Also, whenever he came, the mother and daughter would insist that he had food there. He lived alone after all, probably did not get proper food. This time they too forgot to give him food.
As Kichan stepped down from the veranda, he stood for a moment holding the pillar. His eyes were turning red again. Thinking for a while, he said, ‘What sort of a life is this life of ours, Amma?’
Thanka just nodded
‘We are happy for no reason, cry for no reason. If we think about it, who are these people to us?’
‘No one is anybody’s, Kichan,’ Thanka said.
‘That’s true, Amma. No one is anybody’s own,’ Kichan’s voice broke on the words.
Ponnu heard his voice and came out of the house. Her face held the glow of austerity. She asked, ‘He is well, isn’t he Kichan?’
‘Of course, he is,’ Kichan tried to smile, wiping his eyes. ‘People who go are always well, those who remain behind are the ones who suffer.’
Thanka intervened at this point, ‘There will be people waiting for him, there. His own people.’
His own people!
Ponnu’s face fell. She went back inside, head bent under the words she had not wished to hear. Her mother stood and looked at her.
By this time, Kichan had gone out of the gate. Thanka knew that he would not sleep that night. Perhaps, her daughter too wouldn’t stay awake.
PART THREE
The story of mankind can be narrated in terms of great exoduses and migrations. A never ending search for greener pastures; a journey to find new places to feed oneself; a journey to save one’s life. As these journeys continue, centuries and millennia pass. While some things wear away, so many others open up…
Aravindan was searching through the mildewed heap of history. From Muchiri, he was traversing millennia, centuries, generations and reaching the present. An endless chain lay before him with rusted links that refused to part.
Aravindan realised what Azad had said was true. It was impossible to think of the past of Muchiri without involving the Jewish community in it. The Jews who travelled all over the world must have been brought to these shores by the links of commerce that opened up in the times of Muchiri. The stories narrated by the merchants of those days must have inspired the following generations. When he sat before his writing desk, his memories travelled to his childhood. The coconut trees that swayed in the July monsoon winds, dark nights wrapped in the damp, cloudy days. They came crowding into his memory—Seemon, Aaron, Elias, Menahem, Rebecca, Moses Master. So many people.
One afternoon when the other boys had gone out to play, Seemon called Aravindan aside, ‘Come with me, I want to show you something.’
Aravindan thought that it would be cinnamon leaves or roasted cashewnuts or something of that kind. Seemon would bring two types of cinnamon leaves—one was hot and sweet and the other was just hot. Aravindan liked the roasted and shelled cashew that Seemon’s mother sent sometimes. It was the best of all. Aravindan would sometimes accompany Seemon when he wandered round the eastern hills where there were lots of cashew trees.
‘Will you tell anyone?’ Seemon said in a whisper.
With that, Aravindan was sure that the ‘something’ was not cinnamon leaf or cashew nut. When Aravindan’s swore that he would not tell anyone, Seemon took out a stick that had been whittled to smoothness. He showed Aravindan the white cloth that was tied to one end and said proudly, ‘This is our flag.’
Aravindan did not understand. The only flag that he had seen was the one with three colours that the headmaster would hoist on the flag post on 15 August. How could Seemon have another flag? Must be one of his usual bluffs.
When he realised that Aravindan did not believe him, he burrowed under the desk and called Aravindan to join him. As they knelt on the dirty tiles of the floor, a piece of white silk opened out. There were dark blue borders on the top and bottom and a star in the middle.
‘Don’t tell anyone. It’s a crime to have this.’
Even when he nodded to say that he would not, Aravindan did not know what Seemon was saying.
‘One day, we’ll go there, in a “plane”.’
Aravindan just stared. He did not realise that as they knelt between the wooden slats covered with cobwebs, the boy called Seemon was marking his Promised Land.
As he hid the flag and returned to the bench he said, ‘It’s not just the flag, they have different coins too. You can’t get lemon sweets there if you give the quarter anna with a hole.’
It was all news to Aravindan. What land was Seemon dreaming of, a land without rupee coins and quarters with holes? He felt there was something wrong. He did not try to find out anything further. Seemon had the habit of coming out with tall stories and he could tell them as though he had witnessed the incidents. But when the quiet Aaron also said something about it, Aravindan felt that things were happening at Kizhakkumpuram that were beyond his knowledge.
‘It’s true. There is a place like this. And we’ll go there one day,’ Aaron said.
Soon the secret that Seemon had guarded so zealously became public knowledge among the boys in the school. The Jewish boys in the class had another country. One day, they would all get into an aeroplane and go there.
‘You believed all that? Just bluff.’ That was Thuruthimmal Ouso. The perpetual unbeliever. How could there be a country just for the Jews of Kizhakkumpuram alone? If there was a land like that, let them show it in the atlas.
Aravindan felt that was fair. Geography began and ended with the colour changes of the atlas. Maps in it were meant to show the extent and the boundaries of the countries. There couldn’t be any land in the world without boundaries. What were the boundaries of this land? How big was it? What was its colour in the picture?
Some of the boys believed in the new land. But most didn’t. Anyway, Seemon was not willing to accept the challenge to show the place in the atlas. He had always disliked mischievous Ouso. One of Ouso’s favourite tricks was to steal and hide the Jewish skull caps worn at the back of their heads.
Another day Aaron said, ‘Mootha and evacha and other elders are running around to get their papers ready.’ Mootha and evacha was what he called his father’s elder brother and younger brother. His father was vava to him.
Aaron only knew that the papers were required to get across the seas. There were three seas to be crossed. And so there were lots of papers. Though Aaron had not seen the white flag that Seemon had hidden in the desk, he knew that vava had one rolled up in the crevice of the wooden wall. Aaron also did not know why they had to go to another country. He knew, though, that it was a big world out there. Vava would not have to drag his corn-infested foot from house to house to sell eggs. The government would set up a shop for him, give him a home to stay in and money to start a new egg business…
With this, it was now certain that what Seemon had said the other day had not been pure imagination. What he had showed Aravindan that day had been the flag of a distant country. Through Seemon’s words, that of Aaron, Elias, and others, a new country was taking shape—Israel.
A land, a country beyond the seas, very far from this one.
Seemon could not point it out on the Oxford Atlas. ‘There… and there…this place. Sea on one side, then some hills…’
Boundaries? Extent?
Seemon hesitated for a moment and then stood firm, ‘You think it is a joke? It’s big, huge. Look, it starts from here and then all over there like Germany…’
They all knew that there was nothing beyond Germany. A number of stories of adventure in those days were about the great German submarine, Emden.
When Seemon drew lines on the map, with the rubber at the end of the yellow HB pencil with its broken point, they listened like idiots. The places he showed were within boundaries of other countries. How could that be right?
Seemon laughed when he heard that. ‘They’re getting a new atlas printed. When that one comes, you will see our country in another colour.’
A n
ew land in another colour! Aravindan could not understand how a new country could be formed. Could it be something like when Parasurama threw his axe into the sea and brought forth the land now known as Kerala?
Seemon’s elder brother, who went everywhere trading in leather, knew what was happening more clearly. His livelihood came from collecting raw skin from various villages and selling them in Mattancherry.
He insisted that such a country already existed, a country named Israel, the Holy Land for Jews from all over the world. Most of it was desert, but there were hills and a seashore. It was not land that had been redeemed from the sea or anything of that sort. It was land that was being captured back from invaders who had stolen it earlier.
‘And that flag that Seemon hid under the desk?’
‘That is our flag,’ he said proudly. ‘The day it was raised in Israel, we held processions here, at Chendamangalam and Parur.’ Seemon said that his father and other Jews had taken part in that procession, holding aloft this flag.
Then, why was Seemon hiding it under the desk?
Aaron’s elder brother had an answer for that question. It was not right to stay in one country and go around with another country’s flag. Also the Nazarenes, who stayed around the inlet, had spread a rumour that it was a crime to have that flag.
Aaron’s brother had a story about the procession that day: They had heard that David Ben-Gurion, the prime minister, would give a speech declaring independence. It would be broadcast through a new radio station called Kol Israel. How could they hear this broadcast directly? The young men lost their enthusiasm when they realised that they could hear only Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi stations through the wide-mouthed speakers at Nair Samajam. That was when someone said that there was a man called Luka, who ran a radio-repair shop near the courts in Parur. His hands have miraculous powers. He could bring dead radios to life. During the war days, the police had suspected him of playing some tricks with a wireless set he had got from the descendants of the Portuguese in Fort Kochi. Was he getting secret messages from outside the country? So, the policemen always kept a wary eye on him. Whatever that was, Luka was the last word in this large country, in all matters regarding the radio. Though he tried to get out of it by saying that it was very difficult, the young men would not give up. They offered him whatever amount he wanted, which made Luka smile dryly. He had seen and forgotten more money than these youngsters could dream of. When his friends, the Jews who ran the small shops next door also joined in, Luka softened. He said he would try. He asked, ‘What is the frequency?’
The young men who had come hesitated. Did Israel have its own frequency as well as its own flag?
‘What is the frequency of that radio station?’ Luka repeated his question.
Though someone went all the way to Mattancherry in search of the frequency, no one there knew it either. The search and arguments continued.
Father Philipose from Varappuzha, who had come to Kottapuram market, also joined in, ‘Have a look, Luka. Anyway, you have the blessings of God, why do you need to be told the frequency of the radio station?’
The priest knew that Luka could twirl those flat knobs and get the Voice of Vatican. The priest, who had cried over Jawaharlal Nehru’s speech on the night of August fourteenth, knew the great value of the freedom of a nation. A Prime Minister declaring the much-awaited freedom of the country that had fought the invaders for long.
Though Luka did not fall for this praise, he could not hold out against the specially distilled arrack from Gothuruthu. With that, he shook himself as though he realised what his duty was.
‘Uyire vangare…you are taking my life…’ he repeated the dialogue from some Tamil movie, unaware of what he was saying.
He sat in penance for a night and a half on the day with the connections and knobs of that machine. The instrumental music and the spurts and splashes in various languages and various pitches did not discourage him. He had a sacred mission to fulfil. The poor Jews of the place had to hear their land declare its independence. And weep like Fr Philipose. That was no small thing.
Somehow, luck did not favour them. Luka glared malevolently at the machine, which did not yield in spite of his trying all the magic at his disposal, and muttered in a voice roughened by lack of sleep, ‘Uyire vangare…’
He realised that every Luka had to face a day of defeat and felt a tremor in his body. He gave up with that.
That was the one day in their stay of centuries that the Jews of Chendamangalam had hated their land. What kind of a land was this in which one could not hear Kol Israel? Anyway, they did not have the good fortune to cry like Fr Philipose of Varappuzha on hearing their prime minister declare their land’s independence.
Seemon’s brother had a lot of dreams. He had heard that strong young men could get jobs in the military there. If so, he would be able to wear trousers like the white men and walk around in style. Some of the more religious young men wanted jobs connected with the synagogues. They would be able to read the Torah more thoroughly and to pray at the Wailing Wall.
Anyway, it was certain that any Jew who reached there would be allotted government land. They would also be given seeds and fertilizers.
The Jews of Chendamangalam were not used to working with the soil. They were traders and had no contact with the soil beyond the small yard in front of their homes. How would they be able to cultivate and grow crops in this new land called Israel?’
Aaron did not have a reply to that question and shifted his gaze. He had also heard that the land they would get from the government would be desert land. It was not fertile like the land here, where the river waters rose and deposited rich soil each year. It was barren land that had not felt the footfall of man. The weather too was one of extremes. It was very hot in summer and extremely cold in winter. It was this land that had to be cultivated. Though none of them knew how to grow crops in the desert, they were sure that the government would make arrangements to teach them how to. It was their government after all.
‘It is our own land. What does it matter if we work there and die there? We’ll go straight to our heaven.’ Seemon too said.
That information was new to Aravindan. There were separate heavens for people from Chendamangalam in Israel. If Seemon died in Israel, Seemon would go to that heaven. And that would be much higher than the paradise of people from here.
After a while, the news spread that all the land owned by the Jews in Chendamangalam was for sale. Though some of the Konkanis and Christians came and looked at the land none of them could meet the price set. The Muslims who lived at Anchamparuthi had an eye on the land as well. Though the war was over and independence had been obtained, times were bad. No one had money because the coconut prices were low.
Aravindan was beginning to understand what was happening. The Jews were selling off all their belongings and leaving. But, why? Why did they suddenly want to leave the land where had lived peacefully for centuries?
The elders were running around to organise the papers. It was Eliahu Mier, who had worked in the Royal Air Force at Bangalore, who first spoke about it. He was in charge of the correspondence with the agency in Bombay that organised the migration. When the demand increased they started an office in Kochi but the young men complained that the officers there were unnecessarily delaying things.
All gazes were now fixed westward. They heard that some of the Yemenis had been taken under a scheme named ‘Magic Carpet’. Their turn would also come.
News always originated in Mattancherry. The people from Mattancherry believed what the people of Bombay said. And the people of Chendamangalam had to believe what the people of Mattancherry said.
How would the new country be? As they ran their fingers over the coloured map of the old atlas some of them tried to guess at the shape of the new country.
A doubt lingered: What would be the fate of the people, who went from here, in the midst of all those white people? Would they behave like the British who had ruled India? What s
ort of carpet had been laid for them, what sort of welcome awaited them?
‘You needn’t have any doubts,’ Moses Master, who taught Hebrew at the Paliyam school, asserted. ‘Our people are educated and they are hard-working. You put them anywhere and they will survive. And it’s our own land, so what does it matter if you have to adjust a little?’
He would smile and send a verbal dart, ‘I’ve always said that the boys who did not come to Moses Master’s class would regret it. It was so difficult to collect the children who slipped away like the bral fish in the river. If they had studied a few words of Hebrew properly, they could have shown off there.’
That had been a sore point. It was a matter of Moses Master’s livelihood. The Cochin, now Kochi, Government had decreed that if there were at least eight Jews in school there had to be a part-time teacher to teach them Hebrew during the noon intervals. Half the pay would come from the government and the other half from the people of the community. If there weren’t eight students, the master would not get his pay. It hadn’t been easy to corner and collect eight boys from the crowd that played in the school compound.
In the meantime, fresh news from Mattancherry reached Karippayi Kadavu by boat: a group from Bombay had left for the Promised Land. It was said that people from Chendamangalam would also get their papers soon; that Mier from Bangalore and his family would go first. He had been the person to run around from the beginning for this.
The duty of dissemination of news was allotted to Anthappan Shrank from Pazhampilli Thuruthu, the boatswain, who sat on top of the boat and rang the bell. He had the knack of exaggerating the bits of news that he had picked up here and there; his stories would have a sharp edge hidden underneath. He told a young Jew boy, ‘They’re just saying all this. You can say that you’ve got the papers only when they are actually in your hands. That’s it.’
The Saga of Muziris Page 26