Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Angl-Ind.) brother.

1888

‘The Traveller’ [R. Kipling] ‘Mr Anthony Dawking’ in Civil & Milit. Gaz. (Lahore) 11 Jan. n.p.: ‘This sahib never pays. I have never seen a sahib like this sahib. My bhai, who keeps the dak-bungalow at — says that he is dewani-pagal, and so, your honour, I pay myself’.