Mallu Birds of Same Feather

Being able to rent a house on your own in US without sharing accommodation is a luxury that a middle class immigrant Indian like me cannot afford. So, here I am, living with three friends of mine in a decently spacious house in a village called Phoenixville in Pennsylvania.

No, I am not here to give you my address. I just thought I’ll scribble a bit about an interesting discussion that I had with these roommates of mine few days ago. We are three Keralites (including me) and a non-Keralite who share the accommodation. Most of the times we are held up in our own rooms, busy working or busy talking to someone over phone (ohh ya, bachelors do that a lot). The only time when 4 of us would spend time together in a typical day is when we do our dinner cooking. And that is the time when all the gossips and discussions happen.

One such day, my non-Keralite roommate had something to open up. He came up with a list of stereotypes that that are commonly associated with a Mallu. I found most of the things in his list to be a true. One interesting thing in his list was that Mallus usually hang around only with other Mallus. They usually tend to form a Mallu-only group wherever they go. They eat together, walk together, go out together and what not. Haven’t you observed it? I have. And I have done that too.

I remember being part of a Mallu gang in SDM-IMD Mysore where I did my post graduation. Later I joined work and went to Mangalore, and there they are; a Mallu gang. I got an onsite opportunity and travelled to the US, and here I am; in a Mallu gang. You go find any Mallu, and you’ll notice that at least one person with whom he is will be a Mallu.
So, why do they (or we) folk together? What pleasure do they find in being in an only-Mallu group? I thought about it, and I could think of only two reasons why they do it:

1. Mallus, especially the ones coming out of Kerala for the first time, find it very difficult to converse in English or any other language. They hardly use any other language than Malayalam when they are at home, unlike a person from Karnataka or Andhra Pradesh where Hindi is also a commonly spoken language. For this reason, Mallus tend to find people with whom they can converse freely. I am not sure if I am generalizing here, but I strongly feel this is one reason why I would have tried to find a Mallu comrade when I am outside my territory.

2. The other reason is that; if you compare a Mallu group with any others, say a Kannadiga group or an Andhrite group, you would observe that people in the Mallu group have a lot in common than the people in any other group. They would have the same taste for food, same taste for music, same taste for movies, and the list goes on. So, I feel this too could be a reason.

What do you think? Haven’t you noticed Mallu groups around?