Word: hindi
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This is the little cigarette that could: it came, it saw, it conquered. The trendiest smoke on college campuses these days emanates from Indian imports called beedies (from the Hindi bidi). About half the diameter of regular cigarettes and hand rolled in tendu (Indian ebony leaves), they look slightly like microcigars. Beedies, however, pack a much more powerful punch: up to 8% nicotine, versus the 1% to 2% in American cigarettes. The imports are composed of a species of tobacco different from that most commonly used by U.S. manufacturers. They also come in flavors: clove, menthol and even strawberry. Popular...
Charlie stared at me for a long time. Finally, he said, "Right. And that's Hindi for, 'I knew I should have gotten these shorts in an extra large.'" Then he started to cackle. After that conversation, his standard greeting to me became, "Kabaddikabaddikabaddi, and a very Happy New Year...
Actually, the word kabaddi is derived from a Hindi word that means "holding breath"--the point of the chant being that the raider has to accomplish his mission in one breath. I learned that only last month from an article by an English writer named John Hargreaves in Hemispheres, the United Airlines magazine. Although the word kabaddi is used for the chant in most of the world, Hargreaves wrote, "in Nepal this is 'Do-Do,' in Sri Lanka 'Guddo,' in Malaysia 'Chaddo-Guddo,' and in Indonesia 'Techib.'" Imagine appearing before the Olympic committee to argue acceptance for a game...
...teachers in the United Arab Emirates are hounded by health officials to quit the habit outright. In India, which has the world's highest incidence of oral cancer (largely due to tobacco chewing and the popularity of smoking beedis, a rolled leaf filled with tobacco), the smoking characters in Hindi films and soap operas are almost always bad guys. Cigarette ads have been banned from television in most countries and from the print media in many. Even in South America, where antismoking zeal has yet to catch fire, Colombia and Brazil restrict TV ads for cigarettes to "adult" viewing hours...
...Hindi singers, poets, dancers, musicians, and other artists gathered yesterday in the Adams Common room to raise money to help South Asian children...