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!
