Kerala - southwest India

After Delhi, I decided I needed to relax from my vacation and headed to the south western coast of India – the state of Kerala. Frequently, the writings call the state “G-d’s own country” because of the natural beauty. (Although it’s funny that “G-d” is capitalized and singular given the population. Although the name probably came from one of the various groups which colonized.)

Life in the south is much slower and more relaxed than the north, and probably because they don’t speak Hindi as their native language, much of the population speaks very reasonable English. The temperature in December and January has been in the mid-80s to mid-90s, so I'm amused that the vendors are all trying to sell wool shawls. There’s a siesta in the hottest part of the afternoon where lots of things close for a few hours, although they don’t call it ‘siesta’ – in English they just say to the tourists "lunch". Although it’s said to be one of the more developed states, there is less traffic, but the horn blowing persists. The men walk around in “longhi’s” or above-the-knee, wrap-around skirts. It takes some getting use to.

Kerala is, today, the only state in India which consistently votes for the communist party. There tends not to be as much poverty, or economic extremes in either direction. The literacy rate is said to be above 90%. They don’t speak Hindi, instead they speak Malayam. It’s this very smooth, rolling language where its difficult to tell where one word ends and the next starts, but it sounds a lot like poetry.

One interesting thing in Kerala is that Coca-cola is banned from being sold in state stores and generally isn’t widely available. I thought this was kind of symbolic of it being anti-free market. There were accusations that Coke was tested by a state facility and found to have 14x higher levels of fertilizer than in Coke in other parts of the world and that they weren’t using the same high standards they would elsewhere because it was too expensive. Depending on who you talk to you get different stories. The side I tend to believe is that the product was probably safe, but that if other developed countries have no fertilizer in the water, then 14x can still be a safe amount and probably was significantly less than was in the drinking water. Really the story is that Coke was accused of using too much water and the farmers didn’t like it and they didn’t pay off the officials they were suppose to, resulting in an unresolved suit and counter-suit between the state and the company which will be in the India court system for years. It was an interesting bit of trivia for a diet coke addict.

Cochin

Cochin was an attraction for me because one of my many jobs when I was in Israel, was to copy-edit a book at the Israel Museum called “The Jews of India.” Cochin was one of three Jewish communities. The oldest community was the B’nai Israel community who are thought to have left Israel after the destruction of the 2^nd Temple. They were lost to the Jewish community for many years until some members of the Cochini Jewish community identified them by some of their eating customs – not to eat meat and cheese and maybe also candle lighting. The second group are the Bagdadi Jews who came from Persia several centuries later and settled on the east coast of India in Kolkata. Finally, although there may have been some Jews in the region as traders earlier, the community at Cochin came directly and indirectly from Spain after the Inquisition.

Only one synagogue remains active, although there were at one time as many as 16. This synagogue was built in the late 1500s. At its peak there were as many as 50K Jews in Cochin, but in the 1970’s the majority of them moved to Israel. Today there are a handful of older Jews who still live in the area of town called “Jewtown” and the rest of the minyon drives in from surrounding towns on Shabbat. I attended services on Shabbat and was fortunate enough to be invited for Kiddish at one of the member’s homes and talk to him about the history of the community. As it happens, his daughter lives on 71^st street and goes to the Spanish-Portuguese synagogue. It was Chanukah, so we had tradition fried Indian snacks. There aren’t any traditional Jewish-Indian Chanukah foods, I was told. In some ways it feels sad that the community is probably not going to be there in 20 years, but at the same time, they were never persecuted, but they left because they thought life would be better in Israel. Also while I was there I met someone returning for a visit from Israel who had left when she was twelve in the 1970’s and another whose grandmother had grown up there.

Completely unrelated to her visit to the synagogue in Cochin, the woman whose grandmother had lived there, told me one of my favorite “travels in India” stories. She and her boyfriend had bought a camel at an auction and walked through the desert from Puskar to Jodpur on foot (the camel carried their bags) for 16 days steering by the sun. Although they couldn’t speak to them, the people in the villages helped them buy food for their camel and invited them for meals. But they aren’t taking the camel home to Jerusalem. They sold it at a huge loss because they wanted to find it a good home with someone who would love him. They called it Puskar because sometimes he needed a little push. I decided not to follow their trek this time, because it’s important to leave a reason to return.

I thought I’d stay for three days in Cochin, but ended up there for about 5 days and had to remind myself there were other things to see.

The Backwaters

About 70 km south of Cochin is an area called the Backwaters, known for its canals, rice paddies and spa treatments.

I spent one day on a houseboat with two other Americans that I had met in Cochin. About twenty years ago, someone decided the riceboats which were used in the canals could be converted into houseboats and take tourists along the canals. While it was beautiful and peaceful, it wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for. At present, there are about 400 houseboats out on the canals. Its not that we saw too many of them, but the experience has become to touristy. Although I will say, that our chef was amazing.

Instead of continuing on the houseboat, we found a homestay, actually kind of by accident, but it was really amazing. The house was 150 years old and was located along one of the less traveled canals. The homestay had four rooms, communal meals and was run by the great grand son of the original owner. I read in the guidebook that you have to go by boat to the island where the place is, but I couldn’t believe when it our boat was pole powered, a la the Venetians. The food was outstanding. It was true southern Indian food, served on banana leaves. When we arrived there was a couple there from Sri Lanka, who taught us all how to eat properly with our fingers (although I never realized you needed lessons, there is some technique to being efficient).

Over the next few days, I went on walks along the canals and rode around in small pole-powered boats through the neighborhood. It felt a little voyeristic, but it was interesting and the people were friendly. Two things I noticed. Even though we were out in the middle of the country, there was still a lot of noise. The temples and mosques compete with prayers over the PA systems. Another source of noise, and this will sound a little strange, is the women doing their laundry, standing at the edge of the river, beating the clothing against the rocks. I don't understand how exactly this cleans the clothes, but they all seem to do it and it seems to be a major daily activity. I know I've written a lot about the dirtiness in India, but it only really applies to the public domain. Personally, the Indians seem to take great pride in their hygiene and appearance.

Most of the people who live along the canals work in the paddy fields. Its hard work and most of it is still done by hand. At the time of the British partition the land was divided up and distributed so I think that most people own something, but there were grumblings about it not being done totally equitably, etc. The large field behind the house was farmed communally with the owners dividing the profits proportionately to their ownership.

For the most part, it was another place to relax. The Americans left me there after the first night because they were on a shorter trip than me, but I met my next travel partners there before I left and headed to the east coast with them.