Just the other day a much-respected senior journalist noted in his column that the word bandobust was a useful addition to the English lexicon.  It has been estimated that more than a thousand words of Indian origin are now part of British English.

Leaving aside words like dharma, atma, moksha, which all derive from Indian philosophy — they can’t be really called contributions to English — we have words like prepone, uncle, aunt (the last two in a generalised sense where any male not actually related to the speaker but is a friend, (even acquaintance) is an uncle and any woman in a similar situation is an aunt) which are truly either useful coinages (prepone) or semantic extensions of existing English words.

Bandobust doesn’t fall into either of these categories.  Like ahimsa, dharma, it is a word of Indian origin transplanted into our variety of English (IE).

I have noted in my book, Current English, OUP, 2003, that certain coinages by IE speakers reflecting the realities of our socio-cultural situation — the creamy layer, hunger strike, relay fast, glass struggle — are real contributions to IE. To this category belongs a coinage made the other day by the Chief Minister of Karnataka.

The Minister is reported to have said: ‘I am a lottery Chief Minister, even as my father was a lottery Prime Minister.’

If you win money in a lottery, it is just a matter of luck. It happens you had the right ticket/number. It doesn’t signify any special merit or qualification. In the political arena, too, it might happen, as it happened in the case of Mr Kumaraswamy and his father, that the conjunction of circumstances was such that they got elevated to those high offices.

The reader will surely extend the attribute ‘lottery’ to another high, very high, dignitary. I refrain from mentioning it for obvious reasons.

The force of circumstances that made somebody Chief Minister or Prime Minister is not confined to India.  It may manifest itself in other countries also. Standard English has no word to describe the incumbent of such an office in those countries.

Well, IE has come out with the required expression. It may or may not be accepted in other English speaking countries. Most likely it will not be accepted. But that should not prevent us from using the word. It is a contribution to IE and the credit should go to Mr Kumaraswamy.

Going back to the question of Indian English, it may be useful to note that

1. there are words of Indian origin which are listed in British English dictionaries but are not coinages but transplantations or adaptations (ahimsa, dharma,etc,); 2.Words like bungalow, veranda, compound which again are not coinages but words in use in India that have entered the English lexicon; 3 aunt, uncle, cousin brother

which are Indian adaptations of English words found in Standard English (British); 4. Coinages like creamy layer, Lakshman rehka, which are coinages in IE but not yet recognised in Standard English; 5. Prepone the only true Indian coinage now entered in British English dictionaries. (It is not clear whether it is actually used in British English.) Lottery CUM falls under group 4.  Whether used in Standard English or not, it will become a part of Indian English.

I have always maintained that ‘Standard Indian English’ will (or should?) differ from Standard British English only in its lexicon, not syntax. A well-educated Indian speaker of English will not hesitate to use either creamy layer or Lakshman rehka.  But he will be red in the face if, inadvertently, he should say: ‘He speaks good English, isn’t it?’

at loggerheads

To be at loggerheads means ‘to be engaged in a (violent) quarrel’. Sisters-in-law are usually at loggerheads with each other. In a popular Hindi serial a mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law were frequently seen at loggerheads with each other.  The phrase is normally found in connection with individuals. The councilmen were at loggerheads with each other. We don’t hear of nations being at loggerheads with each other.

The expression, it appears, has a literal and brutal origin.  In medieval naval battles sailors bashed each other with deadly weapons called ‘loggerheads’. These were solid iron balls with long handles. The balls would be heated and then used to melt tar or pitch. The boiling pitch/ tar would be flung at the enemy.  When the pitch/tar was all used up, the sailors would swing the iron balls and attack the enemy.

The writer can be contacted at ksyadurajan@yahoo.com