In the 2015 Malayalam film ‘Salt Mango Tree’, a witty exchange during a school admission interview quietly lays bare a familiar social discomfort.
Aravindan — played by Biju Menon — arrives with his family to seek admission for his four-year-old son at Holy Saints English Medium School.
One member of the interview panel, switching pointedly to English, asks Aravindan where he studied, less a question than a test of linguistic pedigree.
Aravindan replies, in careful Malayalam-accented English: “Elephant Rock LP School”. Every Malayali can recognise the reference: Aanappara LP School.
The humour lies in the literal translation, but beneath it sits a deeper unease. In that moment, Aravindan’s lived, local identity is rendered linguistically inadequate before an English-speaking gaze — unpolished, non-standardised, wanting.
This anxiety is hardly new. Schooled by imperial standards, the colonisers had a habit of reshaping local names to suit the comfort of their tongues. Thiruvananthapuram became Trivandrum, Alappuzha turned into Alleppey, Kollam into Quilon, Kozhikode into Calicut.
Over time, entire landscapes were flattened into syllables the English mouth found manageable. It took decades of unlearning and relearning to reclaim the rounded, multisyllabic sounds of Malayalam as authentic names rather than linguistic excess.
This raises a contemporary question: does Google Translate know we are trying to decolonise our language?
Launched in 2006, Google Translate has become one of the most relied-upon tools for instant communication in a multilingual world. It supports more than 109 languages and claims to cover 99 per cent of the online population.
Websites are translated in seconds, and WhatsApp now offers in-app translation for its three billion users across 180 countries. The technology is widely appreciated for easing global communication.
But how ‘vocal for local’ is it? A casual glance at translated pages of Kerala’s local self-government websites offers unintended comedy.
With a simple change in language settings, Thiruvananthapuram’s Nanniyode panchayat becomes ‘Thank You’. Ernakulam’s Poothrikka turns into ‘Mother in Law’. Kasaragod’s Kallar is rendered as ‘Thieves’. Idukki’s Santhanpara emerges as ‘Calm Rock’, while Thrissur’s Panjaal briskly reappears as ‘Runner’.
The amusement deepens as a dear colleague reveals that she has been resorting to these official pages for “destress chuckles” ever since she came across weird translations while cross-checking ward names during the local body polls coverage.
With a grin, she readily chips in with more gems. In Idukki, Konnathadi becomes ‘Killing Stick’ and Vellathooval turns into ‘Water Feather’.
Thrissur contributes ‘Buffalo Box’ (Erumappetti), ‘Pork Pond’ (Porkkulam), ‘Webpage’ (Valappad) and ‘Addition’ (Cherppu), while also offering ‘Northwood’ for Vadakkekkad.
Kottayam gives us ‘Administrative Office’ (Bharananganam), ‘Upper Body’ (Melukavu) and ‘Rat Pond’ (Elikkulam). Wayanad’s Muttil is ‘On the Knee’.
Kollam’s Aryankavu becomes ‘Aryan Cow’, Chavara slips into ‘Garbage’, and Nilamel settles firmly ‘On the Ground’.
This literal ‘appropriation’ of our place names does not take us back to colonial history or academic onomastics. Instead, it circles us back to Aravindan of ‘Salt Mango Tree’ — standing before a judgemental panel, negotiating linguistic shame. Then, it was an interview table. Now, it is an untrained, Anglo-centric algorithm doing the judging.
More than a decade after Aravindan anglicised himself under pressure, Malayalam still finds itself on probation in a world where English remains the default language — confident, complacent, and quietly amused by ‘Elephant Rock’.