BOWLED OVER BY A DEBO NAIR
WE MALAYALEES ARE EVERYWHERE, ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH, ON THE MOON AND ON THE CRICKET PITCH
When Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969 and Neil Armstrong stepped out with the American flag to utter those famous words: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” little did he know that he and his mates — Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins — weren’t the first ones there.
Our mallu chettan, with mundu and all, was standing beside a thattukada, next to a small crater, the aroma of piping hot tea and filter coffee as well as yummy but greasy pazham pori, Kerala porotta, mutta curry and beef fry, filling the air, oops, I mean, vacuum.
A dumbstruck Armstrong and his pals were left kicking themselves after finding out that our mallu chettan, with the thick moustache, had already been there and done that. Well, we’ve obviously improvised on this legendary joke about the Malayalee but you now get the picture, don’t you? To put it zimbly, we Mallus are everywhere, on the face of the earth, outside of it and on the moon (Yem-Woh-yet another Woh-and Yen; yeah, that’s how we pronounce it).
And for eight years, Virender Sehwag was feeling lonely out there at the top in the 300 club, so a Mallu decided that he might as well give the Nawab from Najafgarh some company. Karun Nair may swear his allegiance to Karnataka, but then, he is a true blue Mallu boy and it is a matter of pride for all of us Malayalees around the globe that he is the only Indian triple centurion in Test cricket, apart from Viru bhai. Talking of the globe, us Mallus are all over the Gelff, I mean, Gulf. We are in Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia but we have a particular liking for Thuubai in the United Arab Emirates. Initially, it was zimbly to meet our long lost ungle or aandy, who had made Thuubai their home decades ago, but later, it was for our bread and butter, to yearn money. So much so that Thuubai is a ‘mini Kerala’ in itself.
Statistics say that every third household in Kerala has a man or woman working in the Gelff and they remit more than 1 trillion rupees back home. In fact, the joke goes that whenever it does rain in the Gelff, a Mallu in Kerala is bound to catch a cold! The joke has always been on us but we don’t mind it at all. For, we have played a massive part in building the Gelff or, for that matter, this city, which we call ‘home’. Rock band Starship’s 1985 classic ‘We built this city’ comes to mind.
Walk into that tiny grocery store below your building, and you are bound to find more than one Mallu, if not many, manning it. Head to that small cafeteria round the corner, and you can be sure there is a Mallu selling tea for one dirham, as well as your juicy shawarma for a fiver. Go to the hospital when you are a bit under the weather and you will find a Beenamol or Lola Kutty (well, we just made that up, ah!) or a Tintumon. And then, there’s that taxi driver who is overcome with emotion when he comes to know you are a Mallu as well. He gets chatty and his face beams when he finds out which part of Kerala you are from, based on your dialect or your family name. And then his joy knows no bounds when he finds some strange connection somewhere, some long lost relative. Apparently, we are connected somehow!
We Mallus are rich and famous too. Lulu Group International’s Yousuf Ali, Joyalukkas and Azad Moopen are pretty much household names. We also have Krishna Chandran Karate, who is the first and only Keralite to play for the UAE cricket team. For all you know, whenever NASA does accomplish their human mission to Mars in the near future, they might well find a Filli Cafe, selling their signature Zafran Tea on the Red Planet!
So, never underestimate the power of the mighty yet modest Malayalee. He or she is a triple centurion Malayalee!
james@khaleejtimes.com