One of the problems created by my long overseas stay is my memory loss of my original dialect. Otherwise why did I forget the customary way of talk when I entered uninvited into the house of my childhood friend and neighbour, Muthappa, during my last visit to Olavakkode, where I grew?
‘Hei, Ayishaa!,’ I entered greeting his wife, sweeping the floor with a long broomstick. She had seen me earlier only in my lungi or veshti and that too several years ago and hence could not recognize me.
‘Ente Alla! , Ivadae vannae!, ‘ She called her husband, ‘oru ChaithAn entae Peru vilitchu akathu kaeririkkunu. Hei, chaey, nnu vilitchondu- a devil has entered calling my name and saying, ‘hei, chaey”. How dare he is !
‘How do you do?’ I enquired, ignoring her abuse. ChaithAn or Satan is a moderate appellation compared to several others a Muslim woman would have used against an intruder into her home, uttering her name!
‘I do, this,’ she said continuing her sweeping and by that time, probably, she could recall some familiarity with my face. Freed from fear, she handed over the broomstick to me and said, ‘now, you do!’
Kerala is known for universal education and I was not surprised when she replied, ‘I do this’, when I asked ,’how do you do?’
And her ‘now you do’ offer to clean her house showed her liberal mind and also how accurately she understood my, ‘how do you do?’
While I stood hesitating whether to sweep or not, her husband’s course voice came from inside, ‘Pahaya, Ingu vaa- come inside, you, the cursed one ‘
I entered the kitchen, led by the lady of the house, still holding the broomstick in hand. I could not see my friend but his son who was there cleaning a fish.
‘What’s up ?’ I asked him.
‘He is up!’ He replied and showed me the attic, where Muthappa was cleaning a big brass vessel, what we call ‘kuttakam’. It is a solid stuff, heavy weight, with a big belly, used for storage of rice or grains or coking in large quantity.
‘Ontae oru Ingreesu!’ Making fun of my language, he lifted the kuttakam and was about to throw it down, saying, ‘Ithu piditcho, Hyderabad NavAabae!’ – ‘catch this, you, Nawab of Hyderabad!’
Had it fallen on my head, it would have been pulverized. At that critical moment, I screamed, ‘Hamukkae, nirthadaa!’ In the local colloquial. ‘You the cursed one, stop it!’
Original dialect comes out in crisis. .