Kaka

A Word Across Worlds.

- By Shemeela Sasikumar

In Kerala, we know the word Kaka means the common bird scavenger found in the neighbourhood of our homes, which feeds on our food waste thrown outside in heaps after breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The black or grey bird is quite shrewd in its habits and actions and flies about from early morning, uttering the loud raucous kaka sound.

When my elder brother Sunny and I were little children residing at our ancestral home in Valappad, near Thrissur, we thought that the word only meant the bird Kaka or crow, mentioned in simple English (we only knew that later).