JUST A MEMORY

We organise our life stories according to reliable patterns of life events. But now, we can’t do some things in the same way. In a year that has isolated many of us, telling stories and sharing memories of summers past have helped these creatives cope

- BARRY RODGERS

Adventures with Lalettan

“Muttayundo?” he asks, questioning the presence of eggs in the banana fritters placed on the stark-white Corelle plate before him. An egg allergy is the last thing I thought I’d be discussing with Kerala’s biggest movie star, Mohanlal. But somehow, sitting across each other in my maternal grandmother’s attic on that sultry May afternoon, it made for a fantastic ice-breaker.

These weren’t the typical pazham puri (banana fritters) synonymous with the tea stalls of Kerala. Ammamma had recreated her own delicious rendition by mashing together the bananas – it had to be the Palayankodan variety, or they just wouldn’t taste the same – with flour, sugar, and a sprinkling of baking powder “for extra fluffiness”. She called them pazham peechi, playfully referring to the squeezing of the fruit by hand to make the mash.

Taking a sip of kattan chaya, the classic, syrupy Mallu black tea, Lalettan, as he is fondly known amongst his ardent fans, smiles with confidence. He turns to Sicily, my partner-in-crime who is propped up on an old cane chair behind the lens, and in his characteristic voice says, “Thodangam,” signalling that we could begin the no-holds-barred interview he had promised me.

The summer of 1997 belonged to the pre-Internet era, and we millennials had to find inventive ways to keep ourselves engaged. I was never big on sports through my adolescence, so I was accustomed to being left behind by my neighbourhood buddies and was forced to fend for my own amusement. I dug deep and let my restless mind run wild, lest I “die of boredom”.