My name is Edwin Daniel and I am a MALLU

Agreed. Lolakutty and her sequined lungi wearing sidekick are funny. Her curly hair drenched in coconut oil looks like the aftermath of a ruthless humidity attack. But COME ON!! Mallus are, subtly put, different.

Lately, as I have been sent on a lackluster all India trip to the “Top 10 places you will never visit unless compulsorily sent by the company” , I have come across a handful of people who would take one look at me and go O_o . “You don’t look like a mallu.” Dear faithful reader,(especially directed to my readers from US and UK. Yes. My stat says, I have readers from US, UK and USSR. Who knew people were jobless there too?) mallu is a slang term for people hailing from Kerala who speak Malayalam.

This post was set into print after yet one more such incident today morning wherein a 25 year old who introduced himself as SS Nair, whom I met for the very first time told me that I don’t look like a mallu. This incident was preceded by another mallu guy telling me that I look like an NRI.

After a round of research, Mr. Sir Castic was able to pin point the prime cause of this comment. Here are the top three reasons why I don’t look like a mallu. Hold fast to your seats.
*Drum roll*

On number three: “You have straight pointy hair”

Justification: I am from the land of coconuts, coconut oil, coconut chutney, coconut pickle, coconut furniture, coconut cookies, coconut blah blah and blah. But I do not use parachute oil to plaster my unruly hair to my scalp. Right now I am sporting a very professional looking Mohawk derivative. Humidity is not nature’s curling iron. Damn you, Monica Gellar for that very misleading Monica to Medusa transformation in the Barbados.
PS: For nice smooth hair, use a mild fortifying shampoo every 2 days followed by gently rubbing a soft conditioner on the scalp and rinsing it off thoroughly. Soak your hair dry and brush your hair 100 times with a soft bristled roller brush. Everyone knows that. Don’t you too?

On number two: “You don’t wear pink floral print lungis. You dress kind of stylishly.”

Justification: Part1: I may not dress right out of a vogue catalog. But I do know that pink floral print is for little baby girls and for fat guys in Hawaii. Apart from being flawlessly designed for ventilation and ease of use while going potty, a lungi doubles as a bed sheet and triples as a curtain. Unlike Kareena Kapoor’s saree in Chameli, lungis are very much gravity susceptive.

Justification: part2: Thank you but no thank you. Ever since my freshman year when a girl commented that my tee looked “gult”(Trans: Something flamboyant, gaudy ..in short YUCK), I have been ultra cautious with my selection. Weighing the pros and cons everytime I picked something off the rack. Of course there were misses between the hits. Especially, that florescent yellow sweat shirt which I wear only in the privacy of the four walls of my room. I think I was drunk senseless when I bought that tweety bird costume. Anyways the point is, Mallus can dress well and be style icons. John Abraham, Edwin Daniel..don’t you see the trend?


And on the Number One spot we have : ”You don’t eat Idly.”

Justification: I was food abused as a child. Everytime mom’s brand new table top grinder started munching those grain, my stomach Morse coded a “yelp” to my brain. Eating Idlies for breakfast, then lunch and at times in the evening just to finish the batter, for three whole years, I was at my breaking point. Later I found a shortcut to the entire process.
Cook--> Serve --> Eat --> Poop --> Flush
To
Cook --> Serve --> Flush
Those little white saucers behave like buoys. Just when you think, its all down the drain, Plop!!! One pops right back. And one inopportune day, the pop up came to my Mom’s notice and we haven’t made Idly since.

Sambar, rasam et cetera are NOT mallu. I repeat. NOT mallu. They are Pandi/tambi. For Pete’s sake. I eat Beef. Don’t go all HOLY COW now :O. We don’t eat cows. In a way mallus are like highly literate cave men. Sweaty, hairy human beings who kill and eat almost everything that walks or flies or swims or crawls or… you get the drift right.

Like actress Nayanthara or power politician Shashi taroor or sex bomb Shakeela or the evergreen MGR who are often mistaken to be from states other than Kerala, my identity was also mistaken. Its just sometimes difficult to fathom that something so remarkable could be from that part of the world.

So people, Remember.

I am Edwin Daniel and I am a MALLU. Deal with it.