I have often wondered what Malayalis’ beef with sunglasses is. Because a lot of them sure do have a problem with it. Don’t believe me? Just go to the comments section of any picture of someone (no gender bias here) wearing sunglasses. “Koothara jada,” “Verum show-off,” “Kanninasukham aano?” – the list is endless, with a number of them doing a complete “character assessment” (read character assassination) of the person involved.
Going to a darkened room or an award night function wearing sunglasses is something I have always found weird – only because of the logistical aspects of it. I mean, I keep wondering how they can see or if they would stumble against something. But in general, I have never looked at sunglasses as just a fashion statement. It is an accessory – a very useful one at that. And someone driving or stepping out into the sun wearing sunglasses is not a huge sight, except maybe in Kerala, where it is still looked at as a “Hey, hey, look there. That guy is wearing sunglasses” moment.
How else do you explain all the negative comments against Prithviraj (no, I’m not a fan at all) only because he stepped out of his car in sunglasses while visiting Sreenivasan’s home at the time of his death? Photos of celebrities attending a funeral is bad in itself without having comments like “Has this guy come for a fashion show here?” or “Doesn’t he have basic respect for the dead?” under those photos, only because our people think of sunglasses as something to be worn only for fashion shows or to show off mass hero vibes in movies.
In addition to their everyday use, I have quite often seen celebrities wearing sunglasses at their dear ones’ funerals. And basic common sense can explain why they wouldn’t want their bloodshot eyes and tired faces during their grieving period to be splashed across Page 3 by intruding camera-bearing vultures. I have never understood the backlash those celebrities receive for such a simple personal choice of what to wear.
Knowing very well how judgemental our people are when it comes to sunglasses, whenever I go to my parents’ home in Kerala, I still shy away from wearing sunglasses even if I am walking under an unforgiving sun. I mean, people give me strange looks over there even for wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, even in this era. Couple that with sunglasses, I will be made a caricature of a “Parishkari kochamma.” No, thank you! I have enough bullshit to deal with already.
If you think sunglasses are the only enemy of Malayalis, no – another enemy, even bigger than sunglasses, is the English language. Granted that we are the state with the highest literacy rate and educated souls and what not, but go to the comments section of any video where someone uses a few English words sparingly, here and there, even if the rest of their talk is in pure Malayalam – you will see a completely different picture. Here again, their beef is probably not with the language in itself, but an inferiority complex that is created in them for absolutely unnecessary reasons by a person speaking English. Because these very souls go to videos of someone speaking broken English and comment mocking them and their “grammarless English” – because that gives them a sense of superiority.
But God forbid, if someone can speak or write good English and uses it even a little in conveying their ideas, they are immediately branded as pompous show-offs who are trying to act superior to the simple people listening or reading. Please note that it is not the ones who mix up Malayalam and English in a weird accent to desperately sound cool that I am talking about here. While mockery of broken English is a pan-Indian syndrome, this verbal outrage against someone speaking or writing well in English is something I have seen mostly on Malayali social media. (Of course, I am not talking about hardcore native language enforcers from other states. That is a totally different breed altogether.)
Prithviraj, scoring yet again there, has been the favourite target for Malayalis owing to his use of good English (and well, owing to his wife’s old comment about his use of English, if we are being fair). But I have seen extremely degrading and mocking comments under the videos of many celebrities only because there were a few English words in their content. The last one I remember is a video of Santhy Balachandran, explaining the role of dramaturgy in movies, quite beautifully to those of us who had no idea what that word even meant. But no, many buffoons in the comments section couldn’t focus on her sensible content and use it as an opportunity to learn something new – instead, they had to pick out the number of times she used English words (quite organically used, I must say, to elevate her explanation) and use that to pull her down.
In essence, these two “beefs” – with sunglasses and with English – are reflections of a deeply ingrained inferiority complex and jealousy, coupled with the “Pottakkinattile thavala” syndrome that is commonly seen in our people. Sadly, a high literacy rate alone is not a cure for it, as our people are yet to understand.
Also published on Medium.
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