The above question came with no prior warning, it was one of those spontaneous question and much as I wanted to ask him “Why?” I didn’t for fear of jinxing the whole thing.
For you see, I was waiting for this moment.
Like I mentioned before I knew there will be a day my kids will start trying to find out who exactly they are and would be interested to learn about their background.
My son doesn’t have a center in his brain for languages. So it was really a shock to hear him asking me to teach him Malayalam..
I pictured my handsome boy wearing a kasavu mundu.. and my imagination progressed to him marrying an Indian girl. ( Ok la, I admit, a mallu girl!!) and I thought how hard it would be to find a mallu girl who knows how to make traditional Italian Pizza.. ( My son’s one and only criteria concerning his ideal partner according to him!!)
There was so much I needed to teach him about Malayalees..because learning the language alone wouldn’t be sufficient for him to understand his background. My knowledge of Kerala history is pretty good, but still I didn’t want to teach him something that is not correct, so I spend most of my evenings reading about Kerala history..
I was so excited..
I made a conscious effort to speak to him in Malayalam..Now he understands basic mallu commands , sit, stand up, go etc!!
Yesterday he came to me and asked “mom, would it be easier to learn Malayalam if I learned to read it?”
I looked at him trying to think of a subtle way to explain to him there are 55 alphabets ( I think) in Malayalam and even I don’t remember all the alphabets! I really didn’t want to spoil the only chance I have to teach my child his mother tongue, but there was no way I could teach him to read Malayalam.
“Learning to read is going to be really tough” I replied
“What do you mean mom? I could read every signboard when we went to Malaysia last Christmas, it was all using English Alphabets”
“That was Malay” I replied.
“What is the difference between Malay and Malayalam?” He asked me with a total look of confusion on his face..
And I explained, “Malay is spoken in Malaysia and Malayalam is spoken in Kerala”
“So what were you teaching me all these days?” He asked
“Malayalam” I replied
“Why would I want to learn Malayalam when I want to go back to Malaysia, duh??”
Why indeed !
Oh yeah, the sound you heard just now is my heart breaking in to itsy bitsy tiny weeny pieces..
( I struggled all these years so my children will have a better life, migrated to Canada and now live in Australia and my one and only son wants to go back to Malaysia)
“Malayali girl that can make pizza”- Clearly you've been meeting all the wrong malayalis. There is an excess of well-bred, worldly malalayi men and women everywhere i look. As a young malayali girl myself, i pride myself in being able to negotiate and reconcile both sides to my identity. Perhaps as your son grows older and cultivates connections of his own, he will re-discover his language and ethnicity. We are all allowed to cherry-pick the best aspects of our cultures to make a happy living for ourselves. My concern is that your negative experiences with malayalis may be clouding his interest slightly. If not, he will be a marvelously well-adjusted kid, and you have no reason to fret.
color-coded: you missed the key word “traditional”. Anyone can make a pizza, but it takes a very special person to learn the fine art of making a traditional pizza. Starting from the homemade passatta to using the 00 flour and kneading it to the right consistency and not adding too much of toppings and finally using a woodfired oven. ( My son knows the difference between a store bought and traditional pizza)
It doesn't matter which part of the world you live, what matters is that you learn to cook without prejudice and cutting corners. Both traits are very uncommon among malayalees however well bred!
Clearly my children view the world not through my eyes, but their own..I have not raised them as Malayalees, neither have I forced my values on them.