against colonial authority of the British East India Company in India between early 1857 and mid 1858. The period and events are often referred to as the First War of Indian Independence in India and as the Indian Mutiny in Britain. [Wikipedia]

dhobi—a washerman. (“Dhobis usually run door to door collecting dirty linen from households. After a day or two, they return the linen washed, sometimes starched and ironed. Dhobis were the forerunners on the Indian subcontinent to modern professional dry cleaners. Since the dhobi charges are much lower than dry cleaners, they are popular with most households.”—Wikipedia]

sahib—a Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and Bengali term of respect, meaning Sir, master or lord. It comes from the Arabic sahib صاحب, originally "friend, companion" (from sahiba صحب "he accompanied"). [Wikipedia] See also: memsahib

purdah—the practice of preventing men from seeing women. This takes two forms: physical segregation of the sexes, and the requirement for women to cover their bodies and conceal their form. Purdah exists in various forms in the Islamic world and in India. [Wikipedia]

burka—a garment that covers the whole body, including a veil with just a slit for the eyes.

curetted her—a curette is a surgical instrument, shaped kind of like a spoon, that is used to clean diseased surfaces

dysentery—bloody diarrhea and cramps, usually caused by eating/drinking food or water infected with microorganisms and bacteria.

memsahib—under British colonialism in India, it became customary for the word “sahib” to be used for white “masters”; memsahib is the female form. See also: sahib

Punjab—a province of former British India, it also can refer to an area of South Asia extending from eastern Pakistan to northwestern India

rupee—the common name for the currency of India (and other countries in that part of the world).

Nawab—this is a title used by many Muslim leaders, kind of like governors of areas, in India.

Begum—while it has a particular historical meaning, this term came to be used as a term of respect for female members of a royal or aristocratic household