There is something wonderfully revealing about the latest little controversy involving Urvashi, Supriya Menon and the apparently unforgivable crime of speaking English in Kerala. One could almost hear the collective sigh of relief from the Malayalam police, that informal but remarkably efficient, predominantly male fraternity, supported quite eminently by representatives of the state’s own “respectable womanhood”, who have appointed themselves custodians of the Malayali woman’s tongue, clothes, manners, ambitions and, when required, her entire moral character. The original matter was rather mundane and less exciting.

At a programme connected with a Malayalam film, Urvashi apparently wondered why the proceedings were being conducted in English when the audience was Malayali and the subject was Malayalam cinema. It was hardly a matter requiring anything more elaborate than the exercise of ordinary adult judgement. She was entitled to say it as much as the compere was entitled to speak English. End of story, one might reasonably have thought. But this is Kerala, where a woman speaking English is rarely permitted to remain merely a question of language. Supriya Menon subsequently entered the conversation in response to a social media post, speaking from her own experience of being called arrogant because she is more comfortable speaking English. As far as the available account shows, she did not launch some grand assault on Urvashi. Yet before long the machinery had started grinding, and the familiar narrative appeared. Two women had to be made to fight, one of them had to be arrogant, and the assembled male commentariat had to decide which woman had violated the unwritten code of acceptable female behaviour.

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This is where it gets interesting. Kerala likes to boast about literacy, education, social development and its allegedly enlightened........

© Mathrubhumi English