Here is what happens when a Malayali Man meets the bottle

WHY DO THEY SAY ‘Drink like a fish’? Do fish drink? Google defines the phrase as ‘To consume excessive amounts of alcohol’. In that case, there is another unique species to whom it would fit better: The Malayali Man. There are two places where you can get a sighting of this species in its natural habitat. One is at a wedding. How do you spot him? He is the mustachioed alpha male you see by the bar, belting out old melodies while balancing an aged bottle of brandy on his head.

He is not necessarily handsome, but going by his swagger, he obviously thinks he is. Three drinks down, his voice starts slurring (which is a badge of honour among the Brotherhood of the Wasted). Four drinks down, he starts a competition with his companions: whose humour is the raunchiest? The standard is very high. No one does raunch as well as the Malayali machan.

Wives are nettled as they cast side-long glances at their sloshed husbands, whose singing is now drowning out the music from the stage where the children are performing a ‘synchronised’ dance in a very un-synchronised manner. They look pointedly at their watches. Is it time to go home? But the night is still young for the Malayali Man. He is on top of the world, and he is determined to let the world know it. The next morning, he will wake up with the mother of all hangovers, but he will still find the energy to share WhatsApp forwards about how the oldest man in the world attributes his longevity to the glass of whisky he has every day. The rest of his drink buddies on the WhatsApp group will hyuk-hyuk and post emojis of beer mugs clinking. All in good spirit.

The second place where you saw the Malayali Man in all his drunken glory was in the Mallu movies of the noughties. Getting the hero or his sidekick drunk used to be one of the most powerful plot devices of our filmmakers. The preferred poison was Old Monk rum, and it was chugged down in one swig straight from the bottle without any mixers, which was for sissies. It had to go, of course, with ‘touchings’, or a plate of beef fry, which was finger-licking good―literally.

Usually, you could tell what kind of scene was about to ensue from where the hero consumed his alcohol. If he got drunk in a sleazy bar with neon lighting and loud disco music, a fight scene was about to take place. A few tables and chairs would be overturned and the villain would get a good pummeling while the hero emerged unscathed, not a strand of his Brylcreemed hair out of place. If he got drunk with his friends in someone’s home, he was probably going to propose to the heroine in the next scene. If he got drunk in a hotel room, he was probably a politician about to receive a hefty amount as bribe in a briefcase with a golden clasp. Some of the most memorable one-liners have been perfected by our heroes in such a state. Even Osama bin Laden would cower in terror if he heard our heroes detonate these dialogues.

The Kerala of my childhood has largely disappeared. Perfumes are no longer called ‘scents’ and our Marthoma priests no longer travel on Bajaj scooters. Our Mariamma chedathys no longer hold forth in their Nasrani kitchens and our Kottayam achayans have given up their bling. Our Fair-and-Lovely mothers will no longer be asked which college they study in. You can hardly even find the cat-callers loitering outside ladies’ hostels in their Kitex lungis.

With slice-of-life films replacing larger-than-life ones, our Macho Muscleman (minus the muscles) has graciously given way to the Aam Aadmi hero. Our foreign-educated lads speak in hosh-posh accents, and our girls sip at pina coladas with little umbrellas stuck in them. This is the age of pre-wedding shoots and themed birthday parties. The age of baby showers, bachelorettes and return gifts. Children celebrate holidays like Halloween, which I had not even heard of in my childhood. Thacholi Varghese has given way to Taylor Swift, and I doubt if our Gen Z has ever seen a Kathakali performance.

But there is hope. If you go by the queue outside a beverages corporation on a weekend, you know that the Malayali Man has retained his love affair with his bottle. So much so that he is taking it to the outside world. At least five Malayali liquor brands have launched in the west in the last six years, such as Maharani Gin in Ireland and Mandakini Malabar Vaatte in Canada. Who knows? There might come a day when you find a Donald Trump crooning to ‘Top of the World’ in that wheezy contralto, with a glass of Komban Beer balanced on his head.