I yaame Mallu

“MeiM jātā hōōM. Mujhe yahāM nahi āna haiM”. The venue is a packed school auditorium somewhere in Delhi, India. The school annual day celebrations are going on. It’s a group of students presenting a skit in Hindi, obviously the kid who is saying the dialogue, is from Kerala.

A fresh software engineer from Kerala, who came to Bangalore for the first time, in a bakery. “Errr…Can I get tea, chips…hai kya?”, confused as to use which language. “എന്താ വേണ്ടേ ?(What do you want?)”, comes the reply from the shopkeeper.

Mallu (മല്ലു): Short for Malayalee (മലയാളി) . A rare species of Homo-sapiens found in almost every terrain, irrespective of the climatic conditions of the local geography. Highly adaptable, ambitious (when outside their breeding ground of Kerala), has high survival capabilities (outside Kerala) of that of cockroaches and lizards. Can live without air for days but not without a Mohanlal or Mammootty movie, Puttu-kadala, Idiyappam-kadala or Appam-stew once a week.

Let’s accept it. Mallus (pet name for anyone who hails from God’s own country, Kerala) are everywhere. I don’t think there is any other group which is so widely present in the world. Right from North Pole to South Pole, from Sydney to Sweden, they are there. As a story goes when Neil Armstrong landed in Moon there was a Mallu, Govindan-kutty, there who welcomed him, and offered him a black coffee. It was told that Govindan-kutty was running a Hotel & Tea-shop there in moon long before Neil Armstrong landed. But one thing in true, which ever corner you go in this world there will be one Mallu at least to whom you will run into.

I have seen that they behave very strangely. We cannot find any correlation between their behavior when they are inside Kerala and outside Kerala.

Within Kerala there is nobody else who has so much of detrimental attitude, who takes things for granted. ‘It’s my world, it’s my life, who is bothered?’ – kind of attitude. You take the Mallu through Palakkad (one of the major border districts in Kerala), and slowly head towards the border check-post in Valayar, his behavior appears to change dramatically. And once outside Kerala, he is the smart, ‘ready-to-do-anything’ fellow, who knows how to get his way through.

He, in Kerala, will raise slogans and hold flags, throw stones at vehicles, put vehicles to fire, disrupt the normal life of people for petty issues, but the same Mallu when in some other state or country will dutifully follow the rules and will not get into any kind of fix.
The one who talks about labour unions, and justifies the need to have a socialistic society when crosses the Arabian Sea and reaches the shores of Arabic countries forgets all his past and starts living a life of a perfect citizen follow the capitalistic model there and admire it.

The one who blames and shouts at the Government of Kerala for having kept a toll booth in a bridge for Rs.10/- will very sincerely pay the toll to be paid in any other part of the world which will be several times this amount and will justify it.
I have failed to give a logical reasoning for this behavior. If anyone can help me understand this, I will be grateful. Is it because of the socio-economic-political scenario in Kerala, or is it because Kerala is supposed to be highly literate? I don’t know.