Protest banner translation gaffe adds comic relief to fight between Kerala Governor and SFI

Thrissur: As the protest against Kerala Governor and University Chancellor Arif Mohammad Khan continues, SFI, the students' union of the Marxist Party raised many banners on few college campuses. However, a banner put outside Kerala Varma College in Thrissur tickled the funny bones of citizens and netizens alike. The reason behind this inadvertent bit of comedy was the literal translation of an old Malayalam adage for a slogan.

It read, "Your dal won't cook here, Sanghi Khan". In Malayalam, the adage behind this slogan means that the tricks an individual uses will not work here. But a literal word-by-word translation of the phrase instantly cracked up viewers.

The usage led to massive trolling of the banner and intellectuals and political parties alike had a field day on social media translating similar adages from Malayalam to English in an equally literal fashion.

What added more might to the trolling against SFI was the fact that the Pinarayi Vijayan-led government’s higher education minister Dr Bindu had previously taught English at the same college.

This incident reminded many netizens of an earlier remark made by the minister who had stated during a conclave, “Wherever I go, I take my house in my head."

Congress leader VT Balram took to Facebook to make light of the translation.

"Your instalment will not walk here," he wrote in a literal translation of a phrase in Malayalam roughly translates to -- “Your actions will not work here.” He also added many similar translations while many other netizens joined in and had a field day.

There was, however, some support to be found online as well for the SFI. “The politics of the moment is more important than trolling the grammar of the sentence," wrote one supportive netizen. "These guys do not understand using sarcasm for political sloganeering or what," stated another.

Many political observers including A Jayasankar and Sreejit Panicker also made jesting comments on the issue as well.

Interestingly, the comments on the SFI Kerala Varma College Thrissur page are being deleted by its admins, making many feel that the student union is embarrassed by the whole situation.