Jew Town

What a first blush would seem to be a derogatory term, is in reality the official name of a district in the centre of Cochin which has been home to a Jewish community for many centuries. How, why or when the first Jews arrived in this part of the world remains a mystery shrouded in myth. One tableau in a small museum attached to Cochin’s synagogue, suggests that the first Jews arrived here following the destruction of the Second Temple in 72 AD. What seems to be undisputed though is that there has at least been a Jewish community in the area since the 5th century. The synagogue dates from 1568 and is thus at least the oldest in Asia. 

Although the synagogue has been preserved and is well maintained, there are now no more than a small handful of Jews remaining in the city, too few to hold regular services. We’re told that most of the community emigrated to Israel some years ago citing “religious sentiment, lack of marriage partners and better employment opportunities” according to a thesis written by a Jewish masters student in 1984. The synagogue is now essentially just a museum and the surrounding neighbourhood of Jew Town now mostly home to handicraft and tourist shops 

From Cochin we move on to Kerala’s state capital, Trivandrum. Trivandrum is actually the old colonial name of the city, but like several of India’s big cities in the post-colonial era the city’s name was changed. The new name is so convoluted though that even the locals still refer to the city by its original name! Despite being the state capital, there’s not much in Trivandrum to write home about. It’s a fairly ordinary South Indian city with not much character and we don’t hang around for too long.

The End of India

Not too much further south though, we reach the “end” of India. Kanyakumari (or Cape Comorin, its colonial name) is the extreme southern tip of the sub-continent, the point where the Arabian Sea to the west (the Laccadive Sea as it is here), the Indian Ocean to the south (the Gulf of Mannar) and the Bay of Bengal to the east (the Palk Strait) meet up. It’s a very spiritual spot for Indian Hindus and the entire area (India’s equivalent of Lands End) has a vibrant, carnival atmosphere about it - crowds of hawkers, food stalls, children’s playgrounds, people performing their religious devotions and a mass of people splashing around in the shallows at the point where the three seas meet. 

From the tip of India, our train heads north again to the state of Tamil Nadu’s second city, Madurai. For centuries, the city has been a place of pilgrimage for Hindus - the equivalent in the south of the country to the holy northern city of Varanasi on the banks of the Ganges. The destination for the pilgrims is the Great Temple of Meenakshi Amman, an enormous religious complex centered around 12 massive towers known as gopurams the tallest of which is 55 metres high.

Each gopuram is covered in intricate carvings of the many gods around which Hinduism is centered, all painted in vivid colours. Once every 12 years, the temple complex is closed for a year while the carvings are carefully restored and repainted (next scheduled to happen in 2020). Within the complex are two inner sanctums accessible only to Hindus, one for the Goddess Meenaskshi and the other for her Divine Consort, Lord Sundareshwarar. The exterior of the inner sanctums massive structures sheathed in solid gold are just visible from from the edge of a large water tank, another key feature of the temple complex. The complex was constructed over several centuries starting as early as the 12th century but most of what we see today probably dates from the 17th. 

Top Cop

Our final stop before reaching Chennai is in the Union Territory of Pondicherry (or Puducherry to give the place its post-colonial name). For more than 300 years Pondicherry was a French outpost and although they formally handed the area over to India in 1962, the city (or at least part of it) still has a French colonial feel about it. The French section of the city including the frontage along the Bay of Bengal is dominated by French-era buildings many now turned into boutique hotels, restaurants and shops. There is also a very large French consulate occupying a colonial-era building. 

Many of the buildings in the French section of the town are painted the same uniform grey colour. This signifies that the building belongs to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram a spiritual community whose teachings focus on “integral yoga” whatever that means. The movement was created by the said Sri Aurobindo in 1926 with the support of his faithful side-kick, a French woman known simply as ‘the Mother’. The bodies of the two lie together in a flower-bedecked tomb in the centre of a flower-filled courtyard at the movement’s headquarters. Barefoot visitors file past the tomb in single file and in complete silence while the movement’s devotees sit cross-legged around the sides “meditating” or drape themselves over the tomb itself staring into space. We spot a couple of young Europeans, but most of the devotees appeared to be Indian. Exit from the courtyard is through a small picture gallery adorned with photos of Sri Aurobindo and Mother at various times in their lives, followed by a small gift shop at which many of the more “inspirational” photos can be purchased. Hopefully some at least of the Ashram’s 2000 members get something useful out of the experience and this is not just another cult which exploits the vulnerable....

But the French section of the city is dominated by the Raj Nivas, a former palace which is now home to the Lieutenant-Governor and the Union Territory administration. For a short period each day (and by prior appointment) the Raj Nivas is open for public visits. We were rather fortunate to be welcomed by the Lieutenant-Governor herself, the very impressive Dr. Kiran Bedi. Dr. Bedi had been an Indian tennis champion who went on to reach the highest ranks of the Indian Civil Service eventually becoming the Commissioner of the Indian Police Force. After various postings, she was invited by the Indian President to run the Union Territory. By her own admission, Dr. Bedi is one very tough (but rather charming!) lady who quite evidently ruffled quite a few feathers on her rise up the ranks of the civil service. So it was not entirely clear whether being dispatched to Pondicherry was an honour, a stepping stone to something even bigger in the central government or whether she had been sent to the Indian equivalent of Siberia! Time will tell although I rather suspect the latter....!