If there is one thing Malayalee NRI ladies do, it is cooking Kerala food with a ferocity of a lion chasing a Wildebeest. My uncle, lets call him George found this out recently, much to his chagrin. George (60 years old) was called to the US to see his ailing sister (65 years old) and was housed in a rather large house by his rather generous, filthy rich brother-in-law. Uncle was lost in the big house, by that I mean, he would get lost going from one room to another or from wing of the house to another or simply from one end of the room to the other. He was also hygienically challenged as he did not know how to turn on the shower, and sleep and food deprived as did not know how to use the basketball court sized bed or the space shuttle control deck like kitchen. After checking the house and recovering from his shock, uncle decided not to eat or shower as he had no idea how to operate the gadgets in the kitchen and the shower in the bathroom.
His brother-in-law came around in the evening and familiarized him with the house. This was followed by a retinue of unknown Malayalee ladies, presumably friends of BIL and family who brought sambhar, rice, a thousand thorans, beef fry, chicken curry, mutton pepper fry and egg roast, some appams, dosa, idli, and chapathis. They fussed around the table and left promising to come back the next day with breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner.
After the ladies had left, BIL poured George some scotch and decided to go down memory lane with him.
BIL: So how is Mathew saar? Is he still around?
George: He is in hospital..
BIL: Oh! What happened to him?
George: He found romance in his old age and his wife found out.
BIL: Sad! And how about Mr Krishnan? He was my math teacher at the Govt High School.
George: He retired, joined some political party, ran off with the party funds, was caught and made Treasurer of the party funds.
BIL: Er, and Susan aunty, she was my sister’s sister in laws mother-in-law.
George: She retired and is running a prayer group now. Every one runs when they see her. I have blocked her number, if you want, I can give it you.
BIL: Err no, she did send me a Zoom invitation to her prayer group. They have gone online you know heh heh
George: * Gulp *
After that tete a tete, BIL left, George ate two pieces of cucumber and decided to sleep, he was tired and jet lagged. So, he slept on the chair he was sitting on and got up the next morning frozen solid. BIL came around, started the internal heating, defrosted him and gave him tea. George noticed that BIL had shoved yesterday’s dinner into the trash can and put the dishes in the dish washer.
Soon the door bell rang, George opened the door and in front of the door there was a retinue of ladies carrying trays of food. They walked past him breezily and soon the dining table was groaning under Ildi, dosa, sambar, vada, appam, idiyappam and some other indistinguishable items. Uncle poured himself some coffee and put on the TV. His break fast was over. Back home in Kerala, his breakfast consisted of ignoring breakfast, lunch consisted of ignoring lunch and eating some curd and evening tea consisted on eating all the snacks the town bakery had, with tea. Dinner consisted of loud snores in front of the TV.
His wife threatened to leave him, hang herself, join Susan’s prayer group, or go away to stay with her daughter in Jaipur. All these were horrible threats, but George was unfazed. He calmly told her to carry out her threats, to which his wife would say that she wasn’t leaving him so that he could have fun, she was staying right there with him so he would not have fun. George sighed and for a fleeting moment considered joining Susan’s prayer group to plead to God that his wife would leave him alone…literally! Then he realised that anyone who joined Susan’s prayer group had never managed to leave. The ones who tried, had to leave town and go into hiding to prevent the group from finding them and dragging them back kicking and screaming to the prayer hall. So, George gave up that idea.
At 1 pm, George stood in front of the dining table and contemplated what to do. BIL came around, shoved the food into the trash can and opened the door with a beatific smile. The ladies trooped in with lunch. George looked sadly at BIL. BIL closed the door behind the ladies and turned to George and asked him to eat what he could and leave the rest. George looked at the lunch mournfully and brightened up when he saw curds. His lunch was done.
In the evening George was a happy man, the ladies bought achappam, unniappam, cake, chips, peanuts, and various other Kerala delicacies. Uncle ate to his hearts content and went to sleep. The next day he was invited to dinner by BIL’s family friends. The topic of discussion among the ladies at the party was the menu for George’s breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner. The men looked at George with pity and sympathy. George felt like a goat that was being readied for sacrifice. Sreejith, one of the husbands took George aside and spoke to him.
“George, you don’t need to eat everything, the food will keep coming, don’t get nervous, we are all here cheering for you.”
George walked across to BIL and told him that he wanted to go home. George returned home a week later., He then regaled his friends and family back home with tales of the crazy Malayalee ladies in the US who had this crazy compulsion to cook and feed anyone coming from Kerala within spitting distance. To which his female audience said dewy eyed, “You can take a Malayalee out of Kerala but you cannot take Kerala out of a Malayalee”. The men in the audience tried not to barf.
Then the crowd saw Susan approaching and everyone ran for their lives. George and wife ran too, with Joseph, their cousin. George and wife slept in Joseph’s house that night and left for home the next morning, after ascertaining that Susan was not around.
