Pliaa.................

Having an Airport in Calicut(Kozhikode) was a long standing wish of the people of Northern Kerala. After a prolonged and sustained effort, Calicut Airport became a reality in mid 80's. Though it is called Calicut Airport, in reality the Airport is located nearly 30 kms from the city and is in the adjoining Malappuram District, and near to the University Campus.

We were MBA students then and being a holiday, we went to the Airport premises to watch the inauguration. Many spoke in Malayalam and quite a few in English. The chief guest was from outside Kerala. One of the leading businessman of Calicut (I don't want to mention his name) was known for his lack of English language skills. He was a rustic malayalee who can hardly speak one word of English (some say he can't even speak Malayalam properly, but that is another story). Someone impressed upon him that he had to speak in English since the occasion demanded it. The guy went about his task of preparing the speech in English. Since he had many knowledgeable guys working under him, getting a speech written in English was the easiest thing. The hitch was in reading it at the function as he normally stumbled while reading English.

Then he remembered what the then President Giani Zail Singh used to do. Gianiji will have his English speech written in Punjabi script(he couldn't speak English) and read it out(Years later, Sonia Gandhi was to write Hindi speeches in Italian and read it out).

Taking inspiration from the President of India, the business magnate burnt the midnight oil and painstakingly converted the English speech into Malayalam Script (his vanity did not allow him to ask someone else to do it).

On the D-Day, he strode confidently to the podium to speak. By nature, he was a nervous guy who never appears too confident in the Public. The initial salutations went off nicely. No one suspected that he was reading the English speech written in Malayalam script. Then he started stressing on the struggles and agitations made by the locals to get the Airport constructed.

He said ' The people of Calicut had made numerous pleas to the Government over the years.........................'

There was a stunned silence, followed by hoots and whistles. He again repeated the word 'plea' many times. Each time the booing became louder. He was baffled. He just didn't know what was wrong. The problem was that while he converted the word 'Plea' into malayalam script, he wrote is as 'Pliaaa'. And he repeated the word at least a couple of dozen times, much to the merriment of a bored crowd. Till the end of the speech, he didn't understand why the hell the crowd was hooting.

There are stories (in fact same stories) attributed to lecturers who are not proficient in English in various colleges. In Victoria College Palghat, the lecturer in question was a guy called Manickan whose English was mediocre (that is putting it mildly). Don't ask me whether the stories are true or not.

Our department was in the first floor. One day Manickan saw a student spitting from the first floor balcony and rebuked him ' Don't spit. Understanding people will suffer'.

He caught 3 students listening to cricket commentary in the class ' Both of you three get out of my class'.