Word: wallah
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Shakespeare Wallah is a wry, wistful look at what is left of the English in India. It has been nearly 20 years since the British hauled down the Union Jack and went back to their tight little island. Even so, a poverty-ridden troupe of English Shakespeare players still continues its work, bringing the Bard to the provinces. But India no longer has time for the old gentilities, and wherever the itinerant Shakespeareans try to move their goods (wallah is Hindi for peddler), they meet stiff sales resistance. Indians, like most of the rest of the world, have forsaken...
Into Politics. White neighbors complain that the "nig-nogs, wogs, wallah-wallahs and coolies" use their milk bottles for chamberpots (and then return the empties), spit in the streets, and boost the crime rate. Many local police disagree. In Manchester, says Deputy Chief Constable William J. Richards, coloreds actually commit fewer offenses in proportion to their numbers than whites, though they are more often related to dope and prostitution, and thus more likely to hit headlines. "As a police problem," says Richards, "they are no more noticeable than the Irish were 25 years...