From India With Love

Did you get up this morning wearing your pyjamas, do some yoga in the verandah of your Bungalow and then shower & shampoo your hair?

Well even if you didn’t do all of this, you would know that all of these highlighted words, that we often use in the English language today, came from India. What you might not know, however, is the fact that these and 2000 other Indian words were introduced to the world through the quaint-sounding ‘Hobson-Jobson’ dictionary. Published in 1886, the odd name of the dictionary itself was inspired by the Arabic chant ‘Ya Hasan! Ya Hosain’! Intriguing as it is, the story of how the dictionary came about is also fascinating.