|
|
Posted by David Bradbury on January 10, 19103 at 14:30:15:
A few posts on this site have mentioned that there are a few Indian expressions in this book that they don't understand. I spent three months living on a farm in northern India and I picked up enough of the language and culture that helped meunderstand more of this wonderful book. Here are a few points:
'ji' is a Hindu (and Sikh) affixation expressing respect. 'Ministerji' means 'respected minister' more or less. It can be appended to many words, and it is a polite way to address people of 'a higher station'. Many Indians call their uncle 'uncleji' and so on. I suspect the family name 'Chatterji' in the book is a joke.
'Namaste' is the Hindu gesture where the palms are pressed together (as if praying in the Christian tradition). To 'give namaste' is to press the palms together and say 'namaste'. It is a way of repectfully greeting older or respected people.
A 'gurudwara' (spellings vary) is a Sikh temple. Anybody who comes to a temple is given food. Anyone. It is a direct way of helping poor people. However, if food is placed on your plate (even if it is for the second time) you should eat it all. It is not polite to leave food uneaten. To say that someone should, or has to, eat at a gurudwara implies they cannot afford to feed themselves.
Please feel free to reply to this e-mail if there are any other puzzling words or expressions in this book. I don't know it all, but I'll help if I can.
By the way, if you enjoyed 'A Suitable Boy', try reading 'Midnight's Children' by Salman Rushdie. It is also set in India and happens to cover ther same era as Seth's book. For a more factual account of India's independence, I recommend Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre's 'Freedom at Midnight'. In fact, try reading that before 'Midnight's Children'.
In my experience, there are two kinds of people who have been to India: those that loved it and those that hated it. Go!
Jai Hind!
David Bradbury