STFU at least in foreign countries, dear Malayali male!

Torquay beach in Devon, UK -- which is less than a mile from where we now live and over 8,000 km from the nearest Kerala district -- is in frolick mode, with a fair making the seafront all the more lovely and lively.

Gayathri, my niece Meenakshi, and Rudra are soaking it all in like so many other kids who are enjoying the last few days of their school summer vacation. 

It isn't sunset yet, but they are walking back home, chirping, giggling, and gossipping uncontrollably. (And they are so much better at it than we ever were as kids!)

A car zooms by. A loud voice calls out in Malayalam: "Veettil podi" ("Go home, girl/woman". This is a typical male signal to women/girls to pipe it down and coop back into domesticity.)

My little ones -- all of 16, 15, and 14, precisely -- are stunned.

But Gayathri still manages to shout back: "Poda patti!" (Get lost, bitch!). 

Again, there is not a coconut tree in sight. Not a mundu-wearing Ammavan. No, this is not Kerala.

A few minutes later, before the three could recover from their first experience of public harassment, another car whizzes by. This time it is all catcalls and whistles at them, so it could not be ascertained they were Malayalis.

By the time they arrived home, the girls' sense of fury and shock was so thick that the mutton biriyani we made yesterday probably had chunks of it along with the meat.

Athayathu Utthama...we know we Indian/Malayali males are toxic. We have proved it time and again, especially in recent weeks. 

You don't have to prove it across seven seas and in the backwaters of other countries. Stop embarrassing us and dump your macho meanness behind in the Indian/Kerala shit hole before traveling overseas. 

Sick fucks!

Smile, dear Jeeves!

I have now slowly begun to make sense of the non-filmy, real-life British sense of humour. Three instances from the recent past:

Sometime in December 2023...

A bus to "Paignton" arrives. As I board it, my Indian/Malayali insecure self is turned on.

Me to the driver: "Does this one go to the 'Paignton Bus Station'? (Abbey bhootni ke, Paignton dekh ke chadha kaahe ko?)

Driver, a faint smile breaking out: "If you insist..."

I go hide behind a seat.

...

Sometime in January...

Gayathri and I get chatty with a cab driver. Now, imagine him as the Jeeves type -- mid-40s, balding, chin up, and stone-faced.

"Are you from around Paignton?"

"Born and bred in Paignton, sir. Never left town. Though my wife is the other kind."

"Ah ok. Difficult imagining you as a couple. One who never left town, the other who never saw Paignton till marriage."

"Not much to complain about, sir. We have a good relationship. Especially financially."

"How is that?"

"I earn, she spends."

....

Last week, on a bus...

A couple walks in with a handsome black labrador. Settles somewhere in the back seat of the lower deck of the double-decker.

A little later, another couple walks in with a breed that looks like a smaller version of a boxer. Active chap, this brown dog. Sits across the aisle from me.

Still later, a lady in her 40s walks in with a beagle-like breed. The driver has a brief chat with this one -- the lady, I mean.

She walks up to the boxer-like dog's owners and speaks (Here, imagine the voice of Bernadette of the Big Bang Theory): "Darling, could you take your pet to the upper deck. The driver says only one per deck. I would have gone up, but mine's broken its leg. I am sorry."

The boxer-like dog is taken up without any fuss. Then an elderly lady reminds the Bernadette-like one: "But there's another one behind, my love."

The lady with a Bernadette-like voice takes a peek at the back of the bus, nods with a smile and screeches, but politely: "I know, but what could be done? Anyway, they are better behaved than most people on a bus. Drivers should start throwing bones at people boarding, you know? Who knows, they could be trained, too!"

Go, garbage, Goa!

The garbage disposal system in Paignton is even more complicated -- and involves a steeper penalty (£1,000) if done wrongly – than in Swansea. There are four different types that garbage-generators need to segregate before disposal in 3-4 separate bins.

But then, why should that matter to the garbage collector’s Kerala-Goa plans this winter?

We haven’t been able to lose the rubbish since moving into Paignton. The house was filling up. Today, finally, I was ready to clear it all after days of confusion over the time and day of collection.

So, I was up at 5.30am at -2 degrees, having readied cardboard cartons – the local council’s new bins haven’t yet arrived and the old ones are a mess. Here I was waiting for the 6am collection truck that finally arrived only at 7 am, with a bunch of three men and a woman – all jolly and friendly.

I walk up to inform them of my situation without waste-bins. They brush aside my concerns and ask me to get all the garbage I want.

As I get the first carton down, one of the four asks me, “Are you from India?”

Trying to hold on to the plastic covers flowing out, I answer hurriedly in the affirmative. As I turn around to get the next one, he asks, “Which part?”

“Kerala…” and I hurry back. “Oh, Kerala…great…” I hear from behind.

On arrival with the next box – aluminium foil, food wrappers, milk cartons etc – he says, “I’m going there, mate. End of the month.” Meanwhile, the freezing sea breeze is killing me. But I’m amused, nevertheless.

“Nice. Been there before?”

“Nope. But heard a lot and am really excited…”

I smile. And return for the next carton -- and also to get away from the bite even if only for a few seconds.

This time it is thermocol, bubble-wrap, and the like. Light, but large, and even more unwieldy in the breeze…Gayathri’s trying to pick and collect whatever I’m dropping or what’s flying away…

But the man is irrepressible. “This is my schedule…first stop, Condolim,” he pulls out his smartphone to show me.

I’m trying to keep a straight face from behind the bubble wrapper that’s fluttering into my eye.

“Condolim isn’t in Kerala. That’s Goa. But it’s the same region, climate, and topography,” I manage to say with a smile.

His colleague then comes over to cheerfully explain what I need to do with my valuables the next time, which is the next weekend. He helpfully hands me labels for the bins that will arrive from the council shortly. “You’ll have to manage the plastic covers on your own the next time. There’s a public utility around…”

“How far is Condolim from Kerala? You been there?”

I am now strung. What or whom should I focus on? Garbage man explaining garbage, garbage man looking for tourist guide, garbage woman jumping on a cardboard box to flatten it, or the garbage-flutterer breeze…

Luckily, the explanation is done easier – so is the flattening. And I can’t do much about the breeze anyway. The tourist guide slips into me. I give him a brief of what to expect, talking about tropical heat and humidity in -2.

“Dad there’s one more…” Gayathri calls out. Oh, the food waste…

I head back again for the smallest cover and return quickly. “I’m looking forward to the warm sun…the beaches.”

“You have fun…”

Garbage man-going-Goa finally bids farewell because, before Goa there is more garbage. Two weeks more of garbage.

The truck, with its disco lights going crazy non-stop and bringing images from Koyi kahe, Kehta rahe to my mind, moves on.

Go, garbage, Goa!