morning mantra

Morning thought

"The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure very much."

William Hazlitt

sign of india

Heartbreaking, at times humorous, and almost always a little reminder that I am far from home… There are little signs in much of my day to day life that pop –out and remind me that though I have gotten used to routine-life here, I am still am very far from home.

The word CASTE jumped out at me in a newspaper word puzzle; I usually breeze through these types of things- the Soduko, and the Mumbai Mirror crossword- without thinking-- and the underlying meanings of the word made me stop. life here used to be...discrimination was built into society because of birth.. social divisions affected everything. How some things may have changed and how in other senses, they still are the same.

My basic Hebrew class last night. We were reading a simple story illustrating new verbs and vocab related to cooking. One of my students, while working on a ‘ Correct’ or ‘Incorrect’ exercise, stumbled through a sentence: “She baked cake in the Street.” Everyday on my walk to and from work I pass many who bake -chappati- bread in the street, bathe in the street, hang their kapra, sleep, play, and weave bamboo baskets in the streets. It was an uneasy laugh in the classroom when deciding if the sentence was or wasn’t possible.

For the Israeli film festival ( by the way, the Indian- English pronunciation emphasizes the “L” in Fi-li-m Festival) one of the items on the to-do list is to run the fi-lims by the censorship bureau. Interestingly enough, heterosexual kissing is seldom seen on the silver screen in Bombay flicks, through many of the gay kissing scenes in the movie Brokeback Mountain apparently made it through censorship with no obvious cuts. The national anthem “Jana Gana” is played before every showing of every movie in India- Bollywood, or not.

Family ties. There are so many interconnected families in this community that now I automatically assume that everyone in fact is related to everyone else here. Kinship is much more highly defined here- with different words for every familial relation. The name of ones’ mothers’ brother is different from ones’ fathers brother; cousins are called “brother’ and ‘sister’ and Grandparent is a much broader term here than back in the States. This morning I had a silly "argument" with Solly ( Uncle) * ( called Uncle because he is older and it is a respectful term) that he is not the Grandfather of one of my students, but the Grand Uncle, because the boy in question is his sisters’ grandson. Turns out that in India, I’m wrong. Which is a good thing, as one can never have too many loving Grandparents.

It makes me wonder sometimes, what would be the signs of my culture, were someone to come in and observe me and my life back home. Empty dark streets in the cities? lips touching the lip of a glass when drinking water? Only a few Grandparents, brothers, sisters? Families living without their elderly in-laws in the house? "Children" moving out of home before marriage?

kul me aht mahine india mein hoon

kul me aht mahine india mein hoon- Tomorrow my eighth month India in it is.
The 20th of March. Almost unbelievable!

How long is eight months? I suppose it is long enough to complete teaching one semester at the high school, to be told I am 'seeing like an Indian' by my neighbor, Rashme. Long enough to understand certain Indian-englishisms such as 'removing a photo' from a camera, giving someone a 'tinkle', and looking as if I've 'reduced', nai?

Here it is more than enough time to know nearly every family in my building, and have tasted each households version of puran poli and other hindu snacks. Eight months is being comfortable on a 4 rupee, crowded cross-town bus, and to run into an Indian Jewish teacher on the same route; to see students at the phoenix mills shopping compound on a Saturday night; to not be shocked when doused with water and colors for Hindu festivals; to be used to men getting haircuts and hawking mangoes on the corner, and accustomed to seeing immensely colorful, loud, dancing, and exploding celebrations of life in the streets.

Bene Israel Bar Mitzvah

 Elijah Gadkar, reading from the Torah, at Etz Chayeem synagogue in Mazgaon, Mumbai.

A Bar Mitvzah of my friends' younger brother, Elijah, or Leon, Gadkar. Reading from the Torah on Thursday morning was his first time officially being called up as an adult member of the community. The celebrations continued that night with a party and Malida ceremony.

Rabbi Joshua Kolet speaking after the services. Note this Bar Mitzvah boy's enormous smile!

Kerala snapshots

Some photos from a recent trip to Kerala...

group of school children on a walk by the Cochin shore

big yawn on the ferry to Ernakulam

Chinese fishing nets lower into the water by hand. Ada and I helped pull up the day's catch!

more photos soon!

Esther's Secret

Salaam from one of the nations first featured in the Purim Megillah-

Here in Hodu I am still smiling about a few improvised jokes from the ad-libbed play we had put on yesterday.

At the Annual EPJCC Purim Carnival, Shirin and I cajoled the crowd into drawing lots and preforming in an interactive play telling the story of Purim. Hannan Uncle, an elderly gent who always contributes to Kol India (the community newsletter) and other magazines, became "Haman" Uncle, and Abraham Pingle, a real-life father of adorable 7 year old Esther, became Mordecai, uncle of Queen Esther, heorine of Purim.

One of the best lines of the show came from Shirin, the Ralph Goldman fellow who has been working here in India these past four months. Shirin, who who was wearing a loud, long wig for her role as the Jewish Queen, was called upon my her Uncle mrodechai to stand up for her people. Approaching the King, she began demurely. "Oh, King Achashverosh" she said sweetly, " I have a secret I must tell you!!"

"And, what is that, Queen Esther?" the King asked

"I'm not originally blond"

____

The Carnival went off quite well. The kids took part in talent competitions and and fancy dress competition downstairs after the interactive play, and all the (youth and volunteer and JCC) staff got into the spirit with crazy caps. Following a short break for snack we took the kids up for carnival games like Knock down Haman, Crown the Queen, while the adults played a kareoke singing game. We nearly had to wrestle microphones out of grandmothers' hands as the buses back were leaving and the younger, weary, and costumed lot of children were ready to go home.

____

Tonight I am going to go hear the Megillah being read in the midst of a community which for the most part has not had to deal with hiding their Jewish identity. They do, however, have secrets involving faith in ways that I have not commonly known. Some memebrs of the communtiy here have confided these with me-
Inter-caste marriage ( interfaith ) and Conversions are some of these. When once, after class, a student told me that she had a secret, the last thing I expected was her to tell me that (in her words) she was not an "Original Jew."

Conversion here is an issue that resonnates both within and beyond the scope of local Jewish life. In the past when Jews here had emigratred to Israel, even if they have been bron Jewish and not covnerted, they still had to prove their Jewishness. For a community that had been working hard at maintiang this unique identity for thousands of years amongst others, it had been an insluting request.

When coming to India I didnot anticipate being asked so many quesitons about converstion, religious statuis of converst, conevrts and kashrut, etc. Its beenan eye and heart opening experience getting to know people who have chosen to become Jews, and have felt comfortable enough to share these secrets with me.