Friday, December 05, 2008

The Global Mallu

Mallus a.k.a Keralites are rather notorious for being present in every nook and corner of the world!! There are even jokes abt whom did Armstrong meet when he landed on the moon or abt who welcomes Edmund Hillary on the Everest!! No prizes for guessing who!! :)
Last week, I was checking into a flight from Vienna to Frankfurt. Vienna, the capital of Austria has a very sparse Indian/South Asian population, so much so that people look at you with curiousity and sometimes jealousy (well, we do have a year round tan, without having to bake ourselves live in the sun!!)
At the Austrian Airlines check in desk, the agent was of an origin I quite cudnt put my finger on. She spoke in chaste and fluent German to the lady in front of me. Finally my turn came, I handed my passport n ticket to her, with a cheerful "Guten Morgen", which was responded back with a luminous smile!! She goes through my passport, makes the necessary keystrokes on her comp and then without taking her eyes off the screen, asks me ... "Malayalee annu alle?!" (Thats Malayalam for - "You are a Mallu, right?!!")
Long live the Global Mallu!! :)

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