Bombay Duck and mail trains

[John Ashworth]

India's Brilliant Bombay Duck

The Bombay duck is actually a fish native to the waters in and around Mumbai. Fiendishly ugly, it is gelatinous and pink-skinned with a gaping maw. Moreover, the root of its curious name is a great mystery...

But the most famous explanation is the one set out by Indian-born, British-Parsi writer, Farrukh Dhondy, in his book Bombay Duck. He believes that the name came from the British mail trains that huffed odoriferous orders of dried fish from the city to the interior of India. These wagonloads became known as “Bombay Dak”. (The word dak means “mail”.)