169:, has explained the shift as follows: "The British colonial model of running businesses was on the way out as were the companies themselves. The age of the box-wallah' was over and the managerial characteristics of having a liberal arts education with a good family background and communication skills became redundant. There was a shift of focus in managerial skills towards production and operations and away from sales and marketing. The old British model was found wanting, and India turned to the US model with its emphasis on technical competence and rigorous training in the science of management."
222:
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61:
102:, Army or big business; he might even have princely connections. He has been educated at an Indian or English public school and at one of the two English universities, whose accent, through all the encircling hazards of Indian intonation, he rigidly maintains." Naipaul mentioned film personality
165:. Chatterjee, in a chapter his autobiography titled "Requiem for a Boxwallah" describes how executives like him were eventually succeeded by "Brash young men with degrees in business administration who thought that our ideas were outdated, our pace too slow." Anup Sinha, former professor at the
183:
referred to the grammatically incorrect dialect of
English spoken by boxwallahs (peddlers) in Calcutta. The article stated: "Every one of these superlative pedlars declares he is 'mem's own boxwallah', and each protests that he 'money not want – mem say her own price'." In 1891, the linguist
212:
has said of a character: "A. N. Rao, Neena's father, was a boxwallah, and one of the first Indian directors of a
British company based in Bombay. He sported an ascot and a tweed jacket; he was the sort of person who spoke Hindustani with an Oxford accent."
45:
from this period similarly defined a boxwallah as "a native itinerant peddler" who "sells cutlery, cheap nick-nacks, and small wares of all kinds, chiefly
European", as did another dictionary of slang. The word was a combination of "box" and
89:
described boxwallahs as a "select and envied group" and part of "the new Indian elite", and observed: "The box-wallah culture of
Calcutta is of a peculiar richness... This culture, though of Calcutta, is not necessarily
196:
similarly identified
Boxwallah English as a distinct form of English. Some examples of expressions in Boxwallah English given by Kachru are "I come go", "This good, fresh ten rupee", "He thief me" and "price good".
138:. However, even though referring to elite corporate professionals, the use of the term boxwallah was still considered somewhat derogatory, owing to its original colonial association with street peddlers.
84:
The term boxwallah assumed a vastly different meaning in postcolonial India. The term became associated with anglicised Indian professionals working in elite
British mercantile firms in Calcutta. Notably,
275:("Company limited") is regarded as a portrayal of a boxwallah in the elite, postcolonial sense of the term, i.e. a westernised corporate executive in Calcutta. The protagonist in the film (played by
39:
defines a boxwallah as a derogatory term referring to "an itinerant pedlar or salesman in India". In various 19th and early 20th century writings, the term was used in this sense. An edition of
21:
is a term with at least two vastly contrasting meanings: one denoting a street peddler in
British India and the other denoting an elite corporate executive, chiefly in the city of Calcutta (now
98:
can therefore properly be considered a box-wallah—your true box-wallah works only for the best
British firms." Naipaul further observed: "The Calcutta box-wallah comes of a good family,
153:
With the liberalisation of the Indian economy, the term "boxwallah" has become less common with changes in management culture. In the 1980s, Arabinda Ray, then executive director of
235:
157:
in India spoke of the need for industry to "transition from the image of a 'boxwallah'... to the modern professional manager", advocating the hiring of talent from the
984:
279:) works with a fictitious British fan manufacturing company called Hindusthan Peters. Ray himself described the film as "a definitive film about the boxwallahs".
110:
in
Calcutta, as someone who was a boxwallah. Similarly, the autobiography of Raj Chatterjee, also a former executive at Imperial Tobacco in Calcutta, is titled
436:
A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant: Embracing
English, American, and Anglo-Indian Slang, Pidgin English, Tinker's Jargon and Other Irregular Phraseology
293:
one of the characters in the film (also played by Chanda) is a corporate executive from early postcolonial Calcutta, referred to as a boxwallah in the film.
243:
258:
describes the execution of a prisoner. Afterwards one of the prison workers mentions a cigarette case he claims to have purchased from a boxwallah.
166:
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In contrast, certain elite English accents appear to have been equated with that spoken by elite postcolonial boxwallahs. For example,
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was particularly attracted by the idea of a boxwallah and the idea of a boxwallah is present in several of his short stories. In "
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130:: "names that have now virtually vanished." Other authors to use the term boxwallah in the second sense include
353:
387:
52:". According to author Ronald Vivian Smith, such boxwallahs started disappearing from the late 1940s onwards.
119:
722:
149:
are thought to have led to elite boxwallah executives from liberal arts backgrounds becoming redundant.
192:
spoken in India, association the dialect with street peddlers in "Upper India". In postcolonial India,
250:
also mentions a 'wallah' at the end of his short story, "Incident in Azania." Within the short essay "
99:
985:"Camera and action: The Soumendu Roy-Satyajit Ray teamwork that produced some of our greatest films"
208:
as possessing "a rather box-wallah version of an upper-class accent." In his novel "A Fine Family",
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185:
740:
Sinha, Anup (2017). "From Management Institutes to Business Schools: An Indian Journey".
308:
189:
131:
95:
118:
has used the expression while referring to old British companies in Calcutta, such as
1053:
300:
255:
246:", the title character makes a deathbed reference to his former life as a boxwallah.
209:
123:
86:
69:
65:
41:
689:
Merchants of the Raj: British Managing Agency Houses in Calcutta Yesterday and Today
68:
vividly described the "box-wallah culture of Calcutta". Naipaul's imagery cited the
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107:
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Puck and Pearl, the wanderings and wonderings of two English children in India
304:
283:
497:
251:
77:
635:
Being Indian: The Truth about why the Twenty-first Century Will be India's
91:
1035:
905:
Gendered Modernity and Indian Cinema: The Women in Satyajit Ray's Films
22:
242:, presumably because the protagonist bargained too hard with her. In "
48:
220:
140:
1012:
Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye: The Biography of a Master Film-Maker
791:
Pidgin and Creole Languages: Selected Essays by Hugo Schuchardt
329:"Boxwallah definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary"
238:", Kipling talks of a mistreated Burmese girl as if she were a
892:
The Complete Stories, Evelyn Waugh, Hachette Book Group, 2011
713:
Ray, Arabinda (October 1984). "After the First Generation".
372:
Towards the Land of the Rising Sun: Or Four Years in Burma
72:
business district (pictured) and British companies like
188:
identified Boxwallah English as one of five types of
433:Barrère, Albert; Leland, Charles Godfrey (1889).
789:Schuchardt, Hugo (1980). "Indo-English (1891)".
581:When the Penny Drops: Learning What's Not Taught
303:TV film that aired on 31 July 1982 and starred
793:. Cambridge University Press. pp. 38–64.
406:Yule, Sir Henry; Burnell, Arthur Coke (1996).
8:
453:Capital Vignettes: A Peep into Delhi's Ethos
375:. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
958:"A few snapshots from Calcutta. Circa 1960"
820:. Hong Kong University Press. p. 42.
409:Hobson-Jobson: The Anglo-Indian Dictionary
56:Boxwallah as an elite corporate executive
578:Gopalakrishnan, R. (27 September 2016).
59:
320:
167:Indian Institute of Management Calcutta
1009:Robinson, Andrew (23 September 2021).
902:Sanyal, Devapriya (10 December 2021).
775:The New Monthly Magazine and Humorist
546:
544:
180:The New Monthly Magazine and Humorist
7:
983:Sanyal, Devapriya (3 October 2017).
872:. Penguin Books India. p. 175.
605:Chaudhuri, Amit (14 February 2013).
516:
514:
479:
477:
475:
473:
401:
399:
932:Movie Lists: 397 Ways to Pick a DVD
814:Kachru, Braj B. (1 February 2005).
557:. Penguin Books India. p. 31.
521:Naipaul, V. S. (17 November 2016).
484:Naipaul, V. S. (1 September 2002).
665:. University of California Press.
14:
817:Asian Englishes: Beyond the Canon
686:Jones, Stephanie (18 June 1992).
114:. Similarly, corporate executive
204:has described the film director
25:), in early postcolonial India.
608:Calcutta: Two Years in the City
554:The Boxwallah and the Middleman
163:Indian Institutes of Technology
159:Indian Institutes of Management
147:Indian Institutes of Management
112:The Boxwallah and the Middleman
94:. ...No one who works for the
1:
929:Simpson, Paul (26 May 2011).
742:Management Education in India
450:Smith, Ronald Vivian (2008).
386:Macdonald, Frederika (1887).
358:. Willmer & Rogers. 1876.
29:Boxwallah as a street peddler
1037:ITV Playhouse: The Boxwallah
750:10.1007/978-981-10-1696-7_3
392:. Chapman and Hall Limited.
1091:
486:"The Writer and the World"
369:Katherine, Sister (1900).
36:Collins English Dictionary
1060:Economic history of India
1015:. Bloomsbury Publishing.
845:. Penguin Books Limited.
778:. Chapman and Hall. 1843.
632:Varma, Pavan K. (2005).
551:Chatterjee, Raj (2008).
299:is also the title of an
866:Das, Gurcharan (1990).
662:Indian Tales of the Raj
659:Masani, Zareer (1988).
638:. Penguin Books India.
412:. Wordsworth Editions.
217:Boxwallah in literature
177:In 1845, an article in
64:In postcolonial India,
456:. Rupa & Company.
244:The Sending of Dana Da
228:
150:
106:, who had worked with
81:
841:Fry, Stephen (2014).
333:collinsdictionary.com
224:
144:
63:
439:. Ballantyne Press.
262:Boxwallah in cinema
104:Chidananda Dasgupta
1070:Retailing in India
744:. pp. 43–53.
524:The Indian Trilogy
490:The New York Times
289:Bhobishyoter Bhoot
229:
194:Braj Bihari Kachru
151:
145:The advent of the
82:
1065:Sales occupations
1022:978-1-350-25852-5
942:978-1-84765-355-0
935:. Profile Books.
915:978-1-000-50919-9
879:978-0-14-012258-9
852:978-0-7181-7755-3
827:978-962-209-665-3
800:978-0-521-22789-6
759:978-981-10-1695-0
699:978-1-349-12538-8
672:978-0-520-07127-8
645:978-0-14-303342-4
618:978-1-908526-31-1
591:978-81-8475-398-1
564:978-0-14-306316-2
534:978-1-5098-5238-3
527:. Pan Macmillan.
463:978-81-291-1317-7
419:978-1-85326-363-7
173:Boxwallah English
116:R. Gopalakrishnan
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994:11 November
968:11 November
962:The Pioneer
503:11 November
338:13 November
272:Seemabaddha
206:Robin Hardy
202:Stephen Fry
136:Pavan Verma
128:Martin Burn
120:Andrew Yule
1054:Categories
727:1297775104
315:References
305:Leo McKern
284:Anik Dutta
989:Scroll.in
498:0362-4331
355:Belgravia
252:A Hanging
78:Metal Box
70:Dalhousie
19:Boxwallah
723:ProQuest
715:Decision
269:'s film
161:and the
96:Marwaris
964:. India
92:Bengali
23:Kolkata
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1042:IMDb
1017:ISBN
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529:ISBN
505:2021
494:ISSN
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414:ISBN
340:2021
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