Note 30 — Volume II.

Social customs. 4. They eat goat’s meat and the flesh of deer and similar animals, except when they have been regularly initiated or have taken the vow of a Bhagat. All high castes can eat pakki from their hands, and Kahârs and Nâis will eat kachchi. They will not eat kachchi cooked by any caste but their own, and will take pakki cooked by any Brâhman, Kshatriya, or Vaisya. According to Mr. Hoey30 there are in Lucknow “three classes of grain parchers. The poorest are those who merely parch grain for those who bring it. They receive one paisa per ser on expensive grain and a quarter paisa per ser on cheap grain. A stage above these are grain-parchers, who buy grain and store it and sell parched grain. These are termed Charbanfarosh. Above both of these is a much more comfortable class who buy rice in the autumn and store it. They make lâi, chiura, and khîl, which are in daily demand, and also in special demand at the Diwâli and on occasion of fairs, etc. There are some Bhurjis especially well-off who have their oven in the immediate neighbourhood of large grain markets. Merchants who import grain treat these very liberally, and think nothing of flinging down a couple of sers of grain and taking in exchange half a ser of parched grain (chabena).” The work they do, and particularly the heavy part of it, which consists in sweeping up dry leaves for fuel, tends to lower them in popular estimation. It is a favourite curse to wish an enemy that he may some day come to stoke the kiln of a grain-parcher, and a common proverb is Bharbhûnjâ kî larkî kesar kâ tîkâ—the grain-parcher’s slut with saffron on her forehead.”