Comments on: Oonch

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 05 Mar 2016 04:48:19 +0000

In The Art of Fiction, Gardner writes “If what chiefly interests him is literary stunts . . . the writer can oonch slot 3 just a little…” The sentence follows a paragraph cautioning writers against overcrowding sentences with modifiers and he’s basically using it in place of encroach or filch.

Maybe this is helpful?

By: Graham

Graham — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 16:35:44 +0000

I have just finished reading Gently Sahib and was also puzzled by the expression “oonch fancier”.

As trevor says above, it is used in reference to a couple of gay women. My theory is that the word “oonch” is in fact a misprint and should read “conch” as in the shell. It is easy to see how the mistake could be made and the word “conch” has been used as slang for the female genitalia.

By: trevor

trevor — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 07:21:43 +0000

I read that book in the sixties (Gently sahib ) The oonch fanciers referred to were lesbians – this was obvious from the context – a comment being made about some village women by a madam/prostitute

By: Uzair

Uzair — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 07:04:50 +0000

I am not quite sure if this make any sense but after having known that the novel did had an Indian connection I would dare say that Oonch in Hindi just doesn’t mean “ up” but also indicate something which is “ high”. Usually it is used to indicate the upper or higher class in Indian subcontinent. “Oonche log” means the high class, which is used in “awe” combined with different sentiments by the lower class towards the upper class. Given the enormous disparity between the upper and lower class such sentiments are common and words akin( Oonche) are widely used in hindi and urdu literatures. So perhaps that answers the questions that “ Oonch Fanciers” are these low or middle class people who fancies the upper class.