Ni

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Malayalam is a very complicated language. Sometimes, it takes about 100 syllables to say something seemingly simple. Other times, a lot can be said in one syllable.

One of my closest friends here is Liji, who lives with and tutors the young girls at Balika Mandiram. She had seemed very upset one night, and when I asked her about it the next morning, she explained. People had been calling her "ni." In Malayalam, "ni" means "you" in a very informal way. I silently thanked my Malayalam teacher for telling me to call everyone "ningal," which is a more formal way of saying "you," and asked Liji more about the problem. "Ni," she explained, isn't just informal. It's a way of asserting your superiority over someone else. By calling her "ni," these people have been telling her "You're just the hired help, and I can treat you however I want and call you whatever I want." The day before, some people had yelled at Liji (and also at her sister, who works at the nearby hospital) for things that neither of them had any control over, calling them "ni" in the process. The problem, though, is that so many people have been calling Liji "ni." The yelling from the night before was just the last straw. As she spoke, there were tears in her eyes.

A lot can be said in just one syllable.

In Spanish, there are two forms of "you." "Tu" is the informal, "usted" the formal. When I was in Spain, our teachers cautioned us in our usage of these words. Many people doesn't like being called "usted" anymore, because it connotes a sense of distance and a lack of friendship. We were told just to use it with the elderly. But after seeing the look on my host grandfather's face the first time I called him "usted," I used the informal "tu" on everyone.

In Kerala, though, "ni" does not connote friendship and closeness. Friends are to be revered, to be upheld and loved. Using "ni" does not do that.

In Malayalam, Liji told me, it is best to just call everyone by their name.