Amitav Ghosh - Sea of Poppies

chatty/chatta (*the Admiral, *Roe-buck): See charter.

+chawbuck/chábuk: 'This word, so much more expressive than "whip", was almost as much a weapon as the object it designated. That it should be among the few Hind. words that found a verbal use in English is scarcely a matter of surprise, considering how often it fell from the sahibs' lips. When so used, the proper form for the past participle is chawbuck't. The derived form chawbuckswar, "whip-rider", was considered a great compliment among hard-driving horsemen.'

chawbuckswar (*The Glossary): See above.

+cheese: Neel was no visionary in predicting the eventual incorporation of this derivative of Hind. chiz , 'thing', into the Oracle, for the use of it in such sentences as 'this cheroot is the real cheese' was common enough in his day. However, its role in such locutions as 'the Burra Cheese' would undoubtedly have come as a surprise.

chicken/chikan (*The Barney-Book): 'The closely-worked embroidery of Oudh; from which the cant expression "chicken-worked", frequently used to describe those who had perforce to live with a bawhawder ma'am-sahib.'

+chin-chin (*The Barney-Book): 'Greetings (from which chin-chin-joss: "worship").'

chin-chin-joss (*The Glossary): See chin-chin.

chingers (*The Barney-Book): 'Cu -rious that Barrère & Leland imagine this word to have entered the English language through the gypsy dialect. It was quite commonly used in bobachee-connahs, for choolashad always to be lit with chingers(from Hind. chingare ). I have even heard it used in the sentence "The chingersflew".'

Chin-kalan (*The Glossary): 'Strange as it seems today, this was indeed the name by which lascars were accustomed to speak of the port of Canton.'

chints/chinti (*The Glossary, *The Barney-Book): 'This word for ants and insects was doomed by its resemblance to the more common chintz(painted kozhikodoes )'.

+chit/chitty: 'A most curious word, for despite the fact that it comes from the Hind. chitthi , 'letter,' it was never applied to any missive entrusted to the dawk. It had always to be delivered by hand, never by post, and preferably by a chuprassy, never by a dawk-wallahor hurkaru.'

chitchky (*The Glossary): Neel was convinced that this descendant of the Bengali word chhechki had a brilliant future as a migrant, predicting that it would even be ennobled as a verb, since English had no equivalent term for this technique of cooking. Searching vainly for a palatable meal in the East End, he once wrote: 'Why do none of these lascars ever think of setting up inns and hostelries where they can serve chitckiedcabbage with slivered whiting to Londoners? Would they not profit from the great goll-maulthat would thus be created?' He would have been greatly saddened to see this elegant word replaced by the clumsy locution 'stir-fried'.

+chittack: A measure of weight, equivalent to one ounce, seventeen penny-weights, twelve grains troy.

+chobdar: 'To have one was a great sign of prestige, since a mace-bearer was a rare luxury. I still remember how the poor Raja of Mukhpora, even when facing ruin, could not bear to let his chobdargo.'

+choga(see banyan): Neel was pessimistic about the future of this word, which he believed would be over-whelmed by its Turkish rival, caftan.

+ chokey / choker / choakee / choky / chowki: 'If an exchange of words be-tokens a joining of experience, then it would appear that prisons are the principal hinge between the people of Hind. and Blatty. For if the English gave us their "jail" in its now ubiquitous forms, jel , jel-khana , jel-bot and the like, we for our part have been by no means miserly in our own gifts. Thus as early as the sixteenth century the Hind. chowki was already on its way across the sea, eventually to effect its entry into English as those very old words chokey, choker, choky, and even sometimes chowki. The parent of these words is of course the Hind. chowk , which refers to a square or open place in the centre of a village or town: this was where cells and other places of confinement were customarily located, being presided over by a kotwaland policed by a paltanof darogasand chowkidars. But chokeyappears to have gained in grimness as it traveled, for its Hind. avatar is not the equal of its English equivalent in the conjuring of dread: a function that devolves rather to qaid and qaidi – two words which started their travels at almost the same time as chokey, and went on to gain admittance under such guises as quod, quoddie, and quodded, the last having the sense of "jailed".'

+chokra/chuckeroo: 'Another instance in which Hind. and English usages subtly diverge, for a chhokra in former refers to a youth, a lad, a stripling, while chokra/chuckeroopoints rather to a rung in the ladder of employment, which, no matter whether in a household, a military encampment, or a ship's crew, was usually the lowest, and thus commonly (but by no means always) held by the young. In the Raskhali Rajbari it would have been considered strange indeed to speak of a middle-aged khidmatgaras a chhokra . But such an usage would not appear unusual in English. It is interesting in this regard to compare chokra/chuckeroowith its synonyms launder/launda, which were never used in mixed company, for reason perhaps, of baring a little too much of their manhood.' See also lascar.

+choola/chula: 'Another of those words in which the experience of migration has wrought a subtle shift of personality. In sahiby bobachee connahsthe word usually referred to an oven, whereas in Hind. it was used for a stove with an open fire (from which, the Laskari chuldanfor "galley"). Often these stoves were portable, the combustibles being loaded into a clay or metal balde. It is this perhaps that has misled some punditsinto thinking that the Laskari dish, "galinha balde," or "balti chicken", was named after a certain kind of stove. One does not need to have observed the preparation of this dish to know that this is pure buckwash, for if it were indeed thus named, then surely its name would have been "choola chicken".'

choomer (*The Barney-Book): 'In English the use of the Hind. loan word for "kiss", chumma , was used always in the sense of "peck on the cheek", and was never applied to deeper amatory explorations. The misleading term "kiss-miss" does not refer to the mysteryof the choomer. As many a furtive classyhas discovered, the whispering of this word in the city's disreputable gullies will lead not to a charterhouse, but to a handful of raisins.'

+chop: 'Another word of Hind. origin (from chhãp , "stamp" or "seal") that has passed fluently from the English argot of India into the patois of southern China. It is not, however, related to +chop-chop, "quick, quickly", which is of Cantonese derivation (from k'wái-k'wái ); it is this latter form that yields the ugly vulgarism chopstick, none of the blame for which can be pinned on Hind.'