The Kerala-Canada Problem

In 2022 Canada began a very informal process of denying visas to students from specifically Punjab, India. Quite simply, the former felt that too many Punjabis had come as students. There were complaints about mustard seed oil smell, people using the phrase, “Isn’t it?” too regularly as well as claims of too much late-night dancing, which does not bode well in towns like Vancouver that proudly advertise themselves as no-fun cities.

On a more national stage, India and Canada had been having issues politically as well. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had not taken a strong enough stance with hunting down Khalistani separatists, India claimed. Especially with the Indian govt. being led largely by Hindu nationalists, this lack of impetus did not sit well at all. PM Trudeau was even snubbed when he arrived to the G20 in India. The latest round in this chamber of tension entered when Canada alleged that the Modi govt. assassinated a Canadian citizen, on its own soil, no less.

No one could have predicted that the final swing at the pineapple would come from something that took place in Kerala, South India.

Keep in mind Kerala is not too different than Punjab. It ranks just after Punjab in terms of levels of alcoholism. Kerala is also dotted with Punjabi dhabas, and has a film industry that has created odes to the latter culture via vehicles such as Punjabi House and Mallu Singh.

Kayo had been living in his native Kerala for a few years. He had long ago seen where things were going in Canada when people began talking about housing prices during parties, and got out. In order to be able to live outside the country, he had to fake mental illness, which he did so by loudly shouting “I don’t give a fuck about owning a house in Canada” at the Canada Day parade in Vancouver.

Deemed mentally unstable, he was allowed to leave the country for long-term residence elsewhere. The pickle in his brilliant puttu and banana plan was the fact that he unfortunately lived right next door to a police constable whose cousin worked for the immigration department of Canada. Kayo faced a double issue in having to show both the policeman and his cousin by proxy that he was in fact mentally insane.

Kayo went about this by being a generally nasty piece of work – throwing stones at the policeman, dancing in his front yard with a vettothi(machete), and barking at his dogs when they barked at him. The ruse worked. Policeman Balan told his cousin Sasi that his neighbour was off his rocker.

Things took an ugly turn one December day. It was cloudy and very much geared towards Christmas. Plum cakes were everywhere, being thrust at people like stock options at start up tech companies.

Kayo was sitting on his front porch with all 5 dogs, talking to DM about different kinds of penises. The issue was that he was talking all too normally about this subject, or as normally as one could about the topic. Had Balan understood English, he would have have taken the conversation about cocks as further indication of Kayo’s brain damage. However, not knowing what the words meant, he only listened to the cadence, which seemed to him unusual for a man who was supposed to be mental.

His gaze did not go unnoticed – Kayo saw that he was being observed from the corner of his eye. He quickly said goodbye to DM and took stock. Balan’s expression showed that he was questioning Kayo’s lack of sanity.

Kayo had to act quickly and decisively. He grabbed the vettothi that was lodged in the gooseberry tree and danced over to Balan’s mittum (yard), putting his lungi as madakikettu so as not to trip on it. Singing a track from Sagar Alias Jackie, he hesitated just one moment before he began cutting the various banana trees – vazhas – in the yard.

It is important to pause here and note the importance of a vazha to the average Malayali. People take great pride in these, and even name them like their children. A woman even married a vazha once, for some reason. They provide shade, fruit and even plates with their leaves.

Balan came running out of his house and confront Kayo.

“Aha! Nee vetti vetti, policukarenttem vazha vettan vallanoda?” Balan yelled. You’ve cut and cut to the point that you’re cutting a policeman’s tree?

Kayo simply danced by and cut another vazha that promptly fell on Balan.

As he hopped and skipped, Kayo did not notice that his lungi had come out of the maddakikettu, creating a new peril. He stepped on one corner, tripped and fell forward, his lungi ironically falling back into madakikettu position.

However, this time it was a high madakikettu – the type favoured by those who wore boxer shorts and either worked working class jobs like lorry unloading, or beat people up for money.

Kayo did neither and hence was not wearing boxer. In fact, he was not wearing anything. Hence, as he fell, the cups of his ass cheeks were exposed, as well as his taint, balls and also penis that had fallen down rather than up with the motion.

Things would have ended there, with two men slightly injured but Kayo’s objective achieved. However, there happened to be wandering through the neighbourhood a man named Umaidkutty.

Umaidkutty was in the area picking up flyers that he had asked to be copied en masse warning Muslims not to celebrate Christmas in any way, shape or form.

Without going too far into the politics of Kerala, Umaidkutty was a political agitator. Working for one of the smaller parties that centred around their version of Islam, he was the sort of chap who refused to eat plum cakes even though modern commercial versions contained no rum whatsoever. He was also blissfully unaware that his party leaders answered to a bigger, similar party who happily used their votes for the highest bidder, which sometimes included the Hindu fascists.

As he was stuffing the posters into the back of his Renault Kwid, he spied from 15 metres away what looked to be an uncircumcised penis. Enraged, he jumped the wall to either property and ran up on the scene. Taking out his phone, he clicked almost before he thought, knowing that the photo would turn into some kind of political dynamite.

If only he knew.

Umaidkutty managed to get the photo published in an online rag with a heading “Christian pervert and Hindu policeman.”

The political provocateur only had foreskin on his mind when he snapped and then coerced the publishing of the photo. He did not expect the nationalist propaganda machine to kick into full gear.

Just a few days later, Sangh Pariwar WhatsApp groups were chiming with the photo, this time entitled “Canadian exposes himself to brave Hindu opphisar.”

Entire videos began being published about Canada’s shame, citing even how PM Trudeau had once jogged in short shorts that teased his dick or balls popping out.

Canada quietly responded by cutting student visas from Kerala particularly, though from India in general. No one was more distraught by this than Balan, who had been planning to go to do a post-graduate diploma and then migrate.

The Biryani Bathroom Case

Sameer sat in his red used Altima that needed interior cleaning and watched traffic stretch ahead of him to Sharjah and then Ajman. As he tapped the ring on his right hand on the steering wheel to the sounds of Saad Lamjarred’s new Arabic-Urdu duet, it didn’t occur to him that he could have booked this meeting at really any other time and then avoided the 3-hour commute home.

As a man who enjoyed sitting, he complained about the traffic he got stuck in, but rarely actually hated it since it allowed him to listen to various Urdu and Punjabi radio stations and think about life.

His phone buzzed, taking him out of his reverie.

It was his manager – the bastard Malbari – reminding him about the meeting that day. Sameer sent the Google Meet link and placed the phone in its holder so he could look at the screen now and then.

“Hi Sameer,” Kayo said in his usual disinterested voice. “Please meet Charo who has joined the UAE team. She’ll be handling the leads there as I’d mentioned in the WhatsApp group.”

Not even a how-do-you-do. What a prick. At least he’s not asking about numbers, Sameer thought.

“Hi Sameer, so good to be working with you,” a cheery Filipina said, wearing a large white headset.

“Hi Charo, nice to meet you and welcome to the team,” he said as professionally as possible while trying not to let in a tenacious Pattan in a pickup truck.

“Is Vikram there?” Sameer asked, squinting at the small box with Kayo in it.

“No, he couldn’t make it,” Kayo replied. “He just got to India, so lots of meetings.”

“But I thought I just saw him, peeking from behind you.”

“That’s a weird thing to imagine.”

“I think I can still see his scarf blowing in the wind behind you.”

“That’s definitely not a thing that’s happening. He’s not here. Can we continue?” Kayo seemed both defensive and annoyed.

“Okay, no issue.”

“So Sameer,” Charo said, “I’m eager to learn about your strategy over the past two years in the UAE.”

“Yes.”

“Sorry?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I will tell you.”

“But what is it?”

“Just, you know, talking to agents.”

“But I mean using what strategies? And are you talking to schools?”

“Yes.”

“Which ones?”

“All of them.”

“But which ones are you targeting?”

“All.”

“Did you contact the Pakistani schools?”

“Of course.”

“And?”

“Visa is the issue.”

“Any other ethnicities?”

“I found some Nepali.”

“How did you find them?”

“What kind of question is this?”

“A strategy question.”

“I’ll make a training time with you Charo and go over it. Just in traffic right now, as you can see.”

“Ah okay,” Charo seemed not content with the answer.

Sameer really wanted to tell them both that he was 132kg and had a simple strategy that Allah would provide. His wife was standing 9 hours a day at her workplace – a school – and then 3 more hours at home cooking and cleaning. He himself did not really do much strategy per se.

“So we’ll meet this week about the strategy?” Charo asked.

“See dear, my wife is standing 12 hours a day and I am 132kg. What strategy do you think I even have in life, let alone work?” he wanted to ask.

“Yes, no issue,” he said instead.

“Well, I’ll leave you two to get acquainted and speak further,” Kayo said.

Sameer ended the call, and felt sweat form on the back of his neck. He now had to answer no doubt a barrage of questions from this new woman along with the usual set from the Malbari. He sighed.

Like the beckoner of death, his phone buzzed again, but did not stop this time. It was a call. His wife.

“Hello?”

“I wasn’t able to sleep last night, you son of a bitch!”

“What?”

“You were moaning like a goat in heat from midnight till early morning. The kids couldn’t sleep either in that bloody place with thin walls.”

“Ah, because I had that spicy biryani.”

“Fuck you and your biryani. Mein kyu tumse shadi kiya? Shehzaad hi acha tha.” Why did I marry you? Shehzaad was better.

“Haan! Shehzaad hi acha tha! Kya Shehzaad ko paanch kilo biryani esa handle karneki aadat hein?” Yes, Shehzaad was better! Does Shehzaad have the gumption to handle 5 kilos of biryani like me?

“Tu kya handle karta hein? Biryani ki baad poora raat moun or gand se sound aati hein! Sharm nahi aati?” What can you handle? Whole night sound comes from your mouth and ass. Don’t you have shame?

Sameer cut the call in rage. He was now tapping the steering wheel like he was sending out urgent morse code. He felt like a pressure cooker needing a whistle release.

Luckily, he saw that he was just at the exit to one of the areas of Dubai that had enough of a Pakistani population that could meet his release needs.

Driving into Ghusais, he saw like an oasis before him the place he needed – the Asia-famous Pakistani biryani joint that had revolutionized the rice and meat combo world by throwing fried chicken into biryani and presenting it in the eponymous fried chicken bucket.

“One 5 kilo special bucket please,” he said, reaching for his wallet at the order booth, “Spicy.”

____________________

When Azaad left his village in the northwest of Pakistan to come to Dubai, it was supposed to be as a waiter. One guy had gone a few years before, and reported that things had turned out well. Apparently he was living a good life and planned to marry soon – perhaps even some woman from Lahore since he was doing so splendidly.

The job Azaad came for was not quite what he expected, which it turned out was the norm. Though he had no notions of working in a 5-star restaurant with his matriculation, he did at least think he might be working at some fast food place at least. Perhaps not a McDonald’s, but at least a Southern Friend Chicken.

Fate had something else in store for Azaad – the agent before he got on the plane cited his low level of English and said that he would be kitchen helper cum dishwasher cum bathroom attendant at a Pakistani biryani fried chicken restaurant.

For sure the idea of combining fried chicken and biryani was a cut above the sort of fare in his village. But still, working at a Pakistani restaurant outside Pakistan was not exactly his dream. The wage was okay to send some money home and his accommodation was in a part of town where he and his friends could lounge in the grassy part of roundabouts, perhaps even sharing a bottle of vodka or strong beer when they could get it.

Azaad walked into the bathroom, mop and bucket in hand to see a fat man who was sweating profusely into a black suit minus tie, standing next to an empty bucket of the restaurant’s biryani and chicken.

“Ye kya kar rahein aap?” Azaad asked, almost dismissing the scene since he was just thinking about getting his task done.

“Kuch nahi; bas esehi.” Nothing, just like so.

Something seemed off. Azaad could never quite place why he asked but he did:

“Ye bucket qun kali hein?” Why is the bucket empty?

“Oh, mein bhooka ta, aur tatti bi karna ta.” Oh I was hungry, and had to take a shit too.

“Par kaun bathroom mein katha kein?” But who eats in the bathroom?

Suddenly the sweaty man yelled, sweating even more, “Teri ye aukaat! Samje kya hein aapne aapko? Tu bas cleaner hein. Clean karo.” You dare! What do you think of yourself? You’re just a cleaner. Clean.

As the fat man said this, almost as if to underline the last part, Azaad’s eyes went from the coloured biryani rice remnants on his hands to those on his pants. As if on cue, the leg bone of a piece of chicken fell out of one of the pant legs, making a clink sound on the bathroom tile.

“Yuck!” Azaad’s mouth moved almost before he could fully comprehend. “Sala gaand mein biryani aur chicken dalta hein!” Sicko sticking biryani and chicken in your ass!

“Nahi please! Mera izzat!” No! My honour!

Azaad saw the man move closer to him, a 5Dhs bill in his hand. It was too little, and Azaad still had the bathroom door open.

“Restaurant walo! Aon! Ye gandu biryani gand mein dalraha ta!” People of the restaurant! Come! This homo was sticking biryani up his ass!

Now instead of coming forward with the shitty bribe, the fat man shrank back in horror. As he should have. It was late afternoon – early dinner time for many who were pursuing OMAD and other similar intermittent fasting lifestyles while eating garbage. The thud of many shoes thundered in the hallway as customers, waiters and even delivery drivers arrived on the scene.

The next thuds were of fists and open palms as they laid into Sameer, who could barely protest. They had caught him red-handed.

Unhinged: the Ballad of a Woman in Post-COVID British Columbia

“Holy crap Rita,” Kayo said over the phone. “You mean you ended up going blind and deaf because of taking too many COVID boosters?”

“You mean the booster for what is still the #2 killer of people in the US?” the very defensive gruff voice shot back.

She could still hear, Kayo understood. And was easily irritated, perhaps due to the hearing and sight loss. He made up something about needing to lie down for his inflammation and hung up.

_____________________

“I don’t want to end up deaf and blind due to the booster,” Kayo later told DM over the phone.

“How do you take too many boosters?” DM asked. “You’re only allowed a certain number.”

“Fuck if I know. Maybe some weird west coast exception.”

____________

Back at the rural residence of Rita and her guy, things were not going well. Rita was frazzled at not being given 100% support over her booster decision.

Just then, her partner, a ginger white guy who was thinner than her walked in. His thinness should not be surprising since it is hard to find a white person more full-bodied than a Black woman. He looked quite forlorn considering that it was a weekend.

“I think I’ve made a huge mistake,” he said, one hand to his face like he was depressed.

“What? With our relationship?” Rita spat back almost immediately. “We’ve moved all the way to this retirement community on Vancouver Island and now you’re reconsidering use being together?”

“No babe, not that,” the man sat on a dining chair that was clearly placed in the centre of the room for these kind of occasions. “I can’t get the Audi to turn on.”

“You mean the Audi you bought from Facebook Marketplace?” Rita retorted.

“Babe, I need support, not mockery,” the man said, putting his chin in both hands and elbows on his knees.

“Kelly, I want to support you, but I don’t know what you were expecting.”

“It was my first time buying a luxury car. I just wanted to treat myself. Doesn’t everyone deserve a treat once in a while?”

“Of course, we all deserve treats,” Rita said, playing and contemplating with her greying dreadlocks. “But you really should have been more careful, is all I’m saying.”

“I took William with me. I can’t believe he didn’t catch all those problems.”

“You mean your Trump-loving brother-in-law who’s been waiting to screw you over?”

Kelly signed and sat back in the chair.

“I guess I shoulda seen it coming.”

“Anyway, let’s put that aside for a while,” Rita said. “It’s time.”

“Again?”

“Yes, again.”

“Are you sure? It’s the second time this month.”

“Shut the fuck up Kelly, and stick it in me!” Rita yelled, bending over.

Kelly reached for the syringe and one of the small bottles of vaccine.

_______________________

Meanwhile, outside one of the Parksville, BC, pharmacies, a pharmacist was standing and shaking her head. She shook her blond head and signed.

Mckeyla had been running the dispensary for years now, but could never quite get used to the day after Welfare Wednesday.

Even in a town this small, where everyone knew that this was not a methadone pharmacy, some of the local drug users would soon be coming through for their methadone. At just 9am, she was tired.

The door jangled open as Mckeyla walked through.

The pharmacy assistant looked up from sweeping something crinkling into a dustpan. Her blue eyes grew huge.

“Mckeyla, it’s a rum thing,” Caitlin yelled, quite distressed.

The woman seemed to live in perpetual drama. Cheating boyfriends. Emotionally abusive mother. She also talked like someone from a Wild West film.

“What is?”

“Someone broke in!” Caitlin said, pointing with the broom at the back window.

“Oh, Christ.”

“Thing is, none of the methadone is missing,” Caitlin said, waving her arms, as if the situation were not already odd enough.

“So odd,” Mckeyla replied, furrowing her brows. “Is anything missing?”

“Just a lot of COVID booster shots, and some vitamins.”

Crazy Size Queen Asians

Thomas really wished that his wife had not gone off and left him with this borderline pathological bald man that grinned at him from across the room.

She had told him, “Oh he’s from Kerala – you two will get along so well!”

There was some kind of allusion that because baldy had grown up in Dubai – which it turns out he was born in Abu Dhabi then went to Kerala for three years, and then went to Oman for five before going to Dubai – that there would be some level of solidarity between the two.

There was very little. The man in question seemed to enjoy eating – a good sign by Singapore standards – but had also vented for several billable minutes about how the city hotels (and specifically the hotel Thomas’ wife had recommended to him) did not have a hose next to the toilet. These sorts of people were too microcosmic in their thinking to have business discussions with.

Thomas had tried. He’d talked about how he was a bit insecure about his own bald spot, and had shown Kayo said spot, saying that perhaps he would one day shave his head like he did. Complete bollocks, of course. He knew a very good, well-recommended hair surgeon in Istanbul that he might visit in five years or so.

“Angela is against this,” Thomas had said. “They apparently don’t do such things in Rajasthan.”

The fellow had, instead of taking the idea with grace like a normal person, launched into some sort of sermon about hair loss in the pubic region. Why he was employed by the college CEO was beyond Thomas, and more so how he had risen to such a senior role.

And yet somehow he had, and sat there in the posh office just outside Little India (can’t get too close to the area since that might scare away some of the less swarthy clientele, but must also take advantage of the cheapest rent in downtown Sg), beaming while talking about his silly motorcycle, ignoring that Thomas had driven him to the office in a brand new BMW.

Kayo sat back with his arms behind his head, talking about mufflers or ride quality or some garbage. His aquamarine formal shirt was some unknown brand that he had proudly said was purchased in Kerala – probably Peter England or one of those brands Indian companies had created to look international while being very local. The watch on his one wrist was old. A snakeskin bangle clinked on the other wrist – a gift from some friend, like the watch.

Thomas wondered if he were some retarded charity case. That might explain his employment, though not his rise. Perhaps he was some kind of idiot savant – a student recruitment Rainman of sorts.

“So I notice people here talk about money a lot,” Kayo said, bringing his hands back to the top of the Deepawali-adorned wooden table.

“Yes, it is a financial centre,” Thomas replied, as if to a kindergartener.

“But they don’t buy big houses or anything. Are they going to put all their money up their butts?”

Thomas wondered for the third time that young morning whether he should have worked from home.

“No, no they don’t,” he said, pinching the cuffs of his own Saville Row shirt. “They buy properties overseas, stocks, cars.”

“Yeah, I noticed all the flashy cars,” Kayo said. “The Grab guy who dropped us to the hotel said they cost a lot more here.”

“Yes, we want to keep the roads uncongested,” Thomas explained with Singaporean pride.

“And you guys never pay for our meals, so it’s not like you spend on dining out much.”

The fellow had a way of stating fact in a very grotesque way. Thomas was about to retort that Kayo had not either paid for any of the meals they had had, but had rather let the CEO pay when the latter said:

“But no houses since it’s a limited tract of land here,” Kayo mused, swivelling his glass of leftover kapi. “If they could, Singaporeans would buy big houses though?”

“Yes of course,” Thomas blurted out, wondering if he had let out too much.

“You know,” Kayo mused as he slowly got up, creaking the chair back, “I’ve noticed there is this sort of obsession with big houses and expensive cars in parts of Asia.”

“You seem bereft of that,” Thomas almost muttered under his breath.

“I don’t know if you’ve seen that there is an inverse proportionality to something else.”

Kayo was drawing a map of Africa and Asia on the whiteboard sitting just next to the large windows facing the street.

“To what?”

“Not a lot of people notice this. But then again, I do have a Masters in Communication, I don’t know if you were aware?”

“You’ve mentioned in a few times.”

“Oh did I?”

“Yes, though I’d think it were a Master’s in Biology with the number of penises you’re drawing on the board.”

“Well, those are to show the difference I’m talking about.”

Kayo had, in short order, drawn a variety of penises at the bottom of the map. They were quite diverse, from short to extremely veiny to even bulbous.

“The reason I haven’t included Europe,” Kayo said as he pointed to the map, “Is that I can’t really speak to a place I don’t know much about. But I’ve noticed that bang! starting in Egypt, this obsession with big houses and flashy cars begins. Across the Gulf Middle East – as you know, where I was raised – through South Asia and of course into China and Southeast Asia.”

Thomas wondered if he should call the police.

“It is also where the small penises begin. North Africans, like all Africans, are well endowed. But starting in Egypt you see small peepees that stretch into India, China and of course even as far as the tip of Indonesia, pun intended.”

At this point Thomas realized that this might be a slight at him.

“If only people would realize that, like Ron Jeremy said, it’s not the size of the boat but the motion of the ocean that matters.”

The man might have even been bigging up himself

“Who’s this Ron Jeremy?”

“Who?”

“Ron Jeremy. Who is he? A sex therapist?”

“Actually,” Kayo took on a sheepish face, “He’s a pornstar that’s on trial right now for rape.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, turns out the porn industry is kind of rapey.”

Thomas had never been in a business meeting where someone had brought up rape before.

“Now, you will ask, ‘What about the Japanese? They don’t build huge houses despite having enough land.’ Though keep in mind, they do love their flashy cars. Remember Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift?”

“I remember the poster.”

“Same here. Didn’t watch it. Not a big Vin Diesel fan. But the Japanese, though not huge house aficionados, are kind of sex maniacs.”

“I’ve heard.”

“Do you know what bukkake is?”

“So how do you know about all these penises?,” Thomas tried to change the topic, though could not weave completely away from it. “Are you gay?”

“Mais non,” Kayo said, using some of his foreign language that annoyed Thomas since he was monolingual. “I’ve been enough rugby and football locker rooms pre and post game. In Dubai, there are all creeds and sizes. You played rugby too, right?”

“Yes, but I don’t remember sizes.”

Just then, his wife and the college CEO walked through the door, back from their outing. Thomas mercifully opened the lunch package as Kayo wiped the whiteboard clean.