Malayalees and their proud ethnicity

Happy Onam to all My Malayalee Friends and all those love to have Sadya in banana leaf. This year it was coronam and I didn’t have the energy to prepare delicious Sadya. So it was a throw back Onam for us.

#athapookalam during an Onam with friends and family in Qatar

I thought I would write something about Malayalees and their love for their land. Once my Canadian colleague asked me do you love to be called as a Malayalee or a Keralite. I told definitely Malayalee. Then she asked what’s the difference between both. Malayalam is our mother tongue and that’s why we are known as Malayalees. Kerala is the name our State and that’s why we are known as Keralites. We love to be called as Malayalees because it defines our ethnicity.

Recently I went to a tech event and wanted to write some tech post but I got to write something more interesting. The event was attended by multicultural community and during the break I got to meet one girl. How Malayalees identify other Malayalees is quite interesting. When we see a Malayalee in the crowd our heart says he/she is a Malayalee. We started chatting and she asked – are you from India. Yes I told . Where in India. I told Kerala. Then she became so excited. You know I am a Malayalee- a 7th generation Malayalee from Malaysia .

Her forefathers went to Malaysia and she is from the 7th generation. She told I am a pure Malayalee. Then she asked – Can you speak in Malayalam ? And started I speaking in Malayalam. But I had to translate every single bit to English. Finally I asked – Why you want me to speak in Malayalam. She said I want to hear how Malayalam sounds like, how my mother tongue sounds like. My parents never spoke to us in Malayalam.

This is the story of Mallus and their love for Malayalam.