Mallu names can get super-hilarious! …like the name I just found on the name plate outside one of the cubicles in office – Jiljin Kuzhiyil! For all you non-mallus out there, lemme explain: “Kuzhi” means ‘a pit’ and “kuzhiyil” means ‘in the pit’! So, when put together, it reads “Jiljin in the pit”! Sorry folks… when it comes to some mallu names, my ability to understand the gender of the person is very poor. In this case, I assume this is a guy, so lemme address Jiljin as “he”. Poor thing; he is carrying his name as a funny tag all through his life – for people like me to write blog posts and for others to have a really good laugh!
Jiljin is just one of the 1000s of victims – of the creativity of people from God’s Own Country! One of my colleagues Saju Mathilmel is yet another example. ‘Mathil’ is fence and ‘Mathilmel’ is ‘on the fence’. And I wonder; will it not lead to logically incorrect situations, like… even if Saju is in the loo, he remains on the fence (going by his name)!!!
Like I mentioned in my first post on my mallu friends having funny names, one of the most common trends observed among Malayali parents is that they take a few alphabets from their names and create an out-of-the-box name for the child. Think of the kid whose mother’s and father’s names were Pinky and Geo. If anybody shouts, “You Pig…!!”, the poor kid, throughout his life, will have to turn and ask: “Yes… did you call me?! To make it sound more fancy, the ultra-inventive parents might add a ‘mon’ or ‘kutty’ as a suffix. So that makes him, Pig Kutty!!
After all, what is in a name, right? Especially in a mallu name!!!
Jiljin is just one of the 1000s of victims – of the creativity of people from God’s Own Country! One of my colleagues Saju Mathilmel is yet another example. ‘Mathil’ is fence and ‘Mathilmel’ is ‘on the fence’. And I wonder; will it not lead to logically incorrect situations, like… even if Saju is in the loo, he remains on the fence (going by his name)!!!
Like I mentioned in my first post on my mallu friends having funny names, one of the most common trends observed among Malayali parents is that they take a few alphabets from their names and create an out-of-the-box name for the child. Think of the kid whose mother’s and father’s names were Pinky and Geo. If anybody shouts, “You Pig…!!”, the poor kid, throughout his life, will have to turn and ask: “Yes… did you call me?! To make it sound more fancy, the ultra-inventive parents might add a ‘mon’ or ‘kutty’ as a suffix. So that makes him, Pig Kutty!!
After all, what is in a name, right? Especially in a mallu name!!!