World Within A World

Serving a potpourri of cultures, Kochi in Kerala is more than just a port. Once a buzzing trading base, its rich colonial heritage still thrives in its shops, cafés, streets and homes.

- Gustasp And Jeroo Irani

Her eyes were dull and rheumy but they lit up when she saw us. Ninetyfour years old, Sarah Cohen is one of the last five Jews in the Fort Kochi-Mattancherry area of Kochi in Kerala. She welcomed us with arms outstretched. “I’m so glad you’ve come,” she said in a quavering voice. Her eyes dimmed again as her mind seemed to flounder in a distant past when the little enclave of Jew Town (a part of Fort Kochi-Mattancherry) buzzed with commerce and the corkscrew alleys were fragrant with spices, a trade that the Jewish community once controlled.

She sat in an armchair in her spacious living-cumbedroom, adjoining her little shop brimming with Jewish memorabilia and sepia-tinted photographs, going back to when she was a gorgeous smiling bride. After a few pleasantries, we left her shop where nostalgia flowed thick and strong, just as it does in this historic heart of Kochi, the Keralan state capital. Indeed, everywhere, the past taps you on the shoulder to remind you that it’s ever present. It pads around softly in the Jewish synagogue, dating back to 1568, an imposing edifice which lies a little beyond Cohen’s shop in what is called Synagogue Lane.

Within the synagogue’s chandeliered confines, a guide held forth to a group of wide-eyed overseas tourists who listened to him raptly like obedient schoolchildren. We stooped to caress the exquisite Chinese floor tiles and were told that behind the gauzy curtain lies the Torah, the holy book of the Jews.

From the cool of the synagogue, we moved out into the hot Keralan sun and the colourful clamour of Jew Town sucked us in. Here everything from antiques to Chinese vases, chandeliers, lanterns, Venetian glass rose water sprinklers, exotic candlesticks, religious icons—remnants of a discarded past—shares space with pashmina and yak wool shawls, jewellery and kitschy souvenirs.