Mol-tol. Bargaining, haggling, valuation, concession, in the Rekhta dictionary.
Mol-bhaav. To bargain, to make a bargain. Rekhta’s Hindi definition adds the talk that settles a deal and the fixing of a price.
Five Villages
In the Udyoga Parva of the Mahabharata, the Pandavas send word that they will settle for five villages instead of their kingdom. Pancha nas tata diyantam grama. Give us five villages. They name Kushasthala, Vrikasthala, Asandi and Varanavata, and leave the fifth open.
Duryodhana refuses even five villages. The war follows.
The One Who Left the Battlefield
In Dakor, Gujarat, Krishna is worshipped as Ranchhodrai. Ranchhod means “he who has fled from the battlefield.” Krishna earned the name by a strategic retreat. He withdrew from Mathura and moved to Dwarka.
According to tradition, the Ranchhodraiji Temple in Dakor holds the original image from the Dwarkadhish Temple in Dwarka.
The Monkey’s Heart
The fourth book of the Panchatantra opens with a monkey and a crocodile. The monkey gives the crocodile figs. The crocodile’s wife enjoys them and wants to eat the monkey’s heart.
The monkey saves himself with an excuse. He says that he has left his heart behind in his tree.
Make It Shorter
In a story in Marigold, the NCERT English textbook for Class 2, Akbar draws a line and tells his courtiers: “Make this line shorter, but don’t rub out any part of it.” “Birbal drew a longer line under the first one.”
Cash on Delivery
In July 2010 Business Standard reported that the founders of Flipkart had decided to offer cash on delivery. Co-founder Sachin Bansal explained why: “Retail spending leans heavily towards cash, and in India the online payment systems are not very mature.”
Except with the Lowest Bidder
In 1998 India’s Central Vigilance Commission banned post-tender negotiations in government purchasing “except with L.1.ie., the lowest tenderer.”
In March 2007 it narrowed the rule: “there should be no post-tender negotiations with L-1, except in certain exceptional situations.” The exceptions include proprietary items, items from limited sources and suspected cartels. The reasons must be recorded.
Jugaad
In rural Punjab, a jugaad is a vehicle built from what is at hand. One kind bolts a farm trailer to a diesel engine of the kind that drives water pumps. Another, in Moga, fixes a 10 horsepower irrigation pump engine to the front of a wooden cart. It carries about 40 people.
The word means a workaround. In 2017 the Oxford English Dictionary added it: “A flexible approach to problem-solving that uses limited resources in an innovative way.”
The Vocabulary of Making Do
Chalta hai. It goes. It will do. Said of a half-baked solution that is accepted anyway.
Chaltaa kaam. A makeshift or temporary arrangement, according to the Rekhta dictionary.
Zara add-just karo. Adjust a little. A columnist in The Week described the habit of adjusting as “our accommodative spirit towards a less-than-perfect solution.”