Today morning, as i was having breakfast at Dosa camp, i noticed two traffic policemen, placing orders for Dosas and not paying a penny for it! In Tamil, this used to be called as Gandhi kanakku or Gandhi's account. All of a sudden, the question on the etymology of "Gandhi kanakku" came up! Why did Gandhi's name come into a phrase that kinda indicates insincerity? Later, after heading home i referred my "trusted" source and this is what wikipedia had to tell me about the phrase:
Gandhi kanakku (Fraudulent accounting): Before 1947, when India was fighting against British occupation, companies and individuals often included "Contribution to Freedom movement" as an item in accounting statements. Most often accounting statements would not tally because management funneled money out. "Contribution to Gandhi's freedom movement" provided an excellent means to account for the "missing" money. Hence the term "Gandhi Kanakku". One should apologise to Mahatma Gandhi as this term brings a small amount of disrepute to him, for no fault of his!!!
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