Class 258 — the three cities: തിരുവനന്തപുരം, കൊച്ചി and കോഴിക്കോട്. Each with a character, and each a different place to learn Malayalam in. തിരുവനന്തപുരം (Thiruvananthapuram), the capital. The name means the city of Anantha, the serpent on which Vishnu reclines, and the പദ്മനാഭസ്വാമി ക്ഷേത്രം at its centre houses exactly that image. Former capital of Travancore: the palace, the old fort, the colonial-era public buildings. What it is now is government — ministries, the secretariat, the universities — plus the technology park and the space centre at Thumba, where Kerala’s space programme began on a beach with rocket parts carried on a bicycle. Character: slower, more formal, more Malayalam-speaking. Speech: southern, എന്തുവാ for എന്താണ്. കൊച്ചി (Kochi), the commercial capital, and the most cosmopolitan place in Kerala for six hundred years. Walk a few hundred metres in Fort Kochi and you pass the Chinese fishing nets, the Portuguese church where Vasco da Gama was first buried, the Dutch palace, the synagogue with its Chinese floor tiles, the Jain temple, the spice warehouses. That is not a curated heritage zone — it is what happens to a port that has traded with everybody for a very long time. Ernakulam across the water is the business city. And a warning for learners: Kochi is the hardest place in Kerala to learn Malayalam, because everybody switches to English immediately and competently. കോഴിക്കോട് (Kozhikode), the Calicut of the history books. The great medieval port of the Zamorin; Vasco da Gama landed at Kappad in 1498 and the European maritime age began there. The word calico is this city’s name. Now: the food capital of the state by general agreement, and strongly literary. Character — the interesting one. Malayalis from elsewhere say Kozhikode people are the nicest in Kerala. Kozhikode people accept this as simple fact. Speech: northern, ഇങ്ങള് and ഞമ്മള്, Malabar rhythm, substantial Arabic-derived vocabulary. Quizzes below. Dr. Reshmi R Nair — SpeakMalayalam.