He ate very sparingly and drank plain soda water, and whilst he sat at the table his long, yellow-white fingers played on the cloth, and his eyes followed the swaying punkah mat with an odd, intense light in their inscrutable depths.
The punkah mats flapped languidly, and the lower part of the church was dark, only the chancel being lighted with ungainly punkah-proof lamps, and the two altar candles that threw their gleam on a plain gold cross, guttered in the heat.
Lizards and mosquitoes are few, and in the marble-floored dining hall of cathedral proportions the absence of a punkah is generally unfelt, though the fact of a tropical climate is realised at the slightest exertion.
What would it cost to punkah the whole regiment during the hot season?
It was a foolish resolve, perhaps, on my part, for the hat kept the breeze of the punkahfrom cooling my temples.
The movement of the punkah served a double purpose; it cooled the room, and drove away the musquitoes.
I am literally bathed in perspiration, and so I fancy are most of us at this end of the table, for the punkah is too far distant to admit of our receiving any benefit therefrom.
The idea of the poor men paying for punkah coolies!
At your hotel at Calcutta you are asked, "You wish boy pull punkah all night?
Boy pull punkah all day and all night for two annas" (3d.
During meal-times, a large punkah is employed to diffuse an agreeable degree of coolness through the apartment.
The punkah is a large frame, from eight to ten feet long, and three feet high, covered with white Indian cloth, and fastened to the ceiling.
Servants' wages are very low in India, and as the punkah walla belongs to the lowest grade of servants his wages are only five rupees ($2.
By means of pulleys this punkah is kept in an oscillating motion by coolies stationed in the back of the house or on the back porch, and it creates such a pleasant breeze that one forgets all about the heat.
A towel pinned to the punkah frill brought the faint relief of moving air nearer to Denvil's face.
For in those early days nursing was as persistent a feature of the hot weather as the punkah itself, and her skill had been acquired in a hard school.
In spite of the great silken punkah that swung rhythmically across the full breadth of the room the beat was so great that the pen slipped round and round between his fingers.
The blind was drawn upward and in a moment all was normal again with the punkahswinging slowly overhead, except that the seductive smell remained, that was like the early-morning breath of all the different flowers of India.
The punkah was still being pulled over the bed, but Hummil had departed this life at least three hours.
It was impossible to sit still in the dark, empty, echoing house and watch the punkah beat the dead air.
A tattered, rotten punkah of whitewashed calico was puddling the hot air and whining dolefully at each stroke.
The punkah (fan) is in constant use by day and night, during eight months of the year.
The Baboos say they can't write, and the tailors can't sew, and I see the man who is pulling the punkah has a large fan in the other hand with which he is fanning himself.
I went there this morning and found our Miss Nicolls with the thermometer at 1000, I believe, walking up and down the room with the baby, away from the punkahbecause they thought it made the child sneeze.
Through the hot night he tosses on his bed placed under a punkah out in his garden and dozes fitfully until the punkah coolie drops asleep and the faint wind of the overhead fan is stilled.
His drill done, the British soldier lies on his cot under the punkah of the barrack-room, thinks with regret of the cool land he has left and forgets the misery of the unemployed in the rain and frosts of England.
Inside, the droning whine of the punkah mocks him throughout the weary day, as it scarcely stirs the heated air.
I held on to the telescope like grim death, while that eternal punkah was hoisted over us both, the Judge eyeing me somewhat coolly for the first moment.
As soon as they were seated, the natives out on the verandah began to pull the cords; the punkah began to wave to and fro and creak.
Black servants or slaves, with white garments, squatted here and there in the hall, pulling punkah strings, and rolling chalk-white eyes at the two officers as they passed.
The nigger-boy let go the punkah string and sprang to his feet.
The punkah coolie was fanning an empty cot--the child was gone.
There was a punkah hanging from the ceiling, but it stood at rest.
Outside some one was pulling the punkah rope, and the great leaves of linen, attached to heavy teak poles, swayed back and forth over his head, stirring slightly the dense, humid atmosphere.
Change of scene, service, and surroundings were the breath of his little nostrils, and thinking of the neat white cots of St Xavier's all arow under the punkah gave him joy as keen as the repetition of the multiplication-table in English.
The punkahswished in the darkened room; Leonora lay exhausted and motionless in her cane lounge; neither of them stirred.
She was, it was true, tall, dark, with soft mournful voice and a great kindness of manner for every created thing, from punkah men to flowers on the trees.
Sleep and great heat, in my case at least, are antagonistic, and, as I tossed on my bed, I longed for the waving punkah we have under such circumstances in India.
Strangers at first find these artificial currents very apt to superinduce headache, until continued residence makes him regard the punkah as a most necessary article of furniture.
Footnote 106: In many English families in India there prevails a sort of punkah mania, so that there is a regular hurricane incessantly blowing over their heads.
Now and again he was asked out to dinner where he got both a punkah and an iced drink.
He had no punkah, for a punkah costs fifteen rupees a month; but he slept on the roof of the office with all his wife's letters under his pillow.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "punkah" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word. Other words: blower; fan; ventilator
