“Anyway monay, can I call you right back? I was in the middle of reports…”
“Ma? Please, really quick, ’cause I’m writing something?”
“Vat?”
“Does kundi mean “ass” or “anus“?
Sigh. A deep breath is inhaled.
“This is for your website? Kundi is chunthi. Koothi means anus.”
“Let me be painfully careful– kundi and chunthi are like…the butt cheeks?”
“Yes, they are what I would like to kick right now, absolutely.”
“So, like, you could use kundi in the following context: “get your kundi on the dancefloor?'”
Another sigh is sighed.
“YES.”
“I knew it!”“You knew what?”
“I knew it meant ‘ass’! Because you always said, ‘ninde kundi marredi!‘ to the dog and I couldn’t see you meaning “Girl, move your anus!”
“Edi, I have to go. I will call you back, though not to teach you any bad Malayalam–“
“But I still don’t know what thendi means-“
“I love you. Good. BYE.”
:+:
Sheesh…the tribulations I endure, just to research important issues for this blog. 😉
Speaking of the Mutiny, our first-ever DC meetup is less than two weeks away. Are you excited? I’m excited. In fact, I’m so giddy to meet you, I’m testing out new brands of shimmery eye-shadow in anticipation (to see which will leave the most glittery residue on you when we air-kiss) and I will be wearing Aish-scara (so that I can blink a breeze, in case the weather is as “unseasonably” warm as it has been these last few days).
We didn’t pick a venue, but I have two very different ideas to offer you:
We could go to Adams Morgan’s Tryst, which is where I laid un-Aishscara’d eyes on Abhi for the first time or
We could keep things REALLY brown and do a brunch OR dinner of Mysore Masala Dosas at Georgetown’s Amma Vegetarian Cuisine. They are closed from 3:30 to 5:30 so we could meet early (12:30-3:30) and have plenty of time or meet later and have even more time (5:30-…5:30?).
Either way, if we are all madly in lowe with each other and we don’t want the magic to end, there are possibilities for further adventures near both restaurants. Thoughts? Arguments for me to relay to my saintly Mother about her Malayalam? Marriage proposals for Abhi? Let the comment-riots begin. 😉
ANNA! You should have just asked me what thendi meant, I would have told you! Any ways, when someone says “Poda patti! Thendi! Narri”
It just means “Go, male dog! Vagabond! Stinky guy!”
How come malu cusswords suck?
daycruz? that was hilarious. 🙂
ohh.. thanks for the tips on the eats… and probably will try them out in my next trip to DC probably not next week tho’ – damn it, sign! sign! … my last visit (and the first) was – uh- grey … staying in some ugly spot near pentagon city – no place to run, couldnt find a place to eat… ended up eating at a chipotle’s and a soy burger in a shmoetel – now that dosa… I could sink my teeth into that right about now…. mmm … drool.
my matako will be there…can NOT wait!!
Anna – I just left a comment on the playboy nehru article, but I’m feeling queasy about it so let me say it here instead, where the subject matter is highly appropriate….
I’ve always heard kundi = turd and chunthi = ass…and I thought, like, all malayalees knew this…..and I was hoping for an enlightened and/or sensitive malayalee to bring it up, since kundi was being bandied around willy-nilly (okay, I totally stole that from the office)….perhaps its a regional thing within kerala…hmm…nuff said.
a mallu-
there are definitely regional differences, and when i continue the convo i had w/my mom on one of my personal blogs, i’ll get in to that. 😉
also? “theetum” is “poo”, AFAIK.
Anna – HAHA I can’t believe that you had that conversation with your mom. Oh, I’m laughing so hard there are tears in my eyes… 😀
Daycruz – Narri means “bastard”. Here’s how I know – I called someone that in Kerala, thinking that it just meant “smelly-guy” or something like that and he almost kicked my kundi for it. I was all confused until a cousin, who had watched the whole thing transpire, explained it to me.
well it would literally mean stinky guy but imply bastard, same for thendi. Even using poda with someone you don’t know that well is considered offensive here in Kerala…we’re a touchy people I guess:-)
can readers come too? i just started a job in DC and will be moving there as soon as i find a place.
ryan, we would love to have you. 🙂
:+:
and just to clarify– all are welcome: readers, lurkers, bloggers, haters, fembots, hobbits, lemurs…come oooooon down.
finally some news we can use! the endless debates about the us-india nuclear deal or the map of kashmir were getting a little monotonous. thanks ANNA for doing your thing.
speaking of meetups, my own oversize kundi will be jostling on the regular for subway space in new york city not long for now. vij, cicatrix, desidancer and the rest of y’all, stay tuned.
peace
The thing that makes me most nervous about these meet-ups is that you never know who people are because you haven’t seen a real-life picture of them. What if I introduce myself to some random person thinking that they are there for the meet-up? Just to prevent any possibly embarassing situations, here is a recent picture of me so you will recognize me when I show up to the meet-up.
You could all go in Guy Fawkes masks …
weird…they always find me just fine. 😉 if you’d like, we can do name tags again, since that was SO successful at the last SMeetup in nyc…
.
siddhartha, i’m just doin’ my job. thanks for noticing! 😀
by the by, i’m in nyc monthly– most recently last friday, as i mooched off the Vij at madras mahal, which is where that yummy photograph above was snapped– i want to meet you! oh yeah, seeing pooja, cicatrix and DD would be fab, too. 😉
uhh… are we talking about this old man.
Did your mom say anything about “kundi” meaning “ass” and… “vagina?” (Oh my god, I feel like a kid whispering about condoms, tampons and puberty). In my family, it’s always meant both and my whole life, the word has always been strangely profane (e.g. I would never talk about a “kundi” to anyone, but then again, I’ve heard little girls affectionately called “kundi-girl” by their mothers). Maybe it’s just me, yeah, it probably is…
When I was a kid, about ten, a servant in my aunt’s house used to chase me around, sit on me and then scare the hell out of me by saying “one of these days my ‘front kundi’ is going to eat you!” Fuck.
Beet – whoa that’s freaky!
awwww, beet-red…
i find it slightly adorable that discussing shame-shames inspires such a comment from you. 😉 and i’m fairly sure that kundi doesn’t refer to anything in front– my mom would’ve mentioned it (and i would’ve blogged it!) if it did, so i’m confident that it…doesn’t.
i think what your auntie’s servant (what a sick fuck!) was torturing you with was…a threat involving an undi, though i’ve always been a bit confused as to whether only boys have one of those. i mean, when you’re a toddler and they’re being all cutesy and saying “mookeh (nose)…kanne (eye)…chevy (ear)” while pointing to each respective feature to teach you body parts, they never get to this stuff. in any case, i’m horrified that you went through that experience. eeeeek.
in other news, i can’t believe i’m having this conversation via comments, though i know, i started it so i shan’t complain. still, this is usually done face-to-beet-red-face and it generally involves inebriation, inappropriate jokes and giggling to sort out such significant matters. 😉 i get the feeling that this is going to be SOME meetup. 😀
oh my sweet goodness. all this south indian lingo is dizzying. i wish i could spit some konkani for you all, but it would probably make sense to five people total.
k-back to ANNA’s original question, I say Tryst cause of all the reasons. Or, Ben’s Chili Bowl. 😉
well, i’m getting the feeling that i seem to be the one with greatest grasp of malayalma so far. yeah, i agree that there are colloquial differences in how the term is used, but i know people from all over kerala (some who speak more coloquial talk than other), and i’ve always heard kundi used as the equivalent of booty. so yeah, i think we should stop debating this.
i get the thing about the pervy servant. i’ve come across quite a few who are pervy in various ways.
PS- how come they never teach this in malayalam class
i say tryst for the animal biscuits with a tureen of cappucino!!
chai, i lurve me some tryst too, but i wonder if your choice is influenced by convenience? 😉
are there any other desis out there who get mistaken for somalian/ethiopian at tryst? i know there are a lot of east africans who hang out there…interesting how a lot of mallu girls get taken for somali girls…i’ve been guilty myself of getting it wrong the other way around.
A Malayalee-
From the link in my last comment:
Anna – you’re spot on 🙂 I could also totally identify with the demands of “India or Pakistan?”…somehow its charming when I’m mistaken for an ethiopian…but not for a pakistani…not because of anything to do with the pure land but the fact that the speaker is ignorant about ethiopians looking nothing like pakis….
tryst is a great place for a dc meetup…perhaps with an appreciation of intimacy borne from sharing our mutual knowledge of dirty words, we might one day be able to have an SM brunch at Perry’s, not far from Tryst 🙂 complete with drag queens dancing.
ha… funny, i’ve heard it from arabs and palestinians, that it’s relatively easy to separate people with indian origins from those from pakistan – something to do with the eyes. of course – to the color sensitive – it’s all one shade of brown from ecru to mocha – much the way no doubt that all europeans are ‘white’, be they spaniards, serbs, danes etc.
but really – this is positive – i truly believe reaching out to another means there is something in the other that what one wants to see – i am quite swarthy but it isnt unusual for polish grammies in my neighborhood to start talking to me in the cashier line in polish now and then.
of course i’m quite overflowing with contentment right now – a lab puppy ran over to me this evening on my walk and wanted to play – no doubt he saw something positive. it’s a positive sign. i trust labs.
hey do spit some out, will try and validate them for you.. 🙂
but which konkani? mangie, goan, karwar, saraswat, catholic?
and when is the next NYC meetup going to be then?
But you can get caught for saying stuff that seems completely innocent to you at first but someone else in the room will be horrified. For example, right after our church service, my friends and I were joking around about English movies dubbed in Malayalam. I proceeded to do Darth Vader’s line from Star Wars: “Lukos, Nyan ninde thantha ane”
(Luke, I am your father)
Apparently, Thantha is a very vulgar way to say father in Malayalam. I had no idea! Everyone in the church was absolutley stunned. I cleared my throat and went again
“Lukos, Nyan ninde appan ane”
Everyone was happy.. I think I came pretty close to gettin lynched there.
Kit manta, Riverside? All these shame shames make me want to shower. Or eat dose.
okay this is my favourite mallu proverb: (my dad used to say this to me to shame me out of my last-minute ways…) kooran nokumbe chunthi thappua (translated: when you’re looking to defaecate, you’re still trying to find your ass)…how much more subtle can we be?
A mallu-
I thought defecate was “thooran” not kooran Are you a thekkar or something?
daycruz – elaborate please? you might be right….
A mallu- Thekkar- as in are you from the thek- or the South? They might say things a little differentaly than me, I’m from Trichur- and my thekkar friends always make fun of my accent.
half my family is from trichur too…they speak the purest form of malayalam there 😉 it is after all home of the puram
daycruz wrote:
…and he is right. 🙂 it’s the former. also? this is the most juvenile thread EVER. 😀
That’s what you get for stirring things up, Anna! Juvenile talk from yours truly…
Also, this is why I love Malayalam. When I’m sitting at the cafe with buddies and such… best way to make fun of people walking by.. good times, good times. Anna, next time you do a meetup in Portland (never) we’ll do this.
daycruz,
never say never…i owe my uncle george and valsa auntie a visit. 😉
Well I think my malayalam proficiency is not that bad (particularly in this context) 😉 So here it goes: Kundi = Ass, not Anus/Vagina or anything else.
A Malayalee : Its “Thooran nokkumbol parambu thappua” Literal translation : Searching for plantation when you have to attend nature’s call.
In order to understand this proverb, you need to know that in olden days when there were no proper sanitation (atleast among the poor in village), they just did it among the trees in areca nut / coconut groves. Now you badly wanna go but you are seaching for a bunch of areca nut trees to hide and you cant find any!! Got the gist? What this proverb means is you gotta plan ahead, not get stuck in the end when there’s not real time 🙂
Talking of Kundi, 🙂 I remember this one time when I was a kid, we were travelling in train in Gujarat, me and my sis (she was 8 and I was 12) found a novel way to kill time – repeating a word over and over again till it finds a different meaning. I asked her to keep saying “Dinku” non-stop 🙂 There was just another guy sitting in that coupe and we didnt really care, Imagine my embarrassment when after some time that guy talked to my dad in malayalam!!
Anna….
You are kidding me…
George and Valsa?….
You know them?
Are we talking about the same people?
You’re Neha’s cousin??
I’m not in DC, and I don’t speak Malayalam, but I strongly vote for Tryst! It’s one of my favorite places in DC, hands down, and definitely my fave cafe there.
Oooh, my tummy still hurts from all the laughing! Too mucking fuch, I say!
BTW, what does ‘Poda Pulle’ mean? I mean, should I deck a guy because he says it to me? Or can he get away with being glared at?
but then again, I’ve heard little girls affectionately called “kundi-girl” by their mothers
My friend’s Swiss girlfriend calls her daughter something that sounds like “shnooglifootz” which apparently translates as “snuggly c*nt.” (yes Anna, guess what Cocteau Twins “fotzepolitic” means…) 😉
In Hindi class recently we learned “dunda”, which made me and a Malayalee guy start giggling. The teacher was like, what? I replied that I’d only ever heard my British Asian friends use it in a rude manner. So of course the other students were asking, and the teacher exclaimed “It just means stick! You know, like when an old man holds his dunda!” …which just made me and the guy laugh even more. 😉
I’m actually digitizing a client’s footage of Kerala right now…I’ll keep an ear out for people cussing on the beach!
i say tryst… and then head over to madam organs for old times sake (for me) can’t wait can’t wait can’t wait 🙂
i know there are a lot of east africans who hang out there…interesting how a lot of mallu girls get taken for somali girls
Thats actually kinda silly. Somalians look nothing like Desis. Here is a photo journal of some Somalian women.
“Dirrrty South” indeed…..
yes finally; we be meetin’ in my hood. I’m down for anywhere that serves vegetarian. Really looking forward to it!
Taz – now “poda pulle” I have used without eliciting too much of a reaction. I think it just means “away with you, grass/straw”. I prefer something a li’l more creative – “ninde kunde pullanne” (yo ass is grass).