Class 45 gave you formal office vocabulary. Class 92 gave you negotiation and the shape of a meeting. This class is different. This is about being in a workplace with Malayalis day after day — the greetings, the tea, the lunch, the small talk, and the one custom that decides whether you are inside the group or beside it. Here is that custom, straight away, because it matters more than anything else in this class. Kerala offices share lunch. People bring food from home in stacked containers, and at lunchtime they open them on a shared table and eat from each other's boxes. Not everybody's food, every day, formally — but the norm is sharing. Somebody's mother made something good; a portion goes round. You take from your neighbour's box and they take from yours. Foreigners often eat alone at their desks, politely, imagining they are being unobtrusive. What actually registers is distance. The person who brings something to share, however small, is inside the group by the end of the week. In this class: • The lunch custom, and how to join it without getting it wrong • Greetings and tea — the rhythm of a Kerala working day • Colleague small talk, and which questions are normal here • Asking for help, offering it, and the register between colleagues Quizzes below. Dr. Reshmi R Nair — SpeakMalayalam.