My Affair With Malayalam

This trip was as much about friends as it was about flaunting my middling and dodgy Malayalam.

It is raining in Ernakulam and Ranni now. Thundershowers, I am told. “The skies cried when you left,” messaged a friend. The other messaged “You kept saying rain, rain… and here we have it”.

I should have started chanting “rain, rain” a week before I went to Cochin and well the skies could have shed a few tears of joy when I was there, alle¹?

April is certainly not the time to visit Kerala—at one point it was so humid I decided to tell people that I was there for work, lest they thought I was batshit crazy—but then what the hell, one does make such trips when the stars (and dates) align with your friends.

So we were four school friends— a Qatari on Eid holiday (Niti), a mallu teacher from Thrippunithura on a break (Sudha), another mallu from Ranni managing a household and a nursing home (Judie), and yours truly in between jobs. One Trivandrum/Aluva friend from Infosys (on his way to Munnar) joined us for dinner on day one (Inish).

The itinerary was simble—one night at Cherai, take the train to Chenganur (for Ranni), stay at the friend’s, go to Vagamon (pine forest and meadows), drive down to Varkala, back to Chenganur and finally to Ernakulam.

L-R: Sudha, Me, Judie, Niti.

Chetta, Enthe Peru

So here I was at the Cochin airport all set to give my korachu Malayalam a shot. I booked a prepaid. The cab driver beckoned me, bobbed his head, a sudden shyness swept over me, I bobbed my head and we started towards Cherai. The radio played Mallu songs; what’s not to like in Mallu songs. And I was hoping that the English subtitles would start floating in front of my eyes soon enough!

Anyhoo, I was tempted to ask “entha peru” (what’s your name) but by the time I could muster the courage, I saw a huge name tag hanging from the rear view mirror—Unni Krishnan. Mission aborted.

I continued listening to the songs. “Premam aanu” I asked as soon as Malare played on the radio. He bobbed his affirmation. We reached Cherai.

He said, “How many days? You want taxi to go back to the airport?”.

I took out my phone, “Sheri. Enthe peru?”. Finally I get to ask this question.

“Peru Stanley.” He gave his number. And quickly asked “Ningal malayali aano?” (Are you Malayali).

I said, “Malayali illa, Malayalam konjum”(this I hope meant—I am not a Malayali but I know little Malayalam). The only issue was that Konjum is Tamil for little. And korachu completely slipped out of my mind.

So he said, “Tamil?”. I had run out of both vocabulary and patience. I said “Illa Saare. Delhi. I will call. Sheri. Thank you”, putting an end to my misery.

That evening we visited Al-Saj for dinner. We decided on a few starters—bad decision. We should have taken the cue from all the iftari tables and straightaway gone for either the chatti choru, mandi or biryani. So when the waiter turned up I jumped in “Chetta, Oru chicken lolipop, moona chaya…”.

Sudha said, “He is probably not a malayali”. I asked him, “Malayali?”. He answered, “Bangali”. I smiled, “Bangali. Naam ki tomaar?²”. He flashed an even wider smile, “Ali.”

Make no mistake, my Bangla is as sketchy as my Malayalam. But I try. Ali was our man that evening!

The Al-Saj confidence rubbed off the next day in the taxi. When the driver coughed, I offered “vellam”³. He said, “Roza”. I asked, again, “Peru enthe”. “Anees”. “Veet evide” (where is home). “Mallapuram”. I was making advances by leaps and bounds — from name I had moved on to house!

Sneham Matram

Moving on. In the one week I spent in sweltering Kerala, I learnt a few more words and sentences (and then decided to stick to my version anyway).

Through the trip, my favourite sentence was, “Enthe Molay, enthuvetti”. I meant (in my head)—“What dear child, what happened”. What I was actually saying is—“What dear child, what did you cut”. It should be “enthupatti” but my version simply sounded better!

I rubbed off on Sudha, Judie, and Niti who kept saying “enthuvetti” after every few sentences— to either fill in the blanks or break the silence or simply bring back the straying walker amongst us.

The other word we learnt and loved was “WANDA”. This is from Judie’s two year old Niko’s vocabulary and we aren’t quite sure about its genesis. Soon all our “vendaa’s” were replaced with “WANDA”. For example, if someone said “You want water?” The response was “WANDA”. And so it went.

In preparation for these travels, I bought a notebook a few months ago to write down keywords and hone my Malayalam. The cover of the book has “Sneham Matram” written in Malayalam. And this too became a keyword like “enthuvetti”.

Judie tried making a sentence out of Sneham Matram and asked me to send the following text to udit—”Enike uditnoday sneham matrame ullu” (I only have love for Udit). He responded, “Sounded more like udit is the mother owl”.

We improvised—now instead of saying the whole sentence, we simply say “I love you like a mother owl.”

The Bookstore

I was back at the Cochin airport. I love that airport— a) it is never rushed b) it has comfy sofas to sit on c) it has two proper bookstores (that don’t sell neck pillows and chocolates) with sellers who know their books.

The last time we were at the airport in 2022, we spent a lot of time both at DC Books and Matrubhumi bookstore. Udit and I bought a whole bunch of books but mostly books that we could have bought otherwise in, say Delhi as well.

This time I went straight to Matrubhumi and headed for the translations (Malayali authors translated in English). The guy handed me 15 books, explained a bit about each of the authors, and made space for me to sit and browse. I ended up buying 10 books.

While he billed, he asked, “Malayali?”

Me— “No, but trying to learn Malayalam.”

He— “That’s good.” A convert, he must have thought.

Me— “I am watching Malayalam films.”

His eyes lit up and as he walked me out of the bookstore, he asked: “What movies?”

I rattled off: “The usual —Manjummel Boys, Brhamayugam, Ozler, Aadujeevitham. Haven’t seen Premalu yet.”

His head bobbing was now joyous and his eyes sparkled. And before he could say, “This weekend…” I jumped in “I am going to miss watching Avesham and that Vineeth Sreenivasan film in the hall here.” There was no chance in hell I could have pulled off “Varshangalkku Shesham” in front of him whilst I was in the throes of showing off.

We smiled at each other and we left. I should have asked “enthe peru, chetta” but that airport shyness once again swept over me. Turns out that Matrubhumi bookstore at the airport is quite popular as is the guy. Google says his name is Ranjith. His name actually is Gineesh⁴.

Anyhow, after a little while I walked past the bookstore again. It was buzzing with book buyers. Our eyes met and in between all that billing and from that distance, he smiled, bobbed his head and waved like one does to an old friend. I smiled back, bobbed my head and waved back. Just like one does to an old friend. A convert, was I?

Aadujeevitham

I don’t know about a convert but I did watch Aadujeevitham without subtitles in the hall. Of course, I had read the book. And of course, Sudha was sitting right next to me filling me up with the details. But still…

According to my Mallu friends, I watch (many) more movies than an average Mallu does. I must admit, I do.

On the flight I was seated next to a mother-daughter duo who were watching Tovino’s Anweshippin Kandethum. I ended up watching it with them. I had already watched it the day it dropped on Netflix. The daughter was second guessing the killer every 5 minutes. It was fun. And just at the crucial point—when the killer was going to be revealed—the air hostess announced turning off all electronic devices. We landed.

They were still guessing the killer. I was tempted to tell them they had the wrong guy but I kept mum, took my luggage down from the overhead bin, moved a couple of steps ahead, turned around and very nearly said “Thanks for the movie…Pakshe ningalkke thetti...”⁵

A convert, njaanaano⁶?

1. “Isn’t it?”

2. “What’s your name?”

3. “water”

4.

Rajini Menon

shared my piece with the Mathrubhumi bookstore at the airport. And then Ginessh got in touch. Well that day I couldn’t ask him “enthe peru, chetta?” so I googled. And it turns out, this bookstore is very popular. But google got the name wrong. It is Gineesh NG.

5. “But you are wrong”

6. “Am I?”