Watch the Malayali go mainstream in Bollywood

Punjiri thanji konjikko/munthiri mutholi chinthikko/manjadi varna chundari vave/thankinnakka thakathimiyaadum thanga nilavae
That, in 1998, was the first time Kerala made its official debut in

Bollywood

. And to date, the internet is trying to figure out what it means — the zingy chorus from

Jiya Jale

in Dil Se, where Shah Rukh Khan romances a Malayali girl (Preity Zinta) in a mundu and blouse on a snake boat in Alleppey.

The song is, in a nutshell, a lover’s ode to a charming young girl with a golden voice and a dancer’s gait. But the most popular Twitter take (via@pushkarr) on it goes thus: Ghajini bandar ganji kyu/sundari bandar ganji kyu/nandari bandar tanduri khave/Nagasaki tanduri bandar mandir jaave.

Until Dil Se, Kerala was a larger part of the amorphous ‘south’, represented often by Mahmood or Mukri as Tamilians, either a sappy Brahmin singing Yek chatur naar (Padosan) or a ludicrous glutton (Bombay to Goa). You might spot the odd Dakhni caricature from Hyderabad or an occasional man in a Mysore peta (patka) to represent a generic ‘

Madrasi

’.

From then to fixating on Priya Prakash Varrier’s charming, Mohiniyattam-esque wink in a yet-to-be-released Malayalam movie Oru Adaar Love, Kerala has come a long way to enter the consciousness of Bollywood audiences.

Of course, God’s Own Country had made for a great setting for songs and dramatic sequences — the backwaters, coconut trees, theyyam extravaganzas, caparisoned elephants, Athirapally Falls and Bekal Fort made delectable backdrops in Nishabd and Raavan. In Karthik Calling Karthik, Farhan Akhtar deals with mental illness by taking off to Kerala, presumably the remotest he could get, to work in a courier company.

But real Kerala and real folks? No, the Malayali seemed unlikely to become a regular demographic in Hindi films.

Then a few years ago, characters from Kerala started slipping into Bollywood’s storytelling with no subtitles, explanations or excuses: there was Bala, the bent RAW agent in John Abraham’s Madras Café (2013), played by the versatile Prakash Belawadi. There was the boorish Georgekutty in Akshay Kumar’s 2016 rescue movie Airlift — again Belawadi — forever snapping at his hapless wife (nee ithil edapadenda — don’t get into this, a dismissive retort often used on women who ask too many questions).

Then finally, there she was last year — a central protagonist from Kerala casually woven into a Bollywood storyline: the cool dancer and happy divorcee from Kochi, Radha Menon (

Padmapriya

) in Raja Krishna Menon’s Chef.

Much of the film was set in Kerala, peopled by typical characters who typically dot the landscape, and speaking in Malayalam as if it was the most natural thing in a Hindi film. There is the union leader who rants: “Veetu panikkare kondu ee vaka joli cheyikkyan okkila (you can’t put domestic help to work on jobs like this)”; the house help dripping sarcasm: “O pinne, nokkaam (O yeah? We will see)”; a bunch of arty types discussing Che, and Milind Soman, stunning in a mundu, casually asking: “Aniletta, engane ondu (how are you, Anil)?”

Even Saif Ali Khan playing New York-returned Roshan Kalra from Chandni Chowk, and dealing with a self-willed ex-wife, gets to make some cracks about hard-to-please Malayalis: “Ek Malayali? ka pyaar pana aasan nahin hota… agar Kerala ne accept kar liya to duniya hamein kabhi nahin thukrayegi (it isn’t easy to earn a Malayali’s love… if you can be accepted in Kerala you needn’t fear rejection anywhere in the world).”

Then late last year arrived Tanuja Chandra’s Qarib Qarib Single that portrays one of the millions of second-generation Malayali migrants who can be spotted anywhere in the north, west and east of India. The delightful Parvathy played the conflicted Jaya Shashidharan, a 35-year-old Mumbai widow, trying to find love on the internet. She is your regular insurance official, her Hindi is unspotted, and like most migrants, quickly lapses into her mother tongue when she is upset or furious. “Nee vegam errangu, errangu kazhudey (get off, you donkey)!” she hollers over the phone at Irrfan Khan’s carefree character as he gets into the wrong train.

At this rate, a Rahul from Thiruvanathapuram might just make it to a Karan Johar film.