Are Thevara-ites restricted from drinking fire?

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Do people in Thevara, Cochin drink fire? Do you know anything about it or have you heard this before? Does it seem astonishing? It did the same to me when I witnessed it.

Let me introduce myself. I am Abhilash (better known as Abhi among friends). I am new to Cochin Square but old in Cochin. Anand told me about this blog two weeks ago and I thought yes, it is the right place to exchange ideas. I am not professional writer or a creative or intelligent personality like people in Cochin square. I write whatever comes in my mind or the easiest way to express the things I witness around me in Cochin.

I went to Thevara yesterday for an official purpose. While returning we (the people who accompanied me) thought to have a tea. We parked the vehicle at a roadside near Thevara and approached the nearby tea stall.

Mahesh, my colleague offered me tea but I am not used to drinking tea so I insisted to have a pineapple juice. I figured my favorite undan pori(a dish made of wheat flour and jaggery that tastes similar to unni appam) inside the closed glass box. I ordered undan pori for all.

I stated looking at the way he has arranged the items and suddenly… hear what I see, a board written in Malayalam that says, “Please don’t ask for fire”. ha ha… A shop that tells the customer he should not ask fire.

Creative ideas

The Malayalam translation though would mean the same but the shopkeeper seems to be a Malayalam enthusiast. He wants to tell his customers not to use English and he sells a “Malayalam chaya” and not a tea. The wordings “thee” in Malayalam describe the English tea.

This was really a creative idea by the shopkeeper. Hope we have creative people no matter they are in tea stalls or big offices. What we lack is ability to express and eradicate fear.

The post though was on the wordings but the final purpose is to describe the feeling I have about us, the youths. We have great and good ideas which we let un-noticed and stop searching for the right avenues to express them. I can see the same in many candidates who approach for interviews. While they appear for exams or they are for an interview, they feel asking doubts and expressing ideas in their way is a crime or will be treated as crime.

It does not matter what you have if you cannot use it. So please try to increase your confidence levels and jump into the field with other people. Hope you understand what I mean to say.

Happy blogging and Independence Day wishes

Leave a Reply

5 Comments

1. 

   thanveer

   I thought the shopkeeper meant not to ask for fire tight cigarettes..anyways good to c ur post.i am also new to cochinsquare.com. i have to say this is one really good site on cochin.cheers guys!keep up the good work

   on August 16th, 2009
2. 

   Deepak P

   “thee chodikkaruthu” means dont ask for matches/lighter to light cigarrettes. its written in a lot of places. esp, in busy areas where policemen in mufti are always around – for example, GCDA complex corner store, small shops outside kavitha, padma etc.

   on August 18th, 2009
3. 

   amarthya

   we should respect others. and for that we should first respect ourselves. our culture. our lovely language. respect our own entity. thus we can hear, see, speek, think and act at the right balance.
   i wonder how, a keralite can blog so! the biggest problom with an Indian is that he is not aware of the great culture he belongs to, or he tries to pretend .
   a human kind who first developed a language, science, education systems………………….. you missed to see those panorama on your journey.
   read about India, Kerala , as much as you can , and you will say the world with pride , proud to be an Indian.

   on August 26th, 2009
4. 

   Abhilash

   Re: Thanveer and Deepak

   sorry I saw the comments late.

   I am not born and brought in Kerala.
   I though that person wrote it to represent tea in english…

   

   Re: Amarthya

   I did not understand why you wrote so much…
   I hope you are not hurt by my writing…
   Also I hope, there is nothing written wrong about kerala or people here.
   Rather I said they are creative ….

   Anyways, thanks for the comments…

   on August 26th, 2009
5. 

   Meena

   Its a genuine mistake and funny too.:) Perhaps one should blog on how you mistook thee for tea.

   on September 22nd, 2010