February 15, 2011

Bolgatty Marina

Bolgatty Island, Cochin, India

Hi All,

  Randal and I are really enjoying just wandering around the different parts of Cochin; sometimes on errands and sometimes just wandering.  Tomorrow, we are off to Delhi, Old and New, Agra to see the Taj Mahal, and probably Rajasthan to maybe ride a camel and hopeful to Varanasi to see the Ganges.  We have booked our flight to Delhi and a hotel for 4 nights.  Then we’ll decide what to do.  We’re going with Linda and Michael from the sailboat B’Sheret who are very seasoned travelers and, like us are happy spending as little as we have to for a hotel room.  They have the same requirements: clean, a bathroom in the room, AC, WiFi.  Linda managed to find us rooms for $33 per night that met all the requirements and has an electric kettle so we can make our morning tea.  She also hunted down the airline tickets.  We just have to show up.  We’re leaving tomorrow morning from the marina at 9 am and should be in New Delhi by 5 pm.  Our flight leaves at 11:20 am but we have one stop, I think in Mumbai.  We’re taking our small ACER so hopefully I’ll be able to send photos but they will be in the form of attachments.

   The paperwork is pretty much done for shipping DoraMac and we’ll leave Cochin the first week in March and head to the Maldives.  It’s about 400 miles but we should have favorable winds and weather going in this direction.

  Ru

  DoraMac

Ernakulam

Ernakulam is another one of the small areas that joined together to form Cochin. For the past several days we have been exploring the streets and alleyways just across the river from the marina. We have also been “way the heck on the other side” to visit the Big Airtel Service Center, 3 times. But the tuk tuks are cheap and it’s fun just to go for a ride.

Airtel Service Center

In India we needed cell phone SIM cards and an Indian SIM card for our 3G phone that we can use with our two larger computers. Our Netbook doesn’t have a cd drive and we don’t have a portable cd drive attachment for it yet so we couldn’t load the 3G phone software on it. We decided to buy a dongle that would hold a SIM card if that was possible. Many of the cruisers have bought a “use only in India” dongle, but since we had the phone we didn’t want to pay $45 US for something we’d use less than a month. Because we were still having questions about our 3G phone service we went off to visit different, larger Airtel Service Center and there discovered a dongle that would take SIM cards so could be used in other countries. Our first visit we bought the dongle. We decided to buy a second SIM card so we could use the dongle and the 3G phone and “not have to share.” But, though dongle purchasing doesn’t require showing your passport, SIM cards do, and also a small passport size photo to attach to the purchase forms they keep on file. Randal had a copy of the passport and a photo but they wanted to see his Indian visa also. We hadn’t realized that had also been required when we had bought SIM cards earlier. At that time Randal had his actual passport with the India visa affixed to one of the pages. I said we couldn’t be in India if we didn’t have a visa, but that was not acceptable. Our second visit we used the address on the receipt for the dongle, which funny enough is not the address for the Airtel Center, so we ended up on a small side road somewhere, we aren’t sure where, but had an interesting walk around. When we asked for directions from a Nokia Mobile shop they said the Airtel Center was closed on Sunday anyway. Our third visit was totally successful since we had the address we’d used the first time to find the place and we got the second SIM card as Randal had brought his passport and a small photo.

This was my only photo.

I wish I could rave about the library, but I can’t, EXCEPT, if I had brought a note from the marina, I very likely could have gotten a library card. I speak no Malayalam, the local language. No surprise there. But the head of the Ernakulam Public Library seemed to speak almost no English. So we really couldn’t communicate beyond the bit of information about the card and how I needed to go back downstairs to leave my backpack at the security desk. Randal and I had gone to look at travel guides to save ourselves 1000 rupee at a book store. But the guides in the Reference Area were quite old and falling to pieces. Another reminder of how fortunate we are in the USA.

I wanted to visit for another reason, S.R. Ranganathan, a name once learned in library school, not ever forgotten….

S. R. Ranganathan is considered to be the father of library science, documentation, and information science in India and is widely known throughout the rest of the world for his fundamental thinking in the field. Wikipedia

An ideology of librarianship was created by Shiyali Ramamrita (SR) Ranganathan in his classic The Five Laws of Library Science. He formulated objectives and principles for the organization of, access to, and use of library materials…….

Ranganathan’s five laws:

1. Books are for use.
2. Every reader, his book.
3. Every book, its reader.
4. Save the time of the reader.
5. A library is a growing organism.

Ranganathan also writes about the importance of good catalogs, especially those with effective cross references. He advocates good marketing of library resources. He even suggests popularizing certain books as parts of edited series, so patrons learn that a book has "cousins" on other or related topics. In this way, Ranganathan suggested, new vistas are opened to users via books similar in style and approach to books they already know and like.

Do digital libraries violate the Third Law? By Michle V. Cloonan & John G. Dove — Library Journal, 04/01/2005

After our library visit we went off to lunch of Biryani Chicken and lots of little dishes of stuff to go with it. I’m not so much of a rice fan and ate much less of it in China and the Philippines than I am here in India, but it tastes so good and it’s one of the few dishes I actually know what it is.

“Biryani is usually cooked with a choice of meat or vegetables and rice flavored with a blend of aromatic spices. Usual accompaniments to this dish include Chutneys (generic reference to an Indian relish) and “Raita” – a creamy yoghurt side-dish that is the Indian version of a cold salad. Biryani is a hodgepodge of exotic spices and condiments. Cardamoms, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, fennel, star anise, pepper, cumin, chili powder, turmeric, ghee (clarified butter), and saffron are some of the additions that give the biryani its distinct aroma, flavor and its signature yellowish tinge.

http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-make-Biriyani

Ice Cream to cool off from the hot, spicy food.

One day our explorations started with lunch with Linda and Michael. After my chicken biryani, I was too full for ice cream of my own but helped Randal a bit with his. I thought it tasted good but Randal mentioned something later about wishing for a Dairy Queen. Linda’s was quite exotic and included noodles at the bottom reminding me of the Philippine halo halo that had beans in the mixture. Michael asked for the plain two scoop ice cream but wanted one each of vanilla and chocolate. What he got was two dishes of ice cream, one with two scoops of vanilla and one with two scoops of chocolate.

I knew from reading The God of Small Things that the Communist Party had supporters in India but this flag certainly caught my attention.

One of the tour boats is shaped like a giant goose.

Lots of different tour boats go past the marina several times each day. This one was parked in the spot across the river where the Bolgatty Ferry ties up. You can see it to the right of the goose. We had to climb out of our ferry and onto the goose and walk through and out onto the landing.

He asked me to take his photo so I obliged.

Temple Gates

A “godown” is a warehouse but sounds more intriguing.

It was really dark inside and my flash automatically went off.

She is up in a huge glass box and the same stray dog sleeps at the foot of the monument every day.

Friends reading.

I think these were bags of rice.

He was making these giant baskets.

We walked through the streets and alleys where fruit, vegetables, live chicken and hanging legs of some kind of meat are sold.

The more we explore the different parts of Cochin, the more we really like it.

Hi All,

  So many of you have written saying you are quite relieved at our change of plans.  We do appreciate that.   What is a bit reassuring is that almost all of the cruisers who made the passage from Malaysia or Thailand to Galle, Sri Lanka and then to Cochin are saying that it was just about their worst passage ever.  I find that reassuring because we made it under our own power and with almost all systems in tact by the end.  Of course, we did manage to avoid some of the worst of the storm while friends were stuck pretty much in it.  But whatever happened DoraMac and Randal got us here safe and sound. 

  We don’t have many plans in place for the time starting now. We will plan to leave India for the Maldives at the end of the month.   We plan to stop first at Uligan an island in the northern most part of the Maldives because it has great diving and we do have four diving tanks we’d filled to use in the Red Sea.  Then we will head on to Marmaris to pack up DoraMac and ship her off.  Other than that our plans are so new we have no details.   Here are some follow-up photos and odds and ends.

Ru

DoraMac

Cochin Miscellaneous

My treatment ladies.

This morning was my last treatment so I asked the ladies if I could take their photo. The one on the left is engaged and will marry in 7 months. The one on the right is married with two young children in primary school. They live about 200 kilometers from Cochin so stay in rooms upstairs in the treatment building. During a month they get 4 days off but both worked on me the entire 7 days I was there. When I asked about that, they smiled and shrugged and said there were no other women workers. They earn 4,000 rupees per month. I don’t know if they pay for their room and food or if that’s part of their pay. I speak no Malayalam and their English was a bit limited. They were very sweet and concerned and made it all bearable And the pain mostly seems gone.

When they work, their saris are pulled up around their knees and they wear the purple aprons tied around their waists to try to keep most of the oil off their uniforms.

Sarah Cohen – corrections.

This is the real photo of Sarah Cohen’s wedding…I found that out during my second visit. In the other photo, Sarah was standing to the brides left.

Abdul, Sarah, Thaha

I had met Thaha the first visit but assumed he was Abdul who was mentioned in the Washington Post article. They are brothers and both help Sarah.

I also read in Kerala and Her Jews that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi came to Cochin for the 400^th anniversary of the Cochin Synagogue to take part in the celebration.

Hungry for information; they really do eat paper and about anything else so are the trash collectors of Mattancherry.

This jazzy tuk tuk either said Elvis or reminded me of Elvis, but somehow Elvis sticks in my mind.

The driver was very nice and took me to the veggie and fruit street and then drove around looking for a bakery that sold whole wheat bread.

One evening 12 of us took the ferry across to Ernakulam for dinner at the Grand Hotel. It took 4 tuk tuks carrying 3 cruisers each to get us there.

Americans Bill and Amy on Estrelitta, homeport, Florida.

Bill and Judy on BeBe, from Texas and Michael and Linda on B’Sheret, from Wisconsin.

Michael and Linda are the friends we’ll travel with to New Delhi. They, and Bill and Judy on BeBe are also shipping their boats.

Brits Terry and Fiona on Roam II

They came from the Mediterranean this past year and are heading towards South East Asia.

Brits Chris and Trish on Sapristy registered in South Africa

After dinner we loaded back into the tuk tuk parade back to the ferry pier. Fiona had called the Bolgatty Hotel and it had sent a small boat to bring us all back to the marina since the public ferry had stopped running at 8pm. We paid 10 rupee per person.

Three young working women came to visit.

I met these ladies on the ferry from Ernakulam back to Bolgatty. They were going to spend an hour or so walking around the resort. They took out their camera phones and made a short video about me. They bought some bags of popcorn from a vendor and gave one to me. I invited them to our boat. They asked how India compared to China. I wish they could talk with our Chinese friends BoBo, Zoey and Singkey. They all look so lovely in their saris. Two of the women are 24 and one 23. They work here in Cochin and live in a “hostel” because home, where their parents live, is too far and I guess they don’t want to live at home any more.

Bolgatty guards at the gate.

When the marina was first built lots of people came to see the boats and climb all over them so guards were added and RULES. Now tour boats go by the marina and we wave and say hello.

Hi All

This morning I set off with friends on a "last visit to Jew Town" because when I left the boat this morning we were about to do a passage to the Red Sea and on to the Mediterranean. 

Ru

DoraMac

Return to Jew Town with Linda and Michael from B’Sheret

Our friends Linda and Michael hadn’t yet been to Jew Town or the Synagogue so I acted as tour guide. We had a lovely time. Randal came and met us for lunch and then he and Michael went off to do boat parts shopping and Linda and I to do our shopping. I bought a long skirt to wear in Oman and Yemen and Eritrea where we won’t be going. I also bought some pants with elastic around the ankles and I can pull them up higher on my leg to make really blowzy short pants to keep out of the wet in squat toilets. Linda excellently negotiated the price of the pants for me. Randal and Michael didn’t find boat parts so settled for a beer at the Seagull.

Bazar Road scene

Coffee break after our visit to the Synagogue

Michael and Linda

Bright colorful cloth sunbrellas for sale at the book shop just down from the Synagogue.

They really look like fun but most people just use regular cheap lightweight umbrellas.

A lesson in how to tell a genuine pashima which could be summed up to “the one that costs the most.”

We actually did learn quite a bit and you could feel the difference in the real pashima yarn. But they were way too expensive so we were all just looking.

Teeny, tiny copper elephants that I just had to have…… so tiny you can’t see them in the photo but they are around the edge of the table. Linda negotiated for me here too. He never had a chance; she’s good.

I’m wearing my ‘Not Red Sox hat.” I’m thinking I’ll color the words Red Sox on the brim.

The locked gate to the Jewish Cemetery

Linda and I walked to the cemetery at the edge of Jew Town but the gate was locked and no caretakers within like the one in George Town, Penang.

Space for what once was a thriving community but now is less than ten.

The cemetery in George Town was the same, space for people who had moved to other countries.

We were intrigued by this building but no signs explained its origins.

They stopped to say hello and introduced themselves and asked our names and were quite curious about our interest in the building. Their English was pretty limited to hello, what’s your name….Both were in the 7^th grade.

The taller boy wanted me to take his photo and sort of coerced his friend too.

Inside the building was dust and dark and some odd statues.

Shopkeeper’s niece.

In a small shop across from the Fort Kochi ferry, Linda and I were looking at postcards and puppets when this young girl came in. She had just had her hand decorated with henna.

Tour boat goes by the marina

Early in the morning before we left for Jew Town, this tour boat went by with a loud, jovial group of young men.

Frisbee toss

Randal keeps a supply of Frisbees on the bow and this was the first time he was able to toss them to a passing boat. He was one for three.

Dear Family and Friends,

  No photos with this email.  Randal and I are fine as are all of our friends.  But this is a very hard email to write.  We have decided to ship the boat to Turkey.  The fear of pirate attacks has grown so much in the past months, weeks, and days that we no longer can feel it is safe to make the passage.  It is truly, truly disappointing to us to make this decision.  Almost all of the cruisers we know have decided not to make the passage.  Some will ship their boat, some will return to South East Asia and wait for better times.  Some will return to South East Asia and then go south around the tip of Africa.  I left our decision to Randal.  Although I told him I wasn’t brave and couldn’t face being taken by Somali pirates, I had accepted that I could deal with it and made the decision to go.  I had to decide for myself and my decision was to trust Randal. I always have and he has gotten safely through bad weather and boat problems.  We had planned to go up the Indian coast north of 22 degrees and cross there, but in recent days that passage has become unsafe.  Today while I was out acting as tour guide for friends Linda and Michael from B’Sheret, Randal made the decision to ship DoraMac.  Our hearts had been set for a trip up the Red Sea, a Suez Canal transit and Israel in May.  When Randal told me he had committed us to shipping DoraMac, I cried from disappointment, from relief, but mostly I cried for Randal who so wanted to make this passage.  He deserves to make the passage as do all boats.  That our government is doing nothing to stop the pirates is beyond comprehension.  They are terrorists and criminals and they control the shipping lanes.  We must now return south to the Maldives where boats will await the pick-up between March 15th and March 25th for shipping on a cargo ship designed to carry boats as cargo.  We will not accompany DoraMac but meet her in Marmaris, Turkey in April.  The cost is high in dollars, but less than ransom money if the worst should happen.  We can afford the shipping charge but not the worry and fear to our families and friends if we should be taken and ransom money would cost everything we had ever saved.  It seems so absurd that we even have to think about this.

  On a lighter note, we will have more time in India.  We are joining our friends Linda and Michael on B’Sheret for a 10 day trip to New Delhi and a visit to the Taj Mahal.  We will still visit Israel and the Red Sea, but it will come later in the year.

Ru

DoraMac

The path from the Marina/Hotel complex to the ferry and the rest of the island.

Restaurant and Ice Cream Parlor now over grown.

All of the cruisers wish this place still existed because we all like ice cream and this marina has no small store like the one in Rebak where you could buy bread and eggs and Ice cream. We see many buildings half falling down; more than one would think of a BRIC country with good economic earnings projected for the future. It kind of reminds me of Olongapo in the Philippines.

This building, derelict and overgrown, reminds me of The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.

Set partly in Cochin and partly just south of Ernakulam, it’s a look at an India that we as cruisers won’t see because we come and go and stay at a marina.

Little ferry terminal along the 5 minute path from the marina.

The ferry runs from about 7 am and returns last at 8 pm form Ernakulam. If you stay later, the resort will arrange a 12 passenger boat pick up for 56 rupee or you can take a tuk tuk across the bridge for 80 rupee. I took the bridge tuk tuk one time with bags of groceries. Randal had to go to the High Court building to get something notarized and we didn’t know how long that would take so I went back myself and the driver took me right to the door of the marina. In two trips I had all of the bags on the boat. Now we know that many of the small boats will take you from the Ernakulam side right to your boat for 50 rupee but we didn’t know that then and I needed a tuk tuk from the grocery store anyway. Learning all of the ins and outs takes time. Weather-wise we need to get going so we’ll maybe have to come back one day.

Many paths: one traveler; I started down this one first.

Just past the ferry is a whole warren of paths with walls or fences hiding homes or empty overgrown lots and each path looked very tempting. I just started walking and like Robert Frost said,

“And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.”

That’s why I went there yesterday afternoon because I knew it would probably be my only chance: we’ll be leaving soon and other things will come up.

Late afternoon light and shadow, but I never worried about going walking there alone.

More paths and secret gardens.

I never doubled back.

The areas seemed no larger than the Plymouth Street block where I grew up in New Bedford. But it probably was.

Some homes were tiny but some were large like this one you can see past the wall with the flowerpots. Behind the flowerpot wall was a large house too: but many were small, some medium. All interesting but hidden away.

I snuck this photo when she wasn’t looking.

At the dead-end of this path were cows grazing and I took several photos.

You always see egrets with the cows or water buffalo because they eat the bugs that pester the cows. While I was photographing the cows the neighborhood was watching me amused that I would think cows photo-worthy.

So I asked if I could take their photo.

They all wanted to be photographed!

Other folks at other houses were watched and seemed to enjoy my photo-taking. I probably could have taken that whole neighborhood. But I just said hello and waved and smiled and so did they.

A medium size house in their neighborhood.

This was a tiny hotel down from the ferry, or so the sign said, and it had a tiny store and what looked like a very tiny restaurant.

The lovely woman who works there.

Then I walked back to the marina and our “ho hum” boats.

Hi All,

  All of our time is spent on DoraMac or in town so we really haven’t made use of the marina facilities.  It actually is the only marina in India!

Ru

DoraMac

Bolgatty Island

Marina

The Marina office is in this building. I have only been there once, the day before we moved to the marina when we came to talk with the manager. There is a coffee shop and a small exercise room and a room with a huge pool table and a ping pong table. Going to my sciatica treatments and just being out and about has kept us busy. You can see DoraMac, the last boat on the right with the brown cloth covering her big front windows. Originally we were in a “too short slip” two docks over. I took this photo and the following one while I was on the ferry from Bolgatty Island to Ernakulam.

Local fishermen come by every morning.

The wife paddles and the husband fishes: at least that’s the way it was in the three of these round boats that passed by early one morning. Our new location gives us a better view of river traffic.

Moving day for Doramac

Getting from the Crabtree boat yard on Fort Kochi into the marina was pretty straight forward going in bow first. Moving from the “too short slip” to a spot along the outside dock was much trickier. Because of the location of our power outlet and our pilot house door, we had to back up to the dock. And because of the strength of the current, backing up wasn’t at all easy. We enlisted a whole army of helpers including “big” Nasir to help getting the stern line from DoraMac to the folks on the dock who would tie us to the cleats.

How many people does it take…..?

Bill from BeBe on our stern handled the lines and the group on the dock waited to catch them. The trick was we had to be close enough for Bill to throw a second mid-stern line and then the bow line before the current took us too far away. But it all worked out with no mishaps. My ego got bruised because the word “bow line” wasn’t sinking in and I kept trying to hand Bill a different line and felt like an idiot but, oh well.

Bolgatty Hotel

The hotel dining room: we’ve not eaten there.

Through the trees at the pool you can see the other side of the island and Kochi Harbour.

Hotel swimming pool or crow bath….

As well as the crows, cruisers are allowed to use the pool but Randal and I aren’t pool people so we haven’t but it is the place where between 4:30 pm and 6 pm cruisers tend to socialize and wait for temperatures to cool. We have AC so we tend to stay on the boat where it’s already cool.

Another view of DoraMac

The buildings are across the river which takes the ferry about 10 minutes to cross.

Another view across the river: far different scenery than at Fort Kochi or Mattancherry.

9:29 am looking across to Ernakulam: earlier in the morning everything is somewhat grey.

Tour boats pass by the marina and the announcer points to the different country flags on the boats.

Some of the boats are full of school age kids who yell hello and we wave back. Some boats blast “Monsoon Wedding” like music. Randal has some Frisbees on the bow so he might one day toss one to some kids on the tour boats.

Hi All,

  One must be open to new experiences………

Sciatica

My sciatica started in again and I couldn’t walk very far or even stand up long by evening time. At the Crabtree’s Sunday lunch Louisa recommended the Kottakkal Arya Vaidya Sala clinic. I needed something and this was a recommendation from a sane person, so I jumped at it.

http://www.aryavaidyasala.com is the website of the clinic

The following was on their web site FAQ treatment page:

Could you please suggest the best time to have ayurvedic treatment?
Generally three seasons are considered best suited for conducting treatment. They are,
     Mid July        – Mid August (Karkkidakam)
     Mid October  – Mid November (Thulam)
Mid February – Mid March (Kubham)
because these seasons have moderate weather conditions (heat, cold and rain). The fortnights immediately before and after these three months are also considered as acceptable. (I started on February 3^rd which isn’t mid-February, but the weather is moderate with no rain and no tropical heat.

Another FAQ was if their treatment would help sciatica and their answer was, surprise, surprise…yes.

Treatment options were illustrated and described.

First a consultation with Doctor R. Subhadra Varier B.A.M. S. Deputy Physician

When we arrived I checked in at reception and about 2 minutes later I was in the Doctor’s office. I interrupted her reading which surprised me though I don’t know why. Doctors are always reading charts or computer screens, but it’s rare that you see them reading a book. Of course, here as in the Port Clearance Offices everything is done by paper and carbon

The doctor was very matter-of-fact bordering on impersonal. But I was probably the billionth (literally,) person complaining of a bad back and pain down my leg. (A few days later I saw her walking down the street and she wasn’t smiling then either. She didn’t recognize me, but I recognized her. ) She took my pulse, blood pressure, asked about my cholesterol and if I took calcium. She asked about my sciatica history and if I had x-rays with me. I said, no but I had a photo of my acupuncture suction cup red marks. That didn’t impress her at all. They don’t do acupuncture here. Maybe it’s more a Chinese medicine. She had me lay on her examining table and she pushed each one of my legs perpendicular to my body to see the range of movement and if I had pain. No pain. I told her it only hurt when I walked, stood or sometimes sat. I also told her about the acupuncture doctor’s theory of air conditioning impacting my sciatica which is totally true and I wear flannel pants on the boat when we have AC. We discussed treatment options. One option was that I take the pills and rub myself with oils. The other option was having someone work on me. I opted for “someone working on me” because Advil and stretching wasn’t doing the trick so I needed to have “someone work on me.”

Reception and pharmacy.

My medicine is 3 different pills. I take two kinds in the morning and evening about an hour before meals and the other one I take after meals. The tricky part is making myself wake up about 5:30 am so I can take the pills so when we get up at 6 am I don’t have to sit around waiting for my tea. I have no idea if it really matters. But I am taking them, going for treatment and have been able to cut back on my Advil consumption. I wear flannel pants on the boat all the time and I wear some kind of footwear because the support helps too.

I asked what the medicines were but was told there is no translation……that it is written in Sanskrit….

My pharmacy printout says:

Ashtavargam Kwatham (TAB) 60 of them

Suvarnamuktadi Gulika 30 (they are tiny pills)

Dhanwantaram Kwatham (Tab)

(I just took my before pills with wine…..which should be a double whammy pain killer!)

The cost 357.40 rupee = about $8 US

I’ve finished my 3^rd day of treatments and I haven’t taken Advil except one at night.

Pizhichil:The patient is made to lie on a wooden Droni (a specially designed wooden plank. (I read about this treatment on the clinic website and it sounds like my treatment.)

Wooden Droni treatment table…

Embarrassing as it is to admit, that dangling bit of tan cloth is what I wear.

I get to the clinic about 10:15 and after a trip to the “toilet” I go into the treatment room. They tell me to take off my clothes, jewelry, and specs and put on my tiny linen diaper. After 3 treatments I’m used to it, sort of. Then they tell me to sit on the table and one lady puts a bit of oil in my hair and rubs it around. Then they pour some warm oil on my back and rub it around. Then they tell me to lie on my back. They spend about 20 minutes working on my front, one lady working on my foot, leg and hip and the other working on my neck, arm, hand, and stomach. One is on my right and one on my left. Then they change so my whole body is done. Then I roll over and the back half is done. That back massage is actually kind of nice; though my neck starts to get stiff without a pillow, just a few folded small linen towels, and sometimes I get a foot cramp. Then they tell me to roll over again and do the front again. Then, when they are done they take some rough linen towels, you can see them in the photo, and rub off the oil. That actually feels great. Then they tell me to sit up and rub off some more oil. Finally they help me off the table and I take a towel and wipe off some more oil. Then I get dressed, go outside, get a tuk tuk and go home. Amazingly I don’t feel oily greasy awful. It isn’t like being coated in suntan lotion and hot and sweaty and sandy. It’s hard to explain, more like putting on expensive body lotion, not that I have any. At the end when I get off the table they put more stuff in my hair and hold some powder under my nose and make me breathe deeply. I wasn’t allowed to wash my hair until after the third visit and my hair was stiff and shiny! My whole body now smells like India!

Close-up of the table.

I hope to get some photos of the ladies in their medical blue saris. They fold up the bottoms to keep them out of the way and then put on aprons. They are very sweet and matter-of-fact so it really isn’t any more embarrassing than going for a mammogram. And it’s not cold and nothing gets squished. I have four more treatments.

7:26 local time

Hi Everyone,

  Yesterday our friend Nasir picked us up from our dock and took us across Kochi Bay to the Bolghatty Marina to see about relocating there.  We will move Friday morning.  Afterwards, Randal and I first had to take the ferry from the Bolghatty Island to Ernakulam.  Then we walked forever until we came to the terminal for the ferry from Ernakulam to Fort Kochi, the area of Cochin next to Mattancherry and our boat yard.  There was a long line waiting at the ticket counter.  When it opened someone motioned to me and another women just next to me to go to the Ladies Counter which had a very short line and buy our two tickets there.  Women are allowed to buy 2 tickets so we each bought one for ourselves and our husbands.  I don’t know where that rule came from, but I do like it.  On the ferry we sat next to a young woman from California who taught dance at a community college.  With California’s tight budget she was "allowed to take unpaid leave."  She had just come from Israel and now was going to spend time in India.  It’s amazing to me how brave young women are.  We invited her to lunch with us but she wanted to go off and see the area.  Actually it was a good thing because we our favorite Sea Gull was closed for the February 1st holiday.  The first day of each month is a holiday and no alcohol may be served.  I don’t know if that’s the reason they closed or they were off celebrating.  We found a place to eat but it wasn’t very good….  So far the only wow meal has been the one cooked by Fumiyo.  We need to go off and eat with Anthony Bourdain! 

Ru

DoraMac

Cultural Arts Center Performance Fort Kochi, India: Kerela Kaleidoscope, a medley of various dances

Getting ready for the performance

From 5:30 to 6:30 you can watch these fellows being made up for their performance. They do some of it themselves and some of it is done by the make-up master. We saw two masters at work.

Makeup master # 1 apples the large white cheeks to this actor.

Makeup master # 2 applies the cheeks to another performer

It was quite amazing to see him work. Very confident. Periodically he would check his watch to see how much time he still had before the actor would be needed.

The actors also applied some of their own makeup.

We arrived at 5:30 but this man was already pretty well made up.

Father and son makeup masters.

The young boy is 10 years old! “He had been doing this since childhood,” I was told. My response that he was still a child caused an interesting reaction by the Cultural Center worker. He was sort of surprised that I would think that way. He said it was a family occupation and the boy had started when he was 5 or 6. The young boy never appeared nervous and it was obvious that he enjoyed what he was doing.

The Cultural Center had a museum, gift shop, restaurant, yoga studio, book shop and also overnight accommodations. www.greenix.in

The Cultural Museum

“The cultural museum is a presentation of Kerala’s rich dance and cultural history in visual form…A large area of the museum showcases the dying arts: handloom weaving, pottery making, coir spinning (making rope from coconut husks) and basket weaving. The centerpiece of the Museum displays a Churlan Vallan, a traditional long country boat used for boat races. ..” Cultural Center brochure

The boat looks a great deal like the one that took us to John and Fumiyo’s home which had the coir coconut rope as well. When I pointed to it Johns said that they were still making boats as they had for hundreds of years.

An irrigation waterwheel

A potter’s wheel

I was stupid enough to ask what made it spin and the museum worker took his hand and gave it a shove and it started spinning. Maybe a helper kept it spinning while the potter worked on the pottery.

Looms seem to be the same everywhere we travel.

When I worked in New Hampshire in the 70s my friend Judy Dern, a weaver, had a loom pretty similar to this. It appears that hand looms haven’t changed much. The spinning wheel used to make the coconut rope looked a lot like an American spinning wheel.

Not only costumes, but hand and facial movements are used in the performances.

Behind the green-faced model you can see paintings illustrating the different hand movements and their meanings. Behind the other model are paintings illustrating the different facial movements used in the performances. We saw a live demonstration later in the evening of both hand and face movements.

The performance begins

The eyes and lips of the performers are heavily made up and they wear rings on their fingers and bells on their toes…..

Silent but with expression.

The movements were quick, energetic, very, subtle and very repetitive all done to song that seemed to indicate what movement was called for. For some reason he started to remind me of Charlie Chaplin.

Kalaripayattu martial arts demonstration

Before each part of the performance we sat in the darkened room and a voice told us what we were about to see and explained it somewhat. But I really don’t remember much of what we heard though I do think this evolved as a way for non-violent monks to keep fit and in practice, or I could be all wrong.

This character was a crowd pleaser.

His character is supposed to be a woman but men always play the part. He reminded me of Big Bird. And he reminded me of sarong-wrapped Randal doing the “bird dance” during our Long-house visit in Kumai, Indonesia. I had a hard time not laughing.

A very loud trio accompanied the dance, 2 drums and loud symbols.

He came up close and touched his forehead and then touched your forehead….of everyone

Then out came this character to demonstrate all of the facial expressions used different performances.

The man in back is the story teller and the man in front acted out the expressions.

The speed with which he moved his face, blinked his eyes, moved his eyebrows up and down was pretty amazing.

The plot…

The guy in the green face is the hero/prince. The guy in the purple hat is supposed to be the daughter of the demon who has sent her to earth to seduce some nymphs or something but she falls in love with the prince and flirts with him but he figures it out and kills her cutting off her ears, nose, and breasts is how I think the story goes…..

Musical accompaniment provided by the makeup masters!

His arms don’t look much bigger than his drum sticks. You could tell how much he enjoyed performing and never seemed tired, impatient, bored….a real performer. Dad looks like he’s ready to be done and actually started to cough a bit

Curtain call.

The MC asked if anyone had questions; but we were all a bit dazed from the performance and just quietly filed out the door. I did ask a staff member about the young boy and that’s when I learned his age. I might have asked more about the boy but Randal was already out the door flagging down a tuk tuk.

All in all it was interesting and I wouldn’t have wanted to miss it. Some of the dances went on a bit too long and seemed very repetitive if you didn’t know the meanings of the hand or eye movements. Also, a hand-out with the information we were told before each dance would have been helpful so you would really understand what you were seeing. It would be interesting to know why all the facial movements developed though I think I remember reading in the museum that it had something to do with the religious aspects related to the gods. Don’t know. You’ll have to learn more at your local library.

9:35 Local time

Hi All,

  Yesterday, Tuesday, we went to visit the marina on Bolgatty Island and we will move there tomorrow, Thursday morning at high tide.  Randal really misses the interaction with other cruisers.  I miss our friends who cruise but I also like living in the "city" rather than off and away in a marina.  There is a ferry to the mainland just a 5 minute walk from the marina so it’s not really so "away." 

  Last night we went to see a cultural dance performance.  It was educational and LOUD! 

  This email is about our Sunday lunch with John Crabtree, his wife Fumiyo and their friends Nick and Louisa.

Ru

Doramac

Sunday Lunch on the Island

Last Sunday we went to lunch at the home of John and Fumiyo who own the small boat yard where we are berthed. They also own a larger yard on Michael’s Land Resort. We were told to be ready at 1 pm and someone would come for us. We weren’t sure if that was by land or sea since we were going to an island. At 1 pm there was a knock on the boat. It was one of the two gentlemen named Nasir. There are two Nasirs and both work at times for John and both work with visiting cruisers. This Nasir told us that he had called a tuk tuk who would take us to a spot where John would meet us with a boat. When the tuk tuk arrived,  Nasir told him where to take us and we got in and off we went. The drive seemed long, but tuk tuks don’t go very much faster than bicycles especially through crowded streets and later I read that it really is only a distance of 12 kilometers, not much more than 6 miles, from Fort Cochin to the Michael’s Land Resort meeting spot. However, remember the scene in Harry Potter when he’s on that tall skinny double-decker bus speeding through London and another bus comes directly at the bus that Harry is on? That’s what it’s like here, only we’ll be in a tiny tuk tuk and a huge bus will be coming towards us in our lane. At lunch I made a comment about the driving and seeing signs for several driving schools and was told that if you pay your money you get a license. If you are a terrible driver that just means you pay more money. Everyone honks his horn for everyone else to move out of the way or to say, “Coming by.” But it all works out and so far no traffic jam of big trucks on narrow roads lasts very long.

John arriving to collect his lunch guests.

It’s a motorized outrigger canoe made in the traditional way with coconut husk material and wood. Marco Polo had this to say: “Their ships are very bad and many of them are wrecked because they are not fastened with iron nails but stitched together with thread made from coconut husks. … This makes it a risky undertaking to sail in these ships. And you can take my word that many of them sink, because the Indian Ocean is very stormy.” p. 47 Empires of the Monsoon by Richard Hall. Of course Marco Polo was speaking of the larger ships that crossed the Indian Ocean not the ones small ones you see in the photo.  But he was certainly right about the ‘stormy."

www.michaelslandresort.com

John explained the “almost island” was once named Angeli Terra for the angeli wood tree which grows there. He and Fumiyo live there with an assortment of dogs and cats. I say “almost” island because I read after our visit that there is a small path of land that connects the “island” to the mainland. The Crabtree home is next door to this building.

Rooftop dining.

John in blue, Louisa in orange, Nick next and then Randal across the table. Fumiyo is down in the kitchen whipping up a most wonderful lunch. Nick and Louisa are British x-pats living here in Cochin. Unfortunately Louisa had to fly back to London Sunday evening for her work and won’t be back in time for us to see her again.

Randal, John, Fumiyo, and Nick: both Louisa and I are taking photos.

Lunch menu:

Starters…..

Fresh vegetable platter and dip

Hot salted potato fries

Mixed platter of tempura treats

Light, wonderful vegetable croquettes

Freshly made guava juice

Main course….

Quiche with what tasted to me like linguica, sliced tomato and cucumber and potato salad served in a pumpkin shell

Giant prawns

Dessert

Rum jell-o topped with homemade ice cream

Coffee

Cold beer and cold water to wash it all down

A wonderful meal!!!!

Dessert is served.

Grace in her lovely blue sari had come to help Fumiyo with lunch. Fumio in her lovely red and white dress that she had made.

Fumiyo enforcing the “no dogs under the table or on the roof” rule.

Grace posing at the front door.

Front door view

Unfortunately we had to leave…..

Louisa, Fumiyo and the boat driver

Nick sitting next to me also taking photos of Louisa and Fumiyo.

Nick’s company has something to do with computerized investing but that’s as far as I can begin to explain and I hope I’m correct even about that.

One last photo.

When we got to shore we all got into N and L’s car and she drove us back to town to where we could catch a tuk tuk. They don’t live near Jew Town and Louisa needed to get back to prepare for her evening flight. We waved down a tuk tuk and we were home about 6 pm after a lovely, lovely day.

Not only was the food wonderful, but the company was wonderful and we discussed all sorts of things that make you friends instantly. None of that social chit chat for us. We jumped right in and talked about religion, what happens when you die, Indian society, how I feel about Israel, all with just gentle curiosity and no one getting mad, upset, insulted.

It was a truly lovely afternoon.

I never did get an exact answer as to why a medical doctor changes careers to become a boat builder in India. But if you Google John Crabtree and Rosa, the yacht he built: the first India registered yacht, you’ll learn more about our interesting new friends and Michael’s Land Resort.

Now to totally change the subject….

The following is an email we received from our friend Roy Moulton. He seems to have captured the essence of the area: here is what he wrote….

Hi Randal & Ruth,

It sounds like being there is better than getting there in this leg of your travels.
Looked for your location on GE (Google Earth) today, found Mattancherry, M. Palace, Bazaar Rd,  long area labeled Jew Town, Malabar Hotel, and much more but could not find Kondo Syoki Marine. (It’s across from the Muslim Orphanage)
Lots of street scenes also, colorful, crowded, a little tattered, a different world indeed.
Am watching a TV show called ‘No Reservations’, host/star Anthony Bourdain travels and eats, now in Cochin, Kerala, India, how about that ! Gives good marks for street food, fish head curry and all spicy foods, tea, not so good for a fermented palm oil? drink. Some places low on ambiance IMO. (Randal and I haven’t yet eaten at any of the small local places as we have everywhere perhaps because John Crabtree recommended the Sea Gull just down the road and Randal really likes it. I’m ready for one of those low ambiance places though stomach issues can happen pretty easily here and most of our friends who have visited India have had to deal with that.) And according to Anthony, Cochin is in the most literate part of India. It looks like a lot of exploring in your location could be by water.  An Indian company (Tata?) now owns Jaguar Motorcars, like losing the (British) Crown Jewels to the colonies.
With a BILLION people, a dozen different languages, movie industries and so much variety of everything, India would never be boring.  India and China do seem to be on the way up in the world.
   Happy Sails,

Roy

Hi All,

  I visited Sarah Cohen yesterday and the Cochin Synagogue today.  Randal stayed on the boat and supervised some men who were washing the pounds of salt from DoraMac. 

Ru

DoraMac

Cochin Synagogue Jew Town

The Synagogue is located at one end of Jew Town Road.

First we went Friday morning and then, today, I planned to go after lunch at 1 pm.

Randal returned to the boat but I walked around the shops of Jew Town and endured “come into my shop…just look…looking costs nothing…” And it did cost nothing because, as charming and smiling and willing to make a deal they all were, I didn’t buy anything. Telling them that I lived on a boat sort of threw them off their game a bit. I knew the Synagogue sold booklets and such and wanted to save my money for those things and also for a return visit to the Idiom Book Store on my way back to the boat yard.

Postcard were sold at the Cochin Synagogue but photos were prohibited.

VB Anand, Richard Todd, and anonymous get credit for the photos. I was going to show each card separately but there are copyright notices on the Anand and Todd cards so I have reservations about posting them at all. When I visited the Synagogue looked like the card on the left with the pink curtain across the ark and no Torahs visible. There were about 50 or so school children there when I was there and they were told all about the Synagogue in Malayalam, the local language. There was no English translation for the rest of us. A few small groups were there with their own guides but I didn’t feel right listening in so I didn’t. This is what the India Map Service Tour Guide has to say… ” It was built in 1568 and is the oldest synagogue in India. The synagogue was partially destroyed during the Portuguese raids in 1662 and was rebuilt by the Dutch. The clock-tower was later added to the structure in the mid-18^th century and the floors were paved with the exquisite hand-painted blue willow tiles from China. The Great Scrolls of the Old Testament, the copper plates depicting the grants of privilege made by the Kochi rulers, Hebrew inscriptions on stone slabs and other ancient artifacts are some of the evidence of the Jewish history stored here. The township around the Synagogue is known for spice trade and curio shops dealing in antiques as well as rare glass and beads. “

Kerala and her Jews, a small booklet sold at the Cochin Synagogue

Jews may have been in Kerala since the time of King Solomon.

Replica copper plates of the grant giving tax privileges, many rights and the area now Jew Town to Joseph Rabban and his descendants by His Majesty the King Sri Parkaran Iravi Vanmar in either the 11^th century or 379 according to the Cochin Jews.

The clock tower was built in 1760 by Ezekiel Rahabi who had also donated the blue and white Canton tiles.

So tiring to visit those shops.

I grew up in New Bedford where you went into a shop, looked around, were left mostly alone, picked what you wanted, paid and walked out without a whole lot of interaction between seller and buyer. In the South, clerks chat and if you don’t chat back you’re thought to be a bit rude. One of the attractions of working in the library, money wasn’t part of the transaction: at least it wasn’t when I worked there and the library wasn’t so broke. You were expected to chat with the patrons and I mostly enjoyed that because they were friendly and had really interesting stories to tell. I truly don’t enjoy wheeling and dealing or bargaining. Give me a fair price and let me pay it. I have no clue what something is worth where labor is cheap. I only know what I would pay at home which I am told means nothing but what else can I compare it to. While cruising I buy lots of inexpensive tops, so there I have an idea, but not other things. And when shops are so empty, I feel awful not buying when the sales guys are so charming and sad. But they are all charming and all sad and there are shops all along and they all sell the same things. And for the most part you can buy the same things everywhere in the world.

Jew Town shops.

Jew Town as tourist destination.

Several cruise ships are visiting Cochin. Tour groups are brought to our neighborhood to visit the Chinese fishing nets and to visit Jew Town. Here the tour guide is holding up a post card of the Synagogue as he is about to lead the group into Sarah Cohen’s hand embroidery shop and home.

89 year old Sarah Cohen and me in one of my Sri Lanka blouse lady tops and my old Red Sox hat.

Sarah does hand embroidery

I bought a hand towel with this image of Indian women. Even the back looked lovely.

www.sarahshandembroidery.blogspot.com is her web site

Brothers Thaha and Abdul, long-time family friends, comes daily to check on Sarah and help her with her shop.

Sarah had lots of visitors

“All the Cochin Jews moved to Israel…why not you?”

This German born Israeli woman wanted to know why Sarah hadn’t emigrated to Israel. I was so offended by her incredulity that Sarah would want to stay in India, that I butted in and said, “because she likes it here in Cochin.” That actually was the answer and the woman from Israel and I had an interesting discussion about why I feel about America as she does about Israel.

These women came with best wishes from Sarah’s Cohen cousins in (I forget where) and Sarah’s response was that she had no cousins there. The ladies kept insisting and Sarah kept insisting. While they were discussing, Thaha offered to show me the rest of Sarah’s house parts of which are 300 years old.

Sarah’s wedding photo, she is now a widow.

Sarah’s husband was a lawyer. They had no children she told the Israeli woman, but her sister had six.

Sarah and friends playing cards.

Sarah in traditional sari as Cochin Jews added Indian customs to their daily lives.

Sarah was born in Cochin: her parents came from Baghdad.

Sarah’s room, simple but very cool and that’s most important in tropical India.

Abdul, Sarah, Thaha

Both brothers help take care of Sarah. I met Abdul during my second visit to Sarah. 

I left Sarah’s house and felt as if I were saying good-bye to relatives. I was quite taken by her and Abdul. I’m going to try to make time to return before we leave Cochin. I don’t know if Sarah will remember me, her memory is fading a bit, but that’s ok. I’ll remember her and Abdul. I found the two following articles on the Internet. They tell not only about Sarah but illustrate Jewish life in Cochin where Jewish and Indian customs became mixed.

http://www.mathrubhumi.com/english/story.php?id=101523

Kerala Jews come to relive past, as present fades

Posted on: 02 Dec 2010

Kochi: From thousands, the number of Jews in Kerala has dwindled to a mere 10 and they too live only in Kochi. The exodus of the community started over 60 years ago, though many visit this city to discover their roots and relive the past.

Sarah Cohen, 89, the oldest Jewish woman here who became a widow a decade back, talks wistfully about the fast dwindling numbers of the community – just five Jew families reside here now.

‘Our community members started leaving here right from the time Israel was formed in 1948. All my sisters and brothers left long back. I don’t have children but decided that I won’t leave this place because I have been born and brought up here,’ Cohen told IANS.

‘Of course, most of those who left do come back and visit us frequently to relive their past, because for them it is a discovery of their roots,’ she said.

But things are pretty difficult for the community.

‘Today, the situation is such that the weekly Sabbath (prayers in the synagogue) takes place only if Jews from outside are visiting,’ Cohen said.

‘According to rule, 10 (Assara) men have to be present in the synagogue. But only six women and four men are left in the Jew Town in Kochi,’ said Cohen, who lives in a 300-year-old home built by her ancestors.

The Jews are classified into two categories which have been there since their arrival here – ‘white Jews’, who are descendants of traders, and ‘black Jews’, who the fairer complexioned say are the descendants of slaves.

The ancestors of ‘white Jews’ came from Europe and Baghdad, it is said. And even today, white Jews do not allow their daughters to marry into the darker families.

Joy, a 47-year-old caretaker of the Paradeshi Synagogue for the past two decades, said the ‘black Jews’ live away from Jew Town and till recently they were not welcomed by the ‘white Jews’ into their Paradeshi Synagogue.

‘To have the Sabbath, the ‘black Jews’ now at times come over to this synagogue to make up the number of 10 men. They are also a mere eight in total,’ he said.

Recently, the happiness of many Jews knew no bounds when they got a new rabbi (religious teacher of Judaism).

‘Those who know Jewish traditions know how orthodox we are when it comes to prayers. We are lucky because some Jews living in America were kind enough to send us a new rabbi who now lives permanently in Kochi,’ Cohen said.

‘But with 10 Jewish men living permanently here not being always available, our Sabbath takes place only if we have visiting Jews. Last week on two days we had our Sabbath because 20 Jews came on a visit tracing their roots,’ she added.

According to Jewish customs, they don’t eat meat and fish from other homes.

The availability of ‘Kosher meat’, according to Jewish guidelines, is now impossible because there is none who knows how to slaughter animals that chew cud and have cloven hooves.

‘We are so orthodox that even our new rabbi does not eat from my home, so you can gauge how orthodox we are,’ said Cohen.

With the Jewish population dwindling, all eyes are on what would happen to the Paradeshi Synagogue – the oldest synagogue in the Commonwealth nations – that was built in 1568 by the Malabar Yehudan people or Cochin Jewish community in the Kingdom of Cochin.

‘Barring every Friday and Saturday, it is open for visitors who come in large numbers to see the building. On Fridays and Saturdays, it is out of bounds for all and only Jews are allowed inside to conduct their prayers if they have the required numbers,’ Joy said.

Asked what would happen to the synagogue a few years from now, Cohen’s answer was quick: ‘Your guess is as good as mine!’

In India, a Jewish Outpost Slowly WithersAfter Many Emigrated to Israel, Once-Thriving Community on Southern Coast ‘Is Dying Out’

By Emily Wax

Washington Post Foreign Service

Monday, August 27, 2007

KOCHI, India — Down a narrow, stone-paved road in a quarter known here as "Jew Town," a woman with salt-and-pepper hair was sewing glittery beads onto the rim of a Jewish prayer cap. It was just after 3 p.m., and Sarah Cohen, wearing a housedress and flip-flops, sat in the sunny doorway of her shop, waiting for the visitors from around the world to come in for a visit.

Cohen lives right near the Pardesi Synagogue, which was built in 1568 when Jewish spice traders set up businesses in this small outpost of the Jewish world on the South Indian Malabar coast. The synagogue

sparkles with colorful Indian chandeliers and green and red glass candleholders that swing from the ceiling beams. The floor is intricately patterned with blue and white tiles imported from a Jewish community in China in the 15th century.

As visitors wandered by on their way to the synagogue, one of the oldest in the world, they looked curiously at the little Jewish woman speaking in Malayalam, the language of the southern state of Kerala.

Cohen explained that she is a part of a dying tradition here that will probably no longer exist in 10 years, because most of the Jews who used to live here emigrated to Israel during its creation in 1948. Now, there are believed to be only 13 elderly Indian-born Jews — from seven families — still living in Kochi, a sun-dappled city thick with coconut palms.

"We couldn’t bring ourselves to leave. We are Indians, too. Why should we leave the only place we have known as home?" Cohen said with a gentle wobble of her head, an Indian gesture sometimes used for emphasis. "Besides, I like this place. And I like the people."

Jews flourished in India for centuries — from biblical times, some scholars say. The country also gave safe haven to Jews during World War II.

Small but active Jewish communities remain in Mumbai, including the so-called Baghdadi Jews who come from Iraq, Iran, Syria and Afghanistan and are thought to have arrived about 250 years ago. In northeastern India, an estimated 9,000 Indians started practicing Judaism in the 1970s, saying they were a lost tribe and descendants of the tribe of Manasseh. Israel has recognized them as ethnically Jewish.

But in Kochi, there is concern that Jew Town soon will be little more than a quirky tourist destination.

On a recent afternoon, Cohen’s friend Abdul Anas, 33, stopped by to check on her. He often looks in on her, since he was good friends with her husband, Jacob Cohen, a lawyer who died eight years ago.

Sarah Cohen and Anas spoke easily to each other in Malayalam. They laughed when Anas said that he was a Muslim but didn’t mind working in Jew Town. They don’t discuss Israel or politics, they said. "Who cares?" Sarah asked. "That’s over there, and we are here," Anas shrugged.

"To me, it’s a part of Indian history. Her husband always gave me fair work. I call her auntie. And she’s alone now so I take her to the hospital when she is sick," said Anas, who sells postcards of the synagogue from his pushcart. "I feel bad for her. And actually I feel really sad that the community is dying out."

Israeli tourists to India, along with Jews from the United States, sometimes drop off boxes of matzoh ball soup mix and kosher cookies. "They tell me I remind them of their bubby," Cohen said, using the Yiddish word for grandmother.

Cohen displayed her frilly white bread covers, used on the Jewish Sabbath during a blessing over the bread. The covers were stamped with her name: "Sarah Cohen: Kochi, India."

"We are kosher, but also Indian," she said, adding that she uses chapati, an Indian flatbread, rather than the braided challah bread of European Jews.

The Jewish community here eats no beef, out of respect for the Hindu prohibition on eating cow meat. But they do keep kosher, eating chicken cooked with cloves, chickpeas and cardamom and fish curry steeped in coconut milk along with pineapple and mango for dessert, Cohen said. "Why not? Fruit is kosher."

She shuffled into her small living quarters next to her shop for some ginger tea and cookies.

Outside, some tourists were lining up to visit the synagogue. In Kerala, there are still three synagogues, but the one here is the only one still open and is a protected heritage site.

A series of large oil paintings in an entry room of the synagogue tell the history of the Jews in Kochi. The first painting depicts King Solomon’s merchant ship greeting Indian leaders and trading peacocks, ivory, spices and teak wood.

The inscriptions under the paintings say that the Book of Esther in the Old Testament contains the first written mention of Jews in India. The Jews blended many of their customs with their host country’s. For instance, a dialect called Judeo-Malayalam, a mix of Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and Hebrew, was spoken. In Kochi, shoes are taken off before entering the main prayer room, as in Hindu tradition, and flowers are used as a part of prayer.

K.J. Joy, the Hindu caretaker of the synagogue for 25 years, said it’s only a matter of a short time before the Jews of Kochi disappear, and with them the unique mix of Indian and Jewish culture. "This will become a monument, not a working synagogue," he said. "For that, we feel really horrible."

He showed a visitor a small pamphlet written by members of the community in the 1980s, which tells the history of Jew Town. The booklet praises India for giving shelter and respect to the Jews throughout history.

"After some years the story of the Jews of Malabar may come to an end," reads the small book handed out to visitors for 10 rupees, or about 20 cents. "If this happens, history can record that their emigration was not motivated by intolerance or discrimination by India."

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© 2007 The Washington Post Company