MALAPPURAM: When nine-year-old Muhammad Fayis’ attempt at cutting his teeth at origami went awry, he displayed his nous by shrugging it off with nonchalance. But the two minute video, surreptitiously recorded in his mother’s mobile phone, broke the social media as share after share made him more famous. What caught everyone’s attention was his closing statement when his plans to cut a paper flower came a cropper. “Chelolthu shariyaavum, chelolthu shariyavoola. Intethu readyayitila, nnalum njammakkoru koyappoolya,” (For some it works, for others it doesn’t; mine didn’t, but I don’t really mind.) he said in the quintessential Kondotty dialect.
Soon memes took it over and made it famous, till the social media team of the Malabar unit of the Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (Milma) used it in their advertisement.The whole thing started when the Class IV student of Izzathul Islam HSS, Kuzhimanna, tried to make a video of him cutting a flower out of a piece of paper. He went step by step -- folding the paper and marking it with a pencil and cutting it with a pair of scissors along the marked lines. But he got it completely wrong and ended up with torn paper and not a flower. He then wriggled out of the mess with the now-famous lines.
The video was first spread among Fayis’ family groups which soon ‘leaked’ to the wider world with many people including Sayyid Munavvar Ali Shihab Thangal, the president of Kerala State Muslim Youth league, sharing it on various online platforms.Initially, his monologue was praised as motivational, but soon received new dimensions when some organisations used it to boost their social media campaigns.
Milma tweaked it to sell milk. “Chelolthu shariyaavum, chelolthu shariyavoola. Pakshenki chaya elloldem sharyavum, pal Milma aanenkil.” (For some it works, for others it doesn’t. But all will make good tea if its Milma’s milk). Malappuram district administration too used it create awareness on Covid-19. On Tuesday, a team from Milma visited the Fayis’ house and senior marketing manager D S Konda gave him a smart TV worth `14,000, cash reward of `10,000 and Milma products worth `1,000. A family member said a portion of the money received from Milma and some other people will be donated to a poor family in the area and the remaining will be donated to Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund.