You’re a bonafide Non Resident Mallu if…

Mallu Love stories are made of these...

1. You can sing the Popy kuda (pronounced- poe-pee kuda) ad jingle (in the right meter, mind it!)

2. You tune in to Asianet when you feel homesick coz you know the folks back home will be watching it for sure at around the same time

3. You scour the Regional DVD section at Rhythm House looking for obscure mallu movies that resident mallus in their homeland wouldnt dream of watching anymore. They are busy scouring the Hindi/English section

4. You feel a sense of duty towards Mohan Lal’s film career, can’t let him down, must watch latest release

5. You feel an instant karmic bond with any Nair/Menon/Kutty/Pillai that you meet and attempt to stitch together a conversation in malayalam 

6.  You turn up your nose at the sambar served at the local Udipi joint. (“Le Sambaar? Le Joke!!”)

7. You still remember an actress called Shobhana

8. You watch Srinivasan’s films again n again n again…

9. You can forgive Yesudas for singing in Hindi (Actually, on second thoughts, I forgive Yesudas anything..)

10. You forego your usual empathy with fellow mallus when you see Messrs Sreesanth’s on-field antics

11. You begin a conversation with a newly found mallu with “Naad evde?”

12. You feel a sense of belonging when you pass Matunga Central

13. You have a family member who takes offence at the word ‘mallu’

This was fun, actually.

What they didnt teach at Mallu-Land’s Film school…Happy endings

For as long as I can remember, Mallu movies were different from the rest of what the country produced. I saw a healthy dose of Malayalam films on bulky VCR tapes when I was younger, even though childhood was spent in Delhi, far away from Kerala’s movie making industry. 

Watching those films back then, gave me an impression of a Kerala that was made up of red brick houses, far stretching paddy fields, men in lungis, Mamoothy (quite handsome as far as I was concerned!), Mohan Lal and of course my all-time favourite- Srinivasan. People in those films didn’t lead rich opulent lives onscreen. Costumes (if you could call it that) were generally basic and fancy-free. Stories revolved around normal people, mostly the poor or judiciously middle class though they were still rivetting as far as I am concerned. 

But I couldn’t understand for the life of me, why, when the ending came and the hero and heroine were all set to unite, did the villain have to come in between and screw things up. Always. Without fail. Happy Endings as a concept was obviously something they didnt teach back in Kerala Film School. (dont’ bother looking up that on Google, made it up!) The hero/heroine always looked on sadly with regret at the loss of his/her loved one as the credits started to roll. And I almost always jumped up annoyed, from the movie, vowing not to watch another one.  What did they have against happy endings, anyways?

Mallu movies now are pretty straight-laced and tow down to the usual crude humour yardstick. I remember a Malayalam film director who I know bemoaning the crass slapstick humour that had become a yardstick for the industry today. When he released his film a year and a half later, i didnt come away feeling any better.  

Srinivasan’s ‘Pon Mutta Idunne Taarav‘ is one of my all time favourite movies.