When it comes to the dictionary,It is good to remember history. The year English begun makingIts way into Oxford’s first edition,The rani of Jhansi went to warTo stall the Company’s expedition,She fought for her people, whileThe Company knew annexation. Words clashed like swords, theyFell like bodies bathed in blood.Ghalib cursed the country’s fate,Of lives dragged through the mud.The war of tongues was won, byVictorian English with a gun. We became a colony of bees, ourQueen lived across the seas.It took time for the British to learnWe were already a civilisation.Also read: Poem: Statue of Unity [Thus Spake Sardar Patel]Vidyasagar, once denied entry forA banquet, in dhoti-kurta, cameBack accordingly, to feed his suit. It took time for the churidars, andThe pyjamas, to enter the worldOf civility accorded to jute. Did the cummerbund’s entryInto the Oxford dictionary,Improve the status of workers?Or were the sahibs smoking theCheroot in bungalows, happyPlaying the role of precursors?Did the choice of the word ‘loot’Include the trillions that wereDrained away to British pastures?Or does civilised irony of colonialCrimes fall shy of such gestures?Neither a raja nor a mogul, not theMost detestable mantri, yaar, canMatch the thuggery of British Sarkar.Also read: Hanuman, the Ninth Author of GrammarThe lessons of Kipling’s Jungle Book,Where Mowgli defeats Shere Khan,(Wonder if he’s a Bengali Tipu Sultan?),Offers, unlike Orwell’s Animal Farm(Where he predicts a communist Czar)A justification of the Empire, facingThe bunch of brown, lawless langurs,And remember Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, theProtective mongoose, saving EnglishSkins from fear of the Naga, till theirBodies opened their eyes to orientalCharms and learnt the benefits of yoga. Kubera, the treasurer of Hindu gods,Also had a mongoose, that stole gemsFrom the snakes, and spat them out.Our mongoose is your golden goose. There is no nirvana, if the ego is fixedOn the maya of wealth, no mantraCan help cure such greed, no shawl hide,No guru help you heed. We liveAnd die by our karma alone, if youBelieve the Buddha, not a wily pundit,You may escape history and the mythOf origins: English or Sanskrit.§The 70 words:Bandana; Bangle; Churidar; Cummerbund; Pashmina; Pyjamas; Shawl; Chit; Gymkhana; Khaki; Palanquin; Polo; Pukka; Tiffin; Bungalow; Chintz; Cot; Lacquer; Shampoo; Tank; Veranda; Blighty; Calico; Cashmere; Doolally; Dungarees; Jodhpurs; Jungle; Mandarin; Mogul; Pundit; Purdah; Swami; Thug; Yaar; Avatar; Dharma; Guru; Karma; Mantra; Nirvana; Yoga; Atoll; Catamaran; Cowrie; Dinghy; Godown; Gunny; Jute; Cheetah; Langur; Lilac; Mongoose; Myna; Patchouli; Teak; Cheroot; Choky; Coir; Cushy; Loot; Punch; Roti.Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee is a poet, writer and political science scholar. His book, Looking for the Nation (Speaking Tiger Books, 2018) has been published recently.