One Lakh Is Written 1,00,000 — Epoche A2
The first headline in Mumbai stopped me at the station bookstall. The new sea bridge, it said, had cost 18,000 crore rupees. Crore? I read it three times, and the number still meant nothing. Sameer explained it at breakfast. Indian English has its own words for big numbers. A lakh is one hundred thousand. A crore is one hundred lakh, which is ten million. Newspapers, banks and film posters all count this way, and the word million almost never appears. The commas move too. An Indian number takes a comma after the first three digits, then after every two. One lakh is written 1,00,000, not 100,000. A crore is 1,00,00,000. Same digits, different groups, and the eye needs a week of practice. After that lesson the words were everywhere. A flat for sale in Bandra: 2.1 Cr. A gold necklace: 1.4 lakh. A film poster shouted that the film had earned 100 crore, because in Bollywood that number is what makes a hit official. In the evening I bought a train ticket for ten rupees. Some numbers need no special word at all.