Plop goes the Cockroach

To: Professor Rahul S Nair

Cc: Orkut Proud-to-be-Mallu Community members

Thesis précis on Kanjiyil Paata.

K.Bullshee, B.Tech, M.Tech, BSc, LLB

University of Mallu Studies, Kuravankonnam

2009

Mallu-dom is the vast expanse of everything that comprises Keralite culture. This includes alcoholism, jaded communism, wildly hormonal males, bashfully coy females, Mohan Lal, the backwaters and of course, coconuts.

But none of them is better known than the phrase “Kanjiyil paatayiduka” – “to put the cockroach in the rice gruel”.

To understand why this is such a popular set of words, we need to dissect the Mallu being. Find a well sized Mallu and lure him in with a carefully set trap; a noose laid out on the ground, with a trip wire connected to a bent over coconut tree. The kind Wiley Coyote sets to catch that blasted Roadrunner - Poor Wiley, all he wants is to make some Roadrunner ’65 or perhaps a Sweet Corn Roadrunner soup, or maybe even go all out and whip up a Kadai Roadrunner. But that irritating bird always gets away and Wiley keeps making "Kersplat" sounds against the canyon floor. But if you are smarter than Wiley, you will use the right bait to capture your Mallu. I would suggest a bottle of Old Monk Rum (OMR). If that is not easy to find, since the Mallus have drunk it all, I would suggest a steaming hot plate of Porotta-Chicken Curry.

Once you have ensnared a gullible specimen you may continue with interrogation. The best possible technique is the Kerala Police Interrogation Technique circa 1965(developed by Kerala Palarivatom Sub Inspector Pathuveetil Ramesh Gopalakrishnan Nair). This involves beating the pulp out of the person you want answers out of. Once you make sure they are only able to communicate with hand signals or mumbling sounds, you can ask the first question. You then accuse them of all the crimes committed in that district since 1990 and get a written confession.

Of course, if you choose a more environmental friendly method (by which I mean something that doesn’t threaten the existence of the human race), you would soon find out that Mallus have a unique distrust of each other. By nature, we are suspicious of every other Mallu we meet and will not trust them in any way until we have shared at least one peg together, after which we are the best of friends, inseperable till death.

The phrase “Kanjiyil paata”-dropping the insect into food, comes from the ancient tradition of dropping a creepy crawly into your enemies’ food, thereby grossing him out, causing abandonment of that day’s nourishment. This in turn leads to weakness the next day, and you can overcome your enemy with a carefully thrown coconut or if you can get your hands on one, running him over with an autorickshaw.

Famous Mallu anthropologist K.Valsalakutty says “Though predictable to people from other parts of the country, Keralites are ticking time bombs with each other. They tip toe around one another and it is quite customary between friends to ask each other not to put Paata in their Kanji before embarking on any kind of venture. Infact, the other day I heard my son asking our neighbors’ son not to put Paata in his Kanji while he was talking to the new girl at his tuition class. Anyway, there is no way that Sulochana’s son can out talk mine. Her husband is earning only Rs.20,000 a month, you know? And they have a daughter who is of marriageable age. Do you know any good boys? Don’t tell I told, you just go to them with the horoscope…”

Unfortunately, we ran out of time with Ms.Valsalakutty and do not have space to publish her extended thesis on the matter. However, she did provide us with these diagrams which represent Pre and Post OMR influences on Mallu relationships.

Pre OMR phase

Post OMR phase

As can be seen, all trust issues in Kerala can be solved with ample amounts of liquor, so we should petition the government to provide subsidies on OMR and lemon pickle.

The purpose of this thesis will be to score a just - pass in this subject, while involving minimal effort, as I have to go to meet my friends in Amrita bar later today. Professor, you are welcome to join, but you have to pay for your own drinks, but I will pay for the Peanut Masala. Therefore please consider this as my submission for my Ph.D in Mallu Studies at U.M.S, Kuravankonnam.