One man pulls the trolley. Another stands on the trolley, pulling a lever back and forth. The lever operates a pump that sends water from a tank (on the trolley) along a hosepipe to a third man, who is holding its end and spraying the flowers.
In India, there is no shortage of manpower and wages are not high. So, employing three men to do what a costly sprinkler system would do in Western Europe makes sense and gives employment to those who have families to feed.
IT IS ALWAYS WISE to ward off the Evil Eye. The Turks use characteristic amulets known as ‘nazar’. They are usually flat and almost circular with a design that resembles a stylised eye. This is now to seen on the homes of many people with no connection with Turkey. The Arabs and some Jewish people use an amulet, the ‘hamsa’, depicting a hand with five outstretched digits, to protect against the malevolent effects of the Evil Eye.
During road trips in India, I have often seen lorries (trucks) and other vehicles with thick, black, plaited tassels attached on the left and right sides of the driver’s cab. These things fly out sideways as the vehicles speed along.
One of our driver’s, the highly educated and informative Raheem, explained that these tassels are nazars. The drivers attach them to their vehicles to ward off the Evil Eye – an especially wise precaution on many roads in India.
During a recent (December 2022) visit to Panjim in Goa, my wife bought a couple of scarves from a female street vendor. The seller was so happy that my wife had bought from her that she immediately attached a bracelet on my ‘other half’s’ right wrist. The bracelet has a Turkish style Eye nazar and is made of black beads, which might well be designed also to protect against the Evil Eye.
Even more recently, I noticed that an autorickshaw, which we had hired in Bangalore, was adorned with two hefty black tassels just like those seen on lorries. I was struck by these because on the whole autorickshaws in the city do not have them.
I have one minor concern about vehicles whose drivers have attached things to ward off the Evil Eye. That is, I wonder whether the knowledge that their vehicles are equipped with such protection might drive more recklessly than those who do not put any faith in objects that might possibly have a protective value.
WHEN SOMETHING GOES WRONG with a product in the UK, it is usually simpler and cheaper to discard it and buy a new one. In my experience of visiting India many times since 1994, I have discovered that there is often someone, who can mend what would normally be thrown away in the UK. Only recently, I spotted a poorly dressed man sitting by the side of MG Road (in Bangalore). He was painstakingly repairing what looked like totally decrepit umbrellas.
We use combination locks (‘number locks’ in Indian English) to secure our baggage whilst travelling. In December 2022 when we were in Panjim (Goa), we found one of ours, which would not open, even when using the correct combination. It looked as if it had become corroded.
Because we have great faith in the ingenuity of Indian craftsmen, we took it to a locksmith in Panjim. He was unwilling to work on our lock, and another lock seller advised us to throw it away. Undeterred, we carried the defective item to Bangalore.
In the Commercial Street district of Bangalore we approached a couple of locksmiths, who were unwilling to spend time on our lock. A third one accepted it, and said he would have a go. We told him the combination, and left him whilst he fiddled with the lock as if it were as enjoyable as a Rubik Cube. On the 2nd of January 2023, we set off on a long trip, returning to Bangalore on the 15th of February 2023.
A few days later, we visited the locksmith, who remembered us and fetched our lock from a glass-fronted cupboard. He had managed to open the lock, but could not remember which combination allowed him to unlock it. He said:
“You take it home and try a few numbers.”
He refused to accept any payment for his efforts.
Back at our accommodation, I tried what I remembered had been the lock’s combination, and discovered that the locksmith had rendered the once useless lock fully functional. As the tourist board slogan (Incredible!ndia) suggests, the country is truly incredible.
PS These locks are cheap to buy new in India. It was not to save money that we visited so many locksmiths, but it was for the enjoyment of the challenge to find someone to do the job that we spent the time going from one to another. Some people enjoy passing time playing games on their phones. We choose to have our timepass (Indian English) in other ways
THE COCHIN CLUB’S main, long, single-storey building is a lovely example of British colonial architecture. The club, located near the sea in a large well-maintained garden was officially recorded as having been established in 1914, but might have been in existence before that.
Originally established as “The English Club”, its members were mainly the British elite of Kochi and European tea planters. Some individuals, high level Indians, might have also been welcome. The Club’s Presidents all had British surnames until at least 1969. However, there was one exception – Honourable Justice P Govindan Nair who was President 1963-64. After 1969, the Presidents had Indian surnames.
Today, the Club is a tranquil spot. Usually, there are more crows and egrets than humans in its compound. The Club has five spacious, bedrooms, which can be hired. Their occupants are almost the only people using the Club. There are plenty of staff members, but few people for them to serve.
The Club has a splendid bar with windows overlooking the sea in one direction and the garden in the other. But it is a bar with a difference. Instead of shelves being lined with bottles of booze, they are used to display cups and other prize trophies. And this might be a clue as to why the Club is so often so empty.
The Club does not have a liquor licence. Therefore, it cannot sell alcoholic drinks. The cost of buying an annual licence is so prohibitively high in Kerala that the Club might not be able to break even. The availability of alcohol is one of the factors that brings life to the exclusive clubs of India.
On special occasions such as Diwali and Christmas and Onam, the Club buys a costly 24 hour licence. The rest of the time, the Club is ‘dry’. However, food and soft drinks are available in the bar. The South Indian filter coffee served there is the best we have found in Fort Kochi (Fort Cochin).
Largely because liquor is not available and because there are few members (about 500), this charming Club has acquired a certain unintended (undesired?) tranquillity.
ASPINWALL HOUSE IN Fort Kochi is the epicentre and largest exhibition space of the Kochi Muziris Art Biennale. We have attended this event four times to date – 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2022. Outside the main entrance to Aspinwall House, there is a list of those companies, organisations, and individuals, who have donated money to the Biennale. The current (2022/23) list has the following heading “Principle supporters”. Is this wording an undetected typographical error, or is it intentional, or is it a Freudian slip? I ask this question because the sentiments expressed in many of the exhibits question the consequences of the activities of some of the donors.
Far too many of the exhibits in Aspinwall House are more like well-made documentaries than what has until recently been regarded as art. The documentary exhibits are mostly well put together with superb still photography and cinematography, and quite a few of them are highly informative – akin to, for example, National Geographic productions.
The majority of the documentary-like exhibits have elements of political protest, often leftward leaning. Now, I have no objection to political protest in art, but I wonder whether some of these exhibits have strayed too far from what used to be considered art, and have become more documentary than artistic. In the past, to mention but a few, artists such as Picasso, George Grosz, Otto Dix, Joan Miró, Subhi Tagore, Diego Riviera, and currently William Kentridge, have made artworks with political content. These artists and some of their contemporaries produced artworks which are not purely political or polemic, but can also be enjoyed as purely visual experiences; knowing the message is not important to the impact the works make on the viewer, but can add to that. Much of what is on display at Aspinwall House during the current Biennale simply thrusts political messages at the viewer. There is little else to appreciate but often depressing messages and images.
As for the abundance of photography it is mostly superb. Since the invention of photography, it has been used highly creatively by some photographers. Examples of these include Julia Margaret Cameron, Charles Dodgson, László Moholy-Nagy, Ansel Adams, and Alfred Stieglitz. Artists like these were competent photographers who exploited the camera to create original images that would have been difficult if not impossible to produce with other artistic materials. In contrast, many of the beautiful photographic works in the current Biennale seem to be aiming at documentary or archival accuracy rather than creative images – works of ‘pure’ art.
Having blasted at what I did not like about the Biennale, I must point out that there are many artworks that satisfied me purely visually. Some of them are in Aspinwall House, but many of them are elsewhere, notably in the Durbar Hall in Ernakulam. The works that impacted me positively because of their purely aesthetic 7characteristics might also be conveying political sentiments, but the nature of these did not impede my immediate, visceral rather than cerebral enjoyment of them.
Returning to the predominantly documentary exhibits, those that made most impact on me were housed in the TKM warehouse complex in Mattancherry. Some of the works there are not only political or polemical, but also highly creative and artistic (in the old sense of the word).
As for the odd use of “principle” on the list of donors mentioned above, I found this not only careless but ironic. Many of the artworks in the current Biennale question the principles of some of the donors, who funded the show.
Having read this, you can call me ‘old-fashioned’ or ‘politically incorrect ‘ if that makes you feel better. I might well be both, but I was brought up by my artistic parents to appreciate the works of both old masters and contemporary artists equally, be they works by Piero della Francesca or JMW Turner or Brancusi or Barbara Hepworth or Rachel Whitehead or Anish Kapoor.
Visit the Kochi Muziris Art Biennale if you can before it ends in early March 2023, and judge it for yourself. Almost all of the exhibits are housed in heritage buildings, which are alone worth seeing. I look forward to the next show in 2024/25.
I VISITED INDIA at least 50 times over the last 29 years. It was not until this trip (2022-2023) that I began noticing letter boxes of historic interest. I spotted three of interest in Bangalore, and now I have found one outside the post office in Fort Kochi in Kerala.
Painted green with some gold coloured details it is hexagonal with a decorative top. Between the words “Post” and “Office”, there is a British royal cipher with the lion and unicorn. Beneath this is a V and a R entwined, a logo I have seen on Victorian letter boxes in the UK.
The old letter box, now sealed up so that nothing can be put in it, stands close to the verandah at the front of the post office. Within the verandah, there is a panel giving some information about postal services in the former Kingdoms of Cochin and Travancore
Postal services began in the Kingdom of Cochin in about 1864. It was known as the Anchal Service. The letter box described above might have been an Anchal post box originally, although it is unlikely.
According to an article (https://englisharchives.mathrubhumi.com/news/offbeat/last-anchal-runner-of-kerala-passes-away-1.3462681#:~:text=Anchal%20Post%20was%20the%20postal,on%20which%20bells%20were%20attached):
“Anchal Post was the postal service system started and existed during the Kingdom of Travancore to transfer official letters and documents. The post man of this system was called anchal pillai. He used to run carrying the dispatches in a bag with a stick on his other hand on which bells were attached.”
He used to run eight miles a day. People were required to make way for this important courier, and not to impede his progress. The last surviving anchal pillai, Kannan Chapli, died aged 90 in 2019.
The post office outside which stands the historic letter box is on Ridsdale Road opposite the east end of the church of St Francis (Church of South India), and was constructed in May 1928. At that time, Fort Kochi was in the Kingdom of Cochin. In 1949, it and its neighbour, The Kingdom of Travancore, were integrated into India and merged to form the State of Thiru-Kochi. In 1956, this state was renamed Kerala and its postal service became incorporated into the Indian Post system.
Interestingly, the post box outside the Fort Kochi post office bears the intertwined V and R. The information panel has a drawing of an anchal letter box. Similar in shape to the Victorian post box, the one in the drawing bears a different logo and the words “Travancore Anchal” and something in Malayalam script. If I am not mistaken, Cochin, unlike Travancore, became a British Protectorate. In which case it might well have become part of the British Indian postal system. This could explain why the historic letter box in Fort Kochi has a British logo instead of that used in the Anchal system. There might also have been Anchal boxes in the Kingdom of Cochin, but I am uncertain about that.
Today, letters are posted in a simple red cylindrical letter box not far from the historic one. The Victorian letter box is one of a huge number of interesting historic survivals that can be seen whilst wandering around Fort Kochi.
SIX-POINTED STARS IN KOCHI
MY FIRST VISIT TO Fort Kochi (Fort Cochin) in Kerala was in 1994. By then, I already knew that there was one or more Jewish communitis in Fort Kochi (‘Kochi’). As we drove into Kochi, I noticed many six-pointed stars, all identical to Jewish Stars of David (‘Magen David’). For a while I was amazed by the sight of so many of what I believed then to be Jewish shops and other establishments. Not long after this, I became aware that like the Om and the swastika, the six pointed star is a commonly used Hindu symbol. For example, the Canara Bank, not a Jewish outfit, uses the six pointed star as its logo.
Several communities of Jewish people lived in Jew Town, which is in the district of Mattancherry. Today, flocks of tourists visit the area to explore its numerous handicraft shops and the beautifully preserved Dutch (Paradesi) Synagogue, whose floor is paved with blue and white tiles made many centuries ago in Holland.
Apart from the much-visited synagogue, there are very few other buildings that have recognisable marks that indicate their former Jewish connections. On previous visits, I spotted what must have been another synagogue; a house bearing Magen Davids; and a locked up, well maintained Jewish cemetery.
Today, the 10th of February 2023, I spotted a building with Hebrew lettering above its main door. This edifice, which is undergoing restoration, is close to the Masjid Aisha on Jew Street, and about 0.5 miles south of the Dutch Synagogue. In need of much work, this is what remains of the Kadavumbhagam Mattancherry Synagogue (constructed by 1544 AD).
Another building with well-documented Jewish connections, but no obvious marks, is currently being used to house exhibitions contemporary with the 2022/23 Kochi Muziris Art Biennale. Called the Kashi Hallegua House, this grand dwelling is about 150 yards south of the Dutch Synagogue. Above its carved wooden framed front door is the date 1761. This was during the period that the Dutch were the dominant European presence in the area: they were intimately connected with Kochi between 1663 and 1814.
For over 250 years, the Dutch house, formerly known as Krathi Veedu, was home to many generations of the Hallegua family. From where they originated, I have not yet found out but they were Paradesi – European Jews who arrived in Kerala from abroad, as opposed to Jewish people whose origins were other than European (no one knows from where they arrived in Kerala).
The last Jewish residents of the house, 85 year old Mrs Juliet Hallegua and her daughter Yael, left for Israel in 2019. The place was then purchased by Edgar Pinto, who converted the huge family home into an art gallery. Although the furnishings used by the Hallegua family have been removed, many of the original wooden window frames and cupboard doors are in place. The kitchen, now a gallery space, has a huge oven and a special carved stone workspace used for grinding food ingredients with a stone rolling pin.
The two Hallegua women were amongst the last of the Kochi Jews living in the town. There was another, Sarah Cohen (1922-2019) who lived very close to the Dutch Synagogue. Until she was in her nineties, she had a shop selling tablecloths and other handmade cloth items, many of them with Jewish decoration. Today, the only Jews in Kochi’s Jew Town are visiting Jewish tourists, a few of whom might have had ancestors who lived there.
Since our last visit in 2019, a couple of shops have opened. Named Shalom, their signboards bear the Jewish six pointed star. The company sells ready-made garments, but I suspect that apart from the name, it has no Jewish connections … but I might be wrong!
AFTER A VERY DISAPPOINTING experience at a café we have often enjoyed when staying in Fort Kochi, we went to another eatery, which had been recommended by our friend Sharada S , when we visited Kochi at Christmas in 2019.
Our friend had introduced us to Oceanos. In this pleasant but unpretentious restaurant, we have enjoyed some of the best prepared sea food in Kochi. The dishes served at Oceanos are not only tasty but also authentic, by which I mean that they are not prepared to be ‘fine dining’ fancy; instead they give a good experience of genuine Keralan food.
Currently (February 2023), In addition to an á la carte menu, there is a seafood set lunch – a seafood thali. This included deep fried mackerel; clams (vongole) out of their shells; Aleppey fish curry; roasted prawn curry; sardine steamed in a banana leaf; Malabar paratha; rice; chhaas (buttermilk); and payasam (a local dessert). Every item was exquisitely prepared and tasted very fresh. This wonderful, faultless meal was 390 INR (£3.90) per head. We plan to explore the rest of the menu at Oceanos in the next few days.
Had it not been for the incompetent management at Kashi Art Café today, we would have eaten lunch there. However, as we had not been served our food for almost one our after ordering it, we asked for an explanation of the delay, and were told that there was a problem with the gas in the kitchen. Having been told that we would have our food “in about 10 minutes”, we walked out. If we had been served our food sooner, or been given an explanation without having to ask for one, we might have missed out on the superb lunch at Oceanos.
SUBHASH CHANDRA BOSE Park, formerly named Irwin Park, runs parallel to the seashore at Ernakulam in Kerala. At the south end of this pleasant open space, there is a tall statue depicting Sri Sir Rama Varma GCIE, LLD, Maharaja of Cochin (c1861-1941). He reigned between 1932 and 1941. The statue was unveiled in January 1939 by the then Viceroy of India, Lord Linlithgow during a visit to the city. He was Viceroy from 1936 to 1943.
While visiting Ernakulam that day, the Maharajah arranged for him to watch a display of Bharatnathyam dancing (https://www.cochinroyalhistory.org/). This was held before tea in the grounds of the Maharaja‘s nearby Durbar Hall. The statue was unveiled after tea.
The Durbar Hall was constructed over 100 years ago in extensive grounds owned by the Maharajahs of Cochin. For many years, it has been used as an art gallery. Beautifully restored by the organisation that runs the Kochi Muziris art biennale, it serves as one of the art festival’s venues during the 4 months that the Biennale runs. The current 2022/23 event in the Durbar Hall is a show called “Idam” which contains a variety of visual art exhibits, all of which have been created by 34 Malayali artists. Overall, it is an enjoyable exhibition by artists displaying an exciting variety of interesting imaginative ideas, all expressed in well executed artworks.
The works in the Durbar Hall are in stark contrast to the Maharaja‘s statue that stands in the hot sun not too far away. Unlike the Maharajah, who was probably unwilling to break out of his comfortable colonial mould, the artists are showing that they are willing to attempt to escape from prevailing convention
THE KALA GODHA (Black Horse) is a statue in the heart of old Mumbai. It was erected in 2017 and designed by Alfaz Miller and sculpted by Shreehari Bhosle. It stands on the site of an equestrian statue of King Edward VII, which was removed from this spot in 1965 (and can now be seen in Byculla Zoo).
The statue gives its name to an annual arts festival, The Kala Godha Festival, that has been held since.1999. It has grown over the years and attracts many visitors. People come to enjoy film, literary events, heritage walks, booksales, exhibitions, artworks, other cultural happenings, and sales of handicrafts from all over India.
Held for nine days in February, this festival is a lot of fun.
yamey 