The Last Jews of Kerala Page 12

  “Are these foods only available in Chennai?”

  “Same food as from here. These are poor people, they cannot afford. Yet they bring free food. And Sarah lets them do it.”

  “If they can’t afford it, why do it?”

  “They believe when Sarah dies, they’ll inherit her house. Everyone knows about Jew Town. So, the vultures fly across the mountains of Kerala, fly in from the villages and towns, to come and wait for their chance. The young Muslim boys who sell postcards outside her house. You know them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Same story.” He wobbled his head in affirmation.

  “Has she promised the Chennai people the house?”

  “Sarah’s already made provisions for her will. These fellows won’t get it. Her young Muslim boys won’t get it. But Sarah’s smart. While she lives, everyone is dancing to her tune.”

  The real estate on Synagogue Lane was expensive. This was one of the most important tourist destinations in Kerala, attracting caravans of visitors every day from across India. But more importantly it was a place that drew rich foreigners, not just of Jewish origin, but of every background. For that reason, everyone wanted a piece of Jew Town. It was a point that was not lost on any of the Paradesis. This was also part of their defensiveness: the fear that people were waiting, quite literally, to slide into their slippers.

  Gamy told me the Chennai family was so keen to win Sarah’s favor that they were planning to convert once again—this time to Judaism. On the last visit, the father had informed Gamy he planned to have his teenage son circumcised. I was about to hear the story for myself as the Chennai couple popped in to see old uncle Gamy. The father, a small and immaculately turned out man in his forties, gingerly hovered on the threshold. His tall, shy son stood awkwardly behind him with a look of suffering on his face that seemed out of place.

  Gamy nodded towards the doorway, then turned to me and said, sotto voce: “Here he comes, Circumcision Boy.”

  “Uncleji. I’ve brought my son to see you. We’ve just seen Aunty and she is well.”

  “Come, come,” said Gamy, the generous host. He made his introductions to me and offered them a seat on the sofa but they insisted on standing, in an uncomfortable, deferential mode in front of Gamy’s planter’s chair. They may have left Hinduism behind for Christianity and now Judaism, but the old caste mentality was harder to relinquish.

  “Uncleji,” the father began hesitantly, eyes lowered and palms in namaste, “We have some good news.” He gently pushed his son forward towards Gamy.

  “My boy has had the great honor of being circumcised,” he announced proudly.

  Gamy paused at this momentous pronouncement, took in a sharp breath and then turned to the boy, clasping his hands in congratulations.

  “Ah, but this is terrific news. And, tell me, where did they do it?”

  There was a long pause.

  “Chennai,” said the boy in a strangled voice. “Two days ago.”

  I offered my congratulations to him as he blushed terribly. It was traumatic enough to be circumcised at sixteen, without being dragged across two states to deliver vegetables to a wily old lady in Cochin and then have his most intimate news conveyed to the whole town. All this and he was still technically a Christian.

  “Did it hurt, Baba?”

  “Uncleji, it was very painful,” the boy confirmed, head wobbling in agitation as he twisted his legs from one side to the other, either in embarrassment or pain or both.

  “You’ve done a great thing,” said Gamy. “Many congratulations.”

  With that, the father and son clasped Gamy’s hands once more and gazed into his eyes with gratitude, murmuring thanks. Their action had met with approval. The boy then touched the old man’s feet in the traditional act of deference and they announced they were on their way home, all the way back to Tamil Nadu. As they headed off towards the bus-stop, Gamy turned to me and said archly, “Now you are knowing why I’m calling them Fools Number One and Two.”

  * * * *

  Synagogue Lane was in the throes of the festivals. It had commemorated the Day of Atonement, a day for reflection, remorse and prayer for renewal. It had celebrated Sukkoth, the feast of the Tabernacles which remembered the ancient Jews’ time in the desert.

  Now they were preparing for two of the most joyous celebrations: Shmini and Simhat Torah. It had taken a whole week to prepare the synagogue and the feasts that would accompany the occasion. Today, although Sammy and the community still carefully observed all the proper preparations and customs, there was none of the thrilling anticipation that marked the old days.

  As I sat in a café just moments from their street I pondered their old life. Images of the festivals of previous generations, with the men dressed in their best suits, the ladies in their finest embroidered saris, jewels twinkling at their white throats and ears; impish children, blushes of pink in fat cheeks, black curls dancing at their temples as they tore up and down Synagogue Lane, sticky pockets crammed with festival sweets.

  Festival was nothing without the food. I would taste a real Cochini Jewish banquet in my time here and it was some of the best food I have ever had. I remember an Indian friend telling me once, “Food reflects its people. Bland food makes for bland human beings.”

  The Cochini Jews’ food was a fusion not just of Israel and India, but the rest of the world; its plate was a map of the world. These people had come from Israel, across the Middle East, from Portugal, Spain, Germany and other places over the centuries. When one tasted the table of the Cochini Jews, it was a sensory reminder that this was a migratory people who had been banished, found asylum in disparate lands and absorbed the best they had to offer. Their food was infused with the traces of all these adoptive cultures, while remaining very much Jewish in terms of which foods were eaten, how it was prepared and of course the symbolism that accompanied the simplest acts such as the breaking of bread. Wherever they traveled to, wherever they found sanctuary, the Jews carried their history in their recipes, each dish an evocation of exile, a tribute to their homeland.

  I drank down my milkshake, paid the bill and came knocking at Gamy’s door, part of my daily ritual. He greeted me warmly and then after scanning the Hallegua house to ensure the warden was not around, he invited me in. Reema was out and Gamy was in the middle of an important business transaction. The fish wallah had just arrived on his bicycle with the day’s catch. The two were locked in negotiations over the contents of the wicker basket, which was covered with a wet muslin cloth to keep the fish fresh. Gamy lifted the cloth, peered and prodded at the bounty within. Ali the Muslim fishmonger talked through the catch as though discussing the merits of uncut diamonds. Once the choice was made, he took the fish through to Gamy’s kitchen at the back and collected payment.

  He warmly wished Gamy goodbye and then mounted his bike again, letting out his plaintive cry to the neighborhood that the fish was in. Gamy went to re-examine his purchase, evidently delighted. For a South Indian, there are few sights more uplifting than a fat, wet fish. He lifted the plate to examine it more closely. I asked him if the fish was for the festival, but he said this was nothing special, unlike the sea-bass that Babu had purchased. Word had spread to Mattancherry of the Ernakulam Jews’ good fortune. I sensed a tinge of envy as Gamy commented, “I hear he paid over 1,000 rupees. I doubt it will be worth the price.”

  The thought of glistening seabass at festival time summoned up the memory of tables laden for past celebrations. “We used to have such a pukka Jewish life,” Gamy sighed. “We used to celebrate like hell!” Yet when the others left for Israel, Gamy and Reema stayed.

  “Israel’s in our prayers. Of course, it is. It’s something like our religious duty. But I’m very happy I didn’t go to live there. I’ve been there four or five times. Not bad! But we have a better life here. Why lose that?”

  His hand gestured to the street in ample explanation, to the palms, to the sea, to the ease of having a fishmonger come to your door, who
m you could exchange pleasantries with and allow into your kitchen to wash your fish and cool it in a dish of water. Small things like this made it hard to leave. Only a minority felt this way. Not even his own children felt this way about India and all the good things it had given the Jews: land, security, peace. His children had gone in search of jobs and partners overseas.

  “There weren’t any prospects for marriage here then, to allow them to stay?”

  “Have you met any young people here? Have you even seen?” he said, his face a mask of incredulity. “You know who they are. Yaheh is here. Keith is here. Stay or go. He doesn’t know what to do. He wanted to get married, long ago. Yaheh’s sister he would have married. When he couldn’t have her, he didn’t want the other. End of story.” That simple sentence pretty much said it all.

  “I told you, everybody is waiting for the end now,” he sighed as he rose from his favorite spot to fetch some more water. He returned bearing two glasses of iced panni, placing them by our chairs. He sipped lightly from his glass, eyes closing as he winced at the coldness of the water. “Now, if I die tomorrow, these people,” he pointed to the postcard hawkers who were now eavesdropping outside his doorway, “Muslims will have to carry me to my grave. Because there are not enough of our own men. Our dead, they never used to touched by outsiders. Now there’s no option.”

  Outside it turned dark as the clouds heralded another storm ahead. Gamy went to turn on the single low-wattage light bulb in the living room but the electricity had cut out, which was typical enough. He slumped back into his chair as if exhausted by the effort, chin dipped into his chest, and resumed where he had left off. He had a theory as to why things had panned out this way, he told me. The Jews had once been lucky, he said. “They caught the right people.” In the same way a wise fisherman knew where he could most profitably cast his net. “We caught people who could help us, like the raja. We were canny that way.” Whereas Jews elsewhere in the world suffered at the hands of others, the Cochini Jewry could not blame outsiders for what had happened. They were given the most perfect set of circumstances and still things got spoiled.

  The history of prejudice against the Blacks by the Whites had jinxed them, he said. It was the old Jewish belief of the link between justice and shalom. “There is some curse in this town,” he said softly, with all the melodrama that only a Jewish Indian can muster. His eyes shone, long yellowed teeth protruding slightly as he warmed to his unsettling theme. “Nobody will ever rise above average. It’s true!” he insisted, now sitting forward in his chair.

  “So many of us were smart. Brilliant, even. Brilliant minds from rich families, high connections, a great history. But where has it got us? To the edge of extinction. Is it our curse?

  “We had eight synagogues, the Blacks and Whites, a history that went back to the great age of Solomon. Now there’s one synagogue here, two are empty in Ernakulam. And the rest? Vanished or crumbling into ruins, homes to snakes and rats. We’re just fifty where there were once thousands.”

  He went quiet again, jutting his jaw out as he scratched the bristly grey stubble on his chin. Clearly, for all the jokes, it troubled him deeply. Gamy saw a collective malaise had descended on the White Jews in particular—this much was evident. It was a recurring theme in the faded salons of Synagogue Lane. Talk of curse, of retribution, each yet another incarnation of an intolerable guilt that pressed down upon the nape of their necks like cold stone. Most were old. Those who were not old were depressed, sick, reclusive or unmarried. The rest were buried in the graveyard just a few hundred yards away, a walled cemetery with the gate bolted and padlocked to keep out tourists and drunks who came there at night to lie on the gravestones and drink toddy. After several nocturnal episodes of drunken carousing and reports of urination on the tombstones, the Jews decided to keep the cemetery permanently locked. It had come to this: even their final resting place was the subject of irreverence and defilement.

  Gamy rubbed his hand across his face; his eyes were weary and as bloodshot as Yaheh’s hound. He needed to rest but he staved off sleep’s entreaties. His promise of only five minutes of talking was forsaken as he desired to talk and talk, as if the mere act of expression would expel thoughts that had corrupted his mind over time.

  “You know, you mustn’t blame Sammy for not speaking of this,” he said gently.

  “I don’t. I can see why he’s like this.”

  “He’s not a bad man. He’s a good man who carries a burden. Our history, the source of our curse. Look at the fate of Jew Town. Are we not being punished by God?” He looked at me intently, the expression on his face giving the answer. “Young people have had to leave to escape its curse. All the children have gone. If they stay what do they have? No scope here, no future, no marriage partners. What’s this, if not a curse?”

  “Why a curse still? Your own father ended the divide. It’s over.”

  “Yes. My father did his best to stop it. But he was too late to save us.”

  His father was a subject he rarely discussed, even with the other Cochinis. In the past, he had resisted having this conversation but now he relented. I was to discover it was not easy being the son of Salem. Salem’s was an awesome legacy, one which should have inspired pride in all Jews. Black and White. As other Indians fought the great political battle of the time, for Independence from the British, Salem also fought for freedom. But his battle was at home, in his own street, at his synagogue.

  Abraham Barak Salem was born into a poor family in 1882 but rose from his modest background to become the first graduate among his people. Armed with his degree in law, he shunned the chance to become a politician of national stature to focus on local issues instead. He was a natural populist, fighting the causes of the ordinary man, the underdog. He would launch his public addresses from a hillside in Ernakulum, which become dubbed “Salem Hill” in tribute to this fiery orator. It became a kind of Speaker’s Corner, yet devoted to the passionate monologues of just one man who would extol his anger from a hilltop, advocating his case to the treetops, issuing his demand for justice to the clouds.

  In the end, people heeded him. And Cochin would remember him. In Jew Town today, one of the approach roads to the synagogue is called A. B. Salem Road, the same synagogue that he was once barred from entering.

  After the creation of Israel, A. B. Salem was also tasked with going to the new motherland to plead the case of Malabari Jews wishing to emigrate there. At first, there were some obstacles to their migration because of incidents of elephantiasis among the Cochin Jews. Elephantiasis is an insect-borne disease which causes the head or limbs to swell to huge proportions. A. B. Salem went to Israel to explain that this was not a condition that could be spread and therefore was no danger to the fledgling nation. After his special pleading, the Israeli authorities relented and the ban was relaxed. Ironically, his success marked the beginning of the end for the community and the way of life that he strived so hard to safeguard.

  But his greatest success was fighting for the religious equality of the Black Jews. Taking his cue from Gandhi’s non-violent form of protest in the fight for Indian Independence, he applied similar tactics to the Paradesi community. By the late 1940s he had succeeded in winning certain rights for his people. Gandhi’s methods would eventually spread beyond India, inspiring Martin Luther King, Jr., during the American civil rights movement as well as shaping Nelson Mandela’s own political philosophy in South Africa to bridge the divide between Black and White. In Jew Town, the achievements of its own local hero were not universally acknowledged. Admission of Salem’s legacy was inevitably an admission of guilt for some of the Whites.

  Even in Salem’s old house, in his own son, one sensed there were conflicting feelings when discussing those days. For Gamy, it awakened emotions I had never expected: reticence, but more surprisingly, a disappointment and even bitterness. His father was a great man. But Gamy felt he could have been greater had he lifted his eyes beyond the small town feud of the Cochini Jews to the big
ger picture of the Indian Independence movement that was sweeping across India in Salem’s heyday. Gamy told me that greatness had called at his father’s door. But Salem was out. At the synagogue.

  A talented young Jewish lawyer, Salem attracted the attention of India’s most glittering political son, Jawaharlal Nehru. He was invited by Nehru to participate in a key national Congress meeting. It could have been the political break of a lifetime, catapulting him into national consciousness, but his father in the end chose the synagogue.

  “He should have been a great man, but he ended up being a very small man. You know, he had the potential to be a senior leader at national level, given his intellect and contacts. To know Nehru and Gandhi personally, to be a distinguished lawyer, to be one of the brightest of his generation.”

  It had not been an easy journey. He came from the poor community of the Ernakulam Black Jews. To attend the Madras law college he had to undertake a journey of boat, bullock cart and then train to Madras. He was the first in his community to graduate and once his youngest son Gamy was born, he moved the family to Mattancherry where they remained.

  Gamy felt his father wasted his talents on Jew Town, which did not deserve him. Yet without A. B. Salem, equality would have taken longer. Salem had fought and won important causes for his people, he had raised children who went on to become doctors, engineers, lawyers. He had the respect of most of the community, even now. What was this, if not greatness? Yet Gamy remained unconvinced. Equality came to Cochin, but it arrived too late. His father had squandered talent and ambition on a cause that was doomed to failure.

  “If he stuck to politics he could have been a great man, but he preferred the synagogue, the Jewish community, the festivals. He was obsessed with local issues. He had a looking glass, ‘Salem’s Looking Glass’ we called it, where he pasted newspaper clippings, ideas, issues that caught his interest. He would take these issues and fight for them, go to his hillside and speak for hours to ordinary people who came and listened. His aim in life was to bring up the poor people, but at the same time he brought himself down.”