'From that pinnacle of magnificence, this article of clothing has unfailingly kept pace with India's fortunes: as the land's inhabitants grew ever poorer and weaker under the British yoke, the garment to which the word was applied grew ever meaner and more humble. In its next incarnation therefore the banyan was reborn as the standard article of wear for the lowliest of workmen: thus does the Admiral describe it as "a sailor's coloured tunic". In this form, too, the garment was still a stranger to India: it was the lascar, undoubtedly, who was responsible for introducing it into his native land. It was he, too, who was responsible for snipping off the arms it possessed in its European avatar. In clothing, as in language and food, the lascar is thus revealed to be the pioneer in all things "Indian". No morning passes when I do not think of this as I slip my hands through those familiar armholes; nor does the notion fail to bring to my nostrils a faint tang of the sea.'
+banyan-/banian-day: See banyan.
+banyan-fight (*The Glossary): 'A tongue-tempest', as recorded by Sir Henry, 'that "never rises to blows or bloodshed" (Ocington, 1690)'.
+banyan-tree: See banyan.
+barbican: 'A sewer- or water-pipe,' as Sir Henry correctly notes, 'that leads back to the Bab-Khana of Kanpur'.
bargeer (*The Glossary): 'It is my conviction that this derivative of the marathi word for "soldier" made its way into The Glossary not through the battlefield but the nursery, being employed, as it was in Bengali, to strike terror into the hearts of budzat butchas.'
bas! (*Roebuck): The Lieutenant glosses this as the Laskari equivalent of the English 'avast', but Neel believed it to be a sibling rather than a synonym, both being derived, in his view, from the Arabic bass, 'enough'.
+ bawhawder / bahaudur / bahadur: 'This once sought-after Mughal title, meaning literally "brave", took on a derisive undertone in English. Sir Henry is right in noting that it came to "denote a haughty or pompous personage, exercising his brief authority with a strong sense of his own importance". Curiously, no taint of the derisive attached to this term where it would have been most apt – that is, in its application to the East India Company, which was known in Hind. as Company Bawhawder'.
+bayadère: 'Those who believe that Portuguese was a language of the decks and had little to contribute to the bedroom would do well to note that bayadère is not a French but of Portuguese derivation (from bailadera – "dancing girl").' This was the euphemism that BeeBees used to speak of the women their husbands referred to as buy-em-dears – a motley collection of cunchunees, debbies, dashies, pootlies, rawnees, Rum-johnnies and nautch-girls. Curiously, the word "mistress", which has a close Hind. cognate (by way of the Portuguese mestre) was never used in its English sense, it being considered quite unusual for a man to share his bed with his mistri'.
+BeeBee/bibi: 'Why this word prevailed over its twin, begum, in being applied to the more eminent white wives of Calcutta, remains unexplained. In recent times, it has fallen out of favour and is now applied ironically to European women of low rank: this happened because there came a time when the great BeeBees began to insist on being called ma'am-sahibs. Their employees shortened the prefix to "mem-" (and occasionally, in the case of the most bawhawder of the tribe, to "man-")'.
begaree (*Roebuck): 'So, according to Lt. Roebuck, were the lascars accustomed to speak of those of their number who had been shanghaiied or impressed into service. Could it be that the word is a curious crossing of the English "beggar" and the Bengali bhikari (of the same meaning) and the Hind. bekari, "unemployed"?'
+begum: See BeeBee.
beparee (*The Glossary): Neel believed that this Hind. word for 'trader', like seth, had found its way into English because the extraordinary proliferation of the meanings of banyan had rendered the word unusable in its originary sense.
beteechoot (*The Glossary): For the import of this expression see banchoot/barnshoot, but bearing in mind that it substitutes betee, daughter, for bahin, sister. 'Sir Henry illustrates his definition of this term with some extremely apt quotations, among them the following: "1638: L'on nous monstra à une demy lieue de la ville un sepulchre, qu'ils apellentBety-chuit, c'est à dire la vergogne de la fille decouverte" [Mandelsle, Paris, 1659].'
bhandari (*Roebuck): 'This is the name that lascars use for cooks or storekeepers. I imagine that it may well be their word for "quartermaster" as well'. This sentence is taken from the most unusual of Neel's notes – a set of jottings scribbled on the verso side of few playing cards. From the tiny handwriting, no less than the liberal splashes of seawater, it would appear that these notes were compiled in the course of a voyage on which paper was not easily obtained. Within the family these notes are known as the Jack-Chits, after the first of the cards to be found (a knave of clubs). Generally speaking the chits are Neel's earliest attempt to make sense of the shipboard dialect of the lascars: at the time of their writing he does not appear to have known of the existence of the Laskari Dictionary, but on acquiring a copy of Roebuck's lexicon, he immediately acknowledged the superiority of that great lexicographer's work and discontinued his own attempts to decode this dialect, which were undeniably of an unscientific and anecdotal nature. The chits are not wholly without interest, however; for example, this excerpt from the eight and nine of spades: 'To set sail is to find oneself foundering not just in a new element, but also in an unknown ocean of words. When one listens to the speech of sailors, no matter whether they be speaking English or Hind. one is always at sea: not for nothing is the English argot of sail known as a "sea-language", for it has long slipped its moorings from the English one learns in books. The same could be said of the ties that bind the tongues of Hind. to the jargon of the lascars: why, just the other day, we heard the tindals of our ship racing about on deck, shouting in the greatest agitation – hathee-soond! hatheesoond! That an "elephant's trunk" had been sighted at sea seemed miraculous to all present and we went hurrying up to bear witness to this extraordinary visitation – but only to be disappointed, for the excitement of our lascar friends was occasioned by nothing more miraculous than a distant column of water, raised by a whirlwind. Evidently this phenomenon, known in English as a "water-spout", has in their eyes the appearance of an elephant's trunk. Nor was this the only time that day that I was to be deceived by the fancifulness of their usages. Later, while taking the air near the stern, I heard a lascar imploring another to puckrow his nar. I confess I was startled: for although it is no uncommon thing to hear a lascar speaking casually of the appendage of masculinity, it is unusual nonetheless to hear them referring to that organ in such high Sanskritic language. My surprise must have caused me to betray my presence, for they looked at me and began to laugh. Do you know what we are speaking of? one of them said to me. Placed on my mettle, I replied in a fashion that I thought would amply demonstrate my ship-learning. Why indeed I do know what you are speaking of, I said: it is the thing that is known as a "jewel-block" in English. At this they laughed even harder and said no, a jewel-block was a dasturhanja in Laskari, while the thing they had been speaking of was a rudder-bolt known to the Angrez as a "pintle". I was tempted to inform them that the great William Shakespeare himself had used that word -pintle – in exactly the same sense as our Hind. nar. On consideration, however, I thought it best to refrain from divulging this piece of information. My shoke for the words of the greatest of dramatists had already gained for me the reputation of being an incorrigible "Spout-Billy", and offensive as this sobriquet was, I could not help reflecting that to be known as a "Billy-Soond" would be worse still'.