The Sleeping Dictionary

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  This book is for my father

  Subir Kumar Banerjee

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE)

  Pom, Sarah, Pamela, Kamala: a peasant girl called by many names

  Rhumi and Jhumi: Pom’s young twin sisters

  Dadu and Thakurma: Pom’s paternal grandfather and grandmother

  Baba and Ma: Pom’s father and mother

  Bhai: Pom’s newborn baby brother

  Jamidar Pratap Mukherjee: major landholder in Southeast Bengal. The jamidarni is his wife. His daughter is named Bidushi.

  Dr. Andrews: Scottish physician at the Keshiari Mission Hospital

  Nurse Das: nurse at the Keshiari Mission Hospital

  Nurse Gopal: nurse at the Keshiari Mission Hospital

  Rowena Jamison: British headmistress at Lockwood School

  Abbas: Muslim driver for Lockwood School. His wife is Hafeeza.

  Miss Rachael: Indian-Christian head of housekeeping for Lockwood School

  Jyoti-ma: a sweeper at Lockwood School

  Claire Richmond: British literature teacher at Lockwood School

  Pankaj Bandopadhyay: Calcutta lawyer and Bidushi’s fiancé

  Nurse-matron: nurse at Lockwood School

  Rose Barker, also known as Mummy: Anglo-Indian proprietress of Rose Villa, Kharagpur

  Mummy’s Roses: Bonnie, Lakshmi (also known as Lucky), Natty, Doris, Shila, Sakina

  Chief Bobby Howard: senior police official in Kharagpur

  Dr. DeCruz: physician

  David Abernathy, also known as the Taster: acting chief of Hijli Detention Camp

  Bernie Mulkins: Australian photographer

  Jayshree and Tilak: brothel owners

  Lina: oldest nonworking child at the brothel

  Kabita, also known as Hazel and Zeenat: an Anglo-Indian foundling

  Simon Lewes: Indian Civil Service officer, political sector

  Mr. Lewes’s staff: Shombhu, chief bearer; Manik, cook; Choton, cook’s assistant; Jatin, assistant bearer; Promod, gardener; Farouk, chauffeur, later replaced by Sarjit and then Ahmed

  Wilbur Weatherington: Mr. Lewes’s ICS colleague

  Supriya Sen: Bethune College student; her younger sister is Sonali and younger brother is Nishan. Her parents, Mr. Sen and Mrs. Sen, also known as Mashima, own Sen Bookbindery and Publishing on College Street.

  Supriyas’s friends: Ruksana Ali, a Muslim student from Calcutta, and Lata Menon, a Hindu student from Travancore and leader of the Chhatri Sangha student activist group

  Arvind Israni: friend of Pankaj and a political activist

  Bijoy Ganguly: friend of Pankaj and a political activist

  Reverend John McRae: Scottish Presbyterian minister

  Historical Figures Who Appear in The Sleeping Dictionary

  Sarat Bose: Bengal Congress Party leader and elder brother to Subhas, from a prominent Bengali Hindu family of lawyers and activists

  Subhas Chandra Bose, also known as Netaji: a former mayor of Calcutta, two-time Congress Party president, founder of Forward Bloc party, and commander in chief of Azad Hind Fauj government and Indian National Army

  British governors of Bengal: Sir John Arthur Herbert, a conservative who served from 1939 until his death in 1943; Richard Gardiner Casey, an Australian appointed for 1944–46; replaced by Sir Frederick Burrows, the final British governor of Bengal, 1946–47, who did not favor partition.

  British viceroys of India: Lord Victor Hope Linlithgow (the 2nd Marquess of Linlithgow) 1936–1943, a hard-liner against Indian independence; served the longest tenure of any viceroy in the Raj. Succeeded by Lord Wavell (Earl Archibald Wavell) 1943–47, who favored independence but was opposed by British prime ministers Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee. The last viceroy was Lord Louis Mountbatten, appointed in 1947 to oversee the transition to independence. Lord Mountbatten served as the first and only governor-general of the Independent Union of India (1947–48).

  Mohandas Gandhi: Hindu lawyer turned activist, who is better known abroad as Mahatma Gandhi and by Indian followers as Gandhiji. He was the founder of India’s best-known resistance movement based on nonviolent protest. Married to Kasturba.

  Sir Khawaja Nazimuddin: Muslim politician appointed as education, home, and chief minister of Bengal during British rule. He was also a former Muslim League head for East India and eventually because a prime minister of Pakistan.

  Jawaharlal Nehru: Hindu lawyer and politician also known as Panditji; left-wing Congress Party leader mentored by Mahatma Gandhi, eventually elected first prime minister of the Republic of India.

  Husseyn Suhrawardy: Muslim lawyer and politician who served as minister of labor and minister of civil supplies under Nazimuddin. During 1946, he was head of Bengal’s Muslim League party. He has been accused by some of inciting rioting on Direct Action Day, while others credit him with persuading the British government to bring army troops back to the city to put down the violence. Suhrawardy later became a president of Pakistan.

  Rabindranath Tagore: world-famous Bengali poet, novelist, playwright, artist, and musician, 1861–1941. Tagore, known by his admirers as Gurudeb, was the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize. A longtime independence activist, he repudiated his British knighthood in 1919 as a statement of his desire for Indian freedom.

  HINDI/BENGALI/ENGLISH GLOSSARY

  I have used regional Indian and British spellings whenever possible, especially of the time and place.

  aadab—a polite greeting made to and by Muslims

  aey—an exclamation, like “hey”

  almirah—a freestanding cabinet that locks

  alpana—colored rice flour designs used to brighten a doorstep to welcome guests

  Ananda Bazar Patrika—Bengali-language newspaper owned by same Indian publishing company as Amrita Bazar Patrika, an English-language paper

  Anglo-Indian—a term that refers to persons with mixed Indian and British ancestry, and also to the British living long-term in India

  anna—a small change coin; at the time of the story, four paise made up one anna, and sixteen annas made one rupee.

  ayah—a female household servant to children or adults

  baba—term to address one’s father

  babu—a gentleman or professional

  Baidya—Bengali Hindu caste of doctors prescribing Indian medicine, the second highest caste in the province

  baksheesh—a tip or bribe

  bearer—a head male servant; similar to a butler

  bed tea—the first cup of tea of the day, usually served in the bedroom

  Bengali—also known as Bangla, the language widely spoken by people of the northeastern state the British named Bengal. Also, a person from this region is called a Bengali.

  beti—Hindi word for daughter

  bhadralok—Bengal’s upper and educated class, composed of Brahmin, Baidya, and Kayastha castes; people born from the top of Brahma’s body

  bhai—brother or male friend

  bhisti—a water-carrying servant

  boudi—term for eldest brother’s wife

  Brahma—the creator in Hindu theology

  Brahmin—the top priestly caste in Hinduism, believed to have sprung from Brahma’s head

  bungalow—an expansive house favored by British residents, often two-story

  burka—a long one-piece black cover-up worn by some Muslim w
omen

  burra-saheb—big boss; female version is burra-memsaheb. (In parts of India outside of Bengal, saheb is spelled sahib.)

  bustee—slum neighborhood

  cabin—small, casual tea- or beer-drinking place

  Calcutta—West Bengal’s capital city, which, until the building of New Delhi in 1911, was known as the crown city of the British Empire and the administrative capital of British India. Now it is known by the Bengali name Kolkata.

  caste—a social level that a Hindu is born into; Brahmins at the top and Untouchables or Harjians at the bottom

  chacha—a term for an uncle or respected close elder, used by younger people toward Muslim elders; a chacha’s wife is a chachi.

  chai—tea. A chai-wallah is a tea-vendor.

  channa dal—dried chickpeas

  chapatti—unleavened round bread

  chappals—sandals

  Chhattri Sangha—a women’s students association founded in Calcutta

  cholar dal—Bengali split chickpea dal flavored with coconut and sugar

  chowkidar—a watchman; similar to a darwan but more likely to be employed by an office or business

  coolie—a boy or man who carries things; still commonly used at train stations

  dacoit—bandit usually operating in the countryside

  dada—warm form of address meaning older brother. Also, a first name plus the -da suffix means the same thing.

  dadu—paternal grandfather

  dai—a midwife

  dal—lentils cooked into a thick soup

  Darjeeling—hill town in Bengal’s North, near foothills of the Himalayas; also a type of tea

  darwan—a watchman; similar to chowkidar but usually employed by families to guard their homes

  darzi—tailor

  dharma—moral law combined with spiritual discipline specific to one’s life

  didi—big sister; used literally or for close female friend

  Digha—a seaside town in South Bengal, near Orissa

  dhobi—a washerman

  dhoti—a length of cloth that primarily North Indian men wrap and drape to cover their hips and legs

  Dom—a low-ranking caste whose exclusive duties are the handling and disposal of corpses

  dhonekhali—regional Bengali cotton textile, especially known for stripes and checks

  Durga—the much-loved warrior goddess who is worshipped in Bengal in a weeklong puja followed by Diwali (Kali-puja in Bengal)

  ghat—area of river close to shore that is used for bathing, washing clothes, and drawing drinking water

  ghee—clarified butter used in cooking

  goonda—like a dacoit but more likely to be organized criminals operating in cities

  hartal—a work stoppage or strike

  Hindi—most widely understood language in North India, in the past referred to as Hindustani. Its roots are a combination of the Sanskrit and Urdu languages

  ICS—Indian Civil Service; an elite corps of administrators usually born and trained in Britain

  imam—religious leader in Islam

  INA—Indian National Army; an Indian-led force built from Japanese prisoners of war during World War II who fought alongside the Japanese in the hopes of gaining India’s freedom from Britain.

  Indian Army—the military force serving under the British rulers of India that, by World War II, included Indian as well as British commanding officers.

  Ingrej—an English person or people

  Jagannath—a reincarnated form of Shiva, god of destruction. The most famous Jagannath temple in India is in the state of Orissa.

  jamdani—a type of Bengal handloomed sari known for gossamer weave and fine embroidery. There are many kinds of jamdani saris including a dhakai, from the Dhaka area of East Bengal, extremely fine and chosen for parties and special occasions.

  jamidar—landowner. His wife is a jamidarni. In other parts of India, he would be called a zamindar.

  jao—command to go

  jelebi—fried lentil flour sweet

  Kali—fierce goddess who is very popular in Bengal

  Kayastha—the record-keeping caste of Hindus, usually judged third highest in Bengal

  khadi—homespun cotton cloth made famous from Mahatma Gandhi’s home-spinning campaign

  Kharagpur—a railway-dominated town in south-central West Bengal (called Khargpur by Europeans)

  Krishna—Hindu god of love, also the charioteer of Arjun in Mahabharata

  kedgeree—a mixture of rice, dal, and spices often served at Anglo-Indian breakfasts

  kurta—a pajama tunic with drawstring waist trousers; worn in the past primarily by Muslim men

  Lakshmi—Hindu goddess of wealth and abundance

  lathi—stick weapon

  luchi—puffed fried wheat bread

  ma—a term to address one’s mother or a very young girl

  mali—a gardener

  mashima—aunt, especially a senior aunt, also children’s nurse; means mother’s sister or very senior female servant (can be shortened to mashi)

  masho—a mashima’s husband, a warm form of address for older men

  maund—an equivalent of 82.6 pounds, often used to describe weight of a large sack of rice

  memsaheb—a term of address for a gentlewoman. (In parts of India outside of Bengal, saheb is spelled sahib.)

  mishti doi—baked yogurt pudding

  Murshidabad—a town in Bengal known for producing natural tussar silk saris with broad red borders favored by middle-aged, married women

  namaskar—the Bengali version of the namaste greeting; said aloud and signified by folded hands

  Napit—the barbering and nail-clipping caste

  nawab—royal ruler, also called a maharajah in other areas

  neem—tree with fragrant soft twigs used for cleaning teeth

  paan—betel leaves that are wrapped around a filling and chewed after meals to freshen breath and serve as a psychoactive stimulant

  paisa—one-penny coin. At the time of the story, four paise to one anna, sixty-four paise to a rupee.

  pakora—spicy, savory fried snack

  pallu—end section of sari that hangs over the shoulder or covers hair

  pandit—Hindu priest; also a respectful prefix used for great leaders, such as Pandit Nehru

  papadum—chickpea flour cracker bread

  Parsi—a follower of Zoroastrian faith, refugees from Islamic Iran

  phuchka—a street-food snack, miniature puffed breads stuffed with spiced vegetables

  phuluri—Bengali vegetable fritters. Elsewhere they are called pakoras

  pillau—a Bengali rice dish with Persian roots

  puja—the act of worship, or religious holiday

  punkah—ceiling fan

  purdah—the custom of keeping women indoors away from others’ gaze, practiced by Muslims and some Hindus

  quisling—a World War II–era word for traitor; inspired by the surname of the Norwegian official who assisted the Nazis in Norway

  rickshaw—a two-wheeled cart that is pulled by a human running or riding a bicycle

  rupee—the Indian unit of currency. During the time period of the book, forty rupees equaled one US dollar.

  saheb—a term of address for a gentleman, high-ranking Indian or English

  salwar kameez—a long tunic with drawstring waist trousers worn primarily by Muslim women at the time of this story. Later on, this dress was adopted by Indian women of other religions.

  sari—a wrapped eight-yard-length of cloth that is a traditional Indian woman’s dress

  shingara—a Bengali vegetable- or meat-stuffed pastry similar to a samosa

  Shiva—the god of destruction, husband to Durga

  shondesh—a Bengali milk-based sweet

  Sikh—a follower of Sikhism, India’s third major religion

  sleeping dictionary—the metaphor used by the Dutch and British colonialists to describe girlfriends who also taught them languages and customs

&nbs
p; Sudra—a person belonging to one of the lower castes believed to have sprung from Lord Brahma’s legs

  sweeper—a person from the caste of floor washers, toilet cleaners, and night-soil removers

  tiffin—packed lunch eaten away from home, served from a tiffin box, a circular set of stacked tins with a carrying handle

  tika—pigmented substance applied to forehead as symbol of Hindu blessing, usually red vermillion powder

  Thakurma—paternal grandmother

  tonga—a horse-drawn two-wheeled carriage with a shaded seat for passengers behind the driver’s platform

  topee or sola sopee—hard-brimmed pith helmet

  Urdu—language spoken by Muslims in South Asia with ties to the Persian language

  Vedas—the four religious texts of Hinduism

  Vishnu—Hindu god of protection

  wallah—a person who sells something, like a newspaper-wallah, corn-wallah, etc.

  wog—disparaging term used by colonials to refer to Asians, especially those suspected of intellectual or social ambitions

  zari—gold thread embroidery for a textile

  FRAGMENT OF A LETTER FOUND BY THE ARJUN CLEANING AGENCY IN 1947 AT 22 MIDDLETON STREET

  Middleton Street, Calcutta

  . . . concerning a long-running rumor that I know to be fact: your hiring of a native female as your assistant. Several colleagues have already called into question her background. The young lady may speak four languages; that is not unusual in this land of polyglots. As Mr. Pal has explained, it is highly unlikely that any upper-caste Indian would permit his daughter to work. Another on staff has ascertained that the boarding school from which your assistant claims to have matriculated does not have any record of past enrollment.

  The women of Calcutta are alluring. It is easy for a man to lose his head. I recommend that you terminate this employee if, in fact, she has been hired for pay. And . . .

  BOOK ONE

  JOHLPUR

  Spring and Summer 1930

  Thunderous clouds loom in the sky

  It’s the middle of monsoon,

  I wait anxiously on the riverbank