This is a dilemma that i am in, caused by no specific theorem that proved the case in either of the sides
Personally I have never found the word mallu a great moniker, but for the sake of it considered it a short form of Malayali. That said, my feel is that most of the malayali’s call themselves a mallu and that is what would’ve given the buy to others who use it. What best example – see the blog by an IBN writer ‘Mallu’s musing’ on www.ibnlive.com. The word seems to be in line with calling Gujarati a Gujju & Bengali a Bong. Makes me want to ask, is calling a Tamilian a pandi apt ? No one in tamilnadu will take it lightly if you call him a Paandi
Although i have always been averse to this word, the first time i decided to be really against the usage of this word is when i got a mail that said a mallu in hindi means a monkey. The mail has not given any basis but just that, once a malayali told his Bihari friend that he is a mallu and the Bihari man started laughing. On enquiring the reason, the monkey meaning was bought out
What next, Google the word … no there didn’t seem to be any major listings that pointed to the monkey. Shockingly most of the links were about aunties who apparently were ‘hot’ … coming back to the monkey relation, there did seem to be one link that said Mallu = Ape {noun} See the link here - http://en.bab.la/dictionary/hindi-english/%E0%A4%AE%E0%A4%B2%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B2%E0%A5%82
Its quite evident, that most of our people are addressed in a slang and that may be Okay with few and not with the rest. In this case, mallu doesn't sound very attractive to me and hence discourage using this word…. let it be a Malayali
