“Last price kya hai, bhaiya?” What is the last price, brother? The Indian news site The Quint lists the question among the things every Indian says to a shopkeeper. Its caption sums up the scene: “Indians = BARGAINING!”
The Fixed Fare
Auto-rickshaw meter fares in Bengaluru are fixed by the government. In June 2025 Karnataka’s transport minister, Ramalinga Reddy, ordered action against autos that “charge fares above the government-fixed rates.” His department had already “registered cases against auto drivers for refusing rides and demanding excess fares.” He wrote that “the permit of such autos should be cancelled and a case should be registered.”
Leave Her Beyond the Kingdom
In the Uttara Kanda of the Valmiki Ramayana, Rama gives his younger brother Lakshmana an order. “To-morrow, at dawn, O Saumitri, take my chariot with Sumantra as your charioteer,” and, “causing Sita to ascend it, leave her beyond the confines of the kingdom.”
Lakshmana answers tatha iti, so be it, and drives off ramasyajnam anusmaran, remembering Rama’s command. When he returns, he reports: “In accord with your command, O Lord, I left the daughter of Janaka on the banks of the Ganges.”
Speaking Up
In 2018 Subhakaran and Dyaram published a study of upward voice, employees speaking up to their managers. It drew on “data from 575 employees representing various technology firms in India.” The authors reported: “Results indicate coworkers upward voice and manager pro-voice behavior to significantly impact employee upward voice.”
My Word Is Law
Naa maate shasanam. My word is law. In the Telugu films Baahubali: The Beginning (2015) and Baahubali: The Conclusion (2017), this is the creed of the queen mother Sivagami. The Hindi version is Mera vachan hi hai shashan.
Credit and Good Name
Saakh. In the Rekhta dictionary: reputation, repute, goodwill, credit.
Izzat. Honor, respect, esteem, dignity, reputation, good name.
Naam paida karna. To create a name. In the dictionary’s Hindi definition, to gain renown and become famous.
The Hundi
“The most important class of credit Instruments that evolved in India were termed Hundis,” the Reserve Bank of India writes in its history of payment systems. One kind, the sah-jog hundi, was “payable only to a Sah or to his order.”
The RBI explains who that was. “A Sah was a respectable and responsible person, a man of worth and substance who was known in the market.”
Social Boycott
In April 2016 the Maharashtra Assembly passed a bill against social boycott. The law, enacted in 2017, is “An Act to provide for the prohibition of social boycott of a person or group of persons including their family members.” Scroll reported that Maharashtra was “set to become the first state in the country to criminalise social boycott.”
Caste councils impose such boycotts. In Rajasthan, the practice is “commonly referred to in local parlance as hukka-pani band or haath band,” the end of sharing a hookah and water.
Photographs in the Newspaper
In March 2013 Business Today reported that “banks have decided to publish in newspapers photographs and details like names and addresses of wilful loan defaulters.” The State Bank of India acted first, with notices on five defaulters in Delhi.
Trust Is Everything
Kalyan Jewellers advertises under the slogan Trust Is Everything. In February 2021 it released “the 6th edition of its #TrustIsEverything campaign.” “Kalyan’s national brand ambassador Amitabh Bachchan digitally launched the film on social media.”