Some surnames and place names are interwoven, suggesting an inseparable bond between people and places. Thus, Malegaonkar is as much blended with Malegaon as Taraporewala with Tarapore. Tagging place names to personal names is all the rage in Kerala. You have Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, the novelist and Adoor Gopalakrishnan, the filmmaker, with names of their birthplaces prefixed to their names. Being well known figures, they have lent fame to their birthplaces.

There was a time when my birthplace, Kaithapram, far north of Kerala, nestling between a verdant hill and a meandering river, was an obscure village. This back of beyond hamlet did not have a familiar ring for many Keralites living in Bangalore until a couple of decades ago.

So, in those days, during my short stint in Bangalore, if fellow-Keralites asked to know the name of the place I hail from, I would answer, “Payyannur”, a nearby town, our Taluk Hq. known to most Keralites there.
But the clouds of obscurity no longer sully the skies of my village, thanks to a thespian born and brought up there. He has become a celebrity in the tinsel world of Malayalam cinema and is a well known name among Keralites in Bangalore or anywhere. A lyricist, playback singer and an actor to boot, he prefixes “Kaithapram” to his name, lending fame to it.

During my recent sojourn in Bangalore I chanced to meet a Singaporean born of Malayalee parents in a friend's house. He was en-route to Kerala, visiting the state after many a summer. A movie buff, he had no other topic to speak of than movies. “You hail from which part of Kerala?” he asked me.

I gave him my old stock answer, “Payyannur”. But it failed to strike a  familiar chord in him. Unfamiliarity gleamed in his eyes. “A town in north Kerala,” I clarified. “Well, I have heard of only one place in the north because of its association with a film personality whose several movies I have seen and heard songs,” he said. After pausing for a moment, he asked, “Is Payyannur somewhere near Kaithapram?”

I was flabbergasted!