Special report: Mallus

No, I’m not Malayali, but I think they deserve special mention. The Mallus manage to defy history, geography and even fundamental physics in their ubiquity.

If you’re an employer, remember that if you hire a Malayali, you hire a large portion of the state of Kerala. Let one of them into your office and before you know it, it’ll be home to a large population of Jobis, Shyjus, Nijos, Shylas, Marias, Nairs, Matthews, Jijus, Menons, Kuttys, Gopis, Sweetys, Vergheses, Chakos, Abrahams, Georges and Rosys.

You will probably get a lot of work done. But you will also find that suddenly, all your clients speak Malalayam… but how is that possible? They’re Scottish.

“Yess, I know, butt my cujjin Mybo is verking as a coafee boi.. so ve are dealing with him only noew.”

Apparently it’s no problem because Mybo’s cousin has outsourced the work to his brother’s best friend Jobi whose uncle works in a big advertising agency and uses the computer systems on Sundays to get the work done, and it’s taken to his best friend’s brother’s printing agency where it’s printed for nearly nothing at 4am when the owners are asleep and delivered through Joseph on his bicycle along with the morning papers.

The whole process costs about twenty paise and is done over the weekend. Your Scottish clients used to pay 20,000 rupees and wait for a month.

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If you’re visiting friends or relatives in Kerala, don’t be surprised if one day you hear this:

“Tomorrow, we will be driving for 23 hours to attend the marriage of a clawse relative.”

Twenty three hours?? Who is it?

“You remember Aunty Minakshi we met yesterday? Her brother’s cujjin’s sister-in-law’s sister’s son’s brother-in-law. Clawse relative. So we are going.”

More as it comes.