"Nee enne vittu pogum ennaano parayunne?" she asked him, her voice heavy with sadness. "Ellaam marannittu enne vittu pogumo?"

He smiled at her, his eyes tender with fondness "I do not speak Malayalam, girlie. You'll have to repeat whatever you said in a more understandable language.

"Njaan nammale patti ethra swapnangal kandu ennariyaamo?

Hey I thought I heard something like 'sapna' there.. something about a dream? Are you saying that you had a good dream?

"Njaan parayilla. Innu ni ellaam paranjallo. Mathiyaayi. Ellaam kettu."

"Now will you stop that? I get lost at that little barrage that you deliver. Now tell me two things: firstly, which ice cream would you take - a peach ripple or a strawberry twist? Secondly, tell me whatever that habber-jabber was that you just spouted."

"Enikkonnum venda. Ni poykollu, njaan nirthilla. Sankadam ondu, pakshe saaramilla, sahicholaam."

He looked at her tenderly, the smart and pretty girl sitting in front of him with her wide eyes that were strangely downcast today. He wondered what it was that he said that had marred the usual smile on her face. He loved the way she put forth her Malayalam words, in the past she used to do it to tease him - like the time when he asked her how his new haircut was and she'd said something and never offered a translation. Heck, she never offered him any translations. She was fiercely independent in life, well read yet not very talkative, with perhaps the finest taste in clothes that he'd ever seen. All her clothes seemed to be carefully chosen - cool earthy colours, from her mud reds to her lemon greens to sea blues. They were so reflective of her personality. He enjoyed watching her at the cafeteria, studying menus with the diligence of a school kid reading up for an exam before finally deciding on what to order. And she was like a school kid at times, talking to the skies (according to her, that's where her childhood Gods lived) when she was happy, and she was the only girl that he knew who was unabashed about her love for ice-creams. Part school-kid and part grown-up, she was always a closed door mystery to him, an enigma unexplained.

"Hello... earth calling... you're there?", he asked playfully. "You're never this quiet, say something!"

And then his phone rang, a call that he could not refuse. He rose to take it.

But the girl, she had no calls to take. She stayed at her seat, silent and unmoving. Part-school girl and part grown-up, she looked above at the skies where her childhood Gods still lived, rolling back the tears back into her eyes where she preferred that they linger , rather than flowing down her cheeks.

"Saramilla, poykottey..."she muttered to herself.

And she got up and walked away, not waiting for him to finish his call and come back to the table. Probably he'll never get that translation that he asked for.

Some words you see, they are never translated. Who knows, they may get lost in translation.

“Poetry is what gets lost in translation”

 - Robert Frost