Thursday 31 March 2016

Indian slang

Today I was dealing with a matter at work when I came across the Indian term of a 'Lakh' or in my case 6 Lakh.

I had no idea which currency Lakh related to or if indeed it was a currency at all. I am reasonably good on these and can normally spot the difference between a Dong and Canadian Tire Currency.

A spot of research on Wikipedia (as always cross checked with other more accurate  sources) shows that a Lakh is 'usually' deemed to equate to about 100,000. It seems that in days gone by it represented the  rvalue of the maximum number of Indian 100 Rupee notes that you could fit or stuff in, wait for it..... 'a small suitcase' !

That the size of the suitcase is not stated nor why someone thought it necessary to distinguish between a small or medium sized suitcase is now immaterial and I suppose that this is the Indian equivalent of a UK 'wad' of cash.



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