Kumarakom in Kerala is an unusual tourist centre, offering first class accommodation and cruises in exotic houseboats. We can motor down from Kochi to Kumarakom through the lake and narrow canals under the shadow of tall graceful coconut palms, evenly spaced.
In Kumarakom there are many well-known Heritage Resorts where you could get cottages for comfortable stay.
You can continue your cruise on the backwaters and the Vembanad Lake on to Alleppey and back to Kumarakom on board a houseboat. The houseboat was, indeed, the kettuvallom of olden days, but transformed beyond belief. It had a curved roof of bamboo and wattle. Latticed cane work framed the “look-out” opening on the sides of the deck. The inside of the boat is lined with the white satiny matting of the finest variety of Kerala mats called metha payus. The sleeping cabinets are comfortable bedrooms with foam mattresses, mosquito curtains and even an electric fan, attached baths with a shower and toilet. Beyond, near the bow, is a large saloon with a round table and wicker chairs. A crew of four, including the captain and the cook, attend to our needs efficiently and quietly.
Powered by bamboo poles and a purring outboard engine the boat glides over the backwaters. Tall coconut palms grow grow on the narrow bunds in single file, like sentinels awaiting a royal procession. As the bunds broadened, there are cottages with green rice fields beyond. The waters are placid and calm, the silence brakes only by an occasional kettuvallom crossing us or by a rowboat carrying people to their homes. As your boat enters the lake area, you will find yourselves on a vast expanse of water, banked in the far distance by jungles of palm and bamboo and stands of banana, growing in lush profusion , the crew bring us lunch with fried karimeen, and prawn curry, both freshly caught from the lake.
Ayurvedic oil therapy centre is available in all resorts where a sample general massage is possible. The massage applies fragrant medicated oils on the head and body in plentiful measure as one lay on a high wooden plank on the secluded verandah of an open walled courtyard. Nimble fingers rub every inch of one’s scalp and knead every muscle in one’s body so expertly that one almost gets to sleep.
Arriving in Kochi, you can visit the Jew town. Nowhere else in India can you see the streets of a 400-year-old town, lined with antique and curio shops as in the Jew Town. Astonishingly, their wares reflect the history of this part of the land _ antiques of the native inhabitants juxtaposed with the religious icons of successive invaders and foreign settlers and curios brought in by foreign traders.
The Jewish Synagogue, which the Jewish community built with great zeal 400 odd years ago, is our next focus of interest. It is wonderful to see a synagogue, which had so far been only a word in the Bible. It is impressive with its many adornments _ chandeliers
imported from Belgium, blue hand-painted tiles from China, with two of the same design covering the floor and gold painted boards surrounding the raised pulpit in the centre.
The 2,000 year long sojourn of the Jews in Kerala makes for an exhilarating story. They had arrived, as tradition goes, in the First Century A.D. as refugees from religious persecution. They were given shelter and allowed to settle in different parts of the country by the then Hindu rulers of Malabar, on the south west coast of India. They flourished here for more than 1,000 years when internecine dissensions and attacks by Moors, forced them to give up their settlements and seek the protection of the Hindu Raja of Cochin. “With a liberality that can hardly be understood”, the raja, granted them a site for a town by the side of his own palace and temple! Here was built in 1567, the Jew Town and in 1568, the Cochin Synagogue.
Unlike the fate of their brethren in various countries in Europe, the Jewish population in Kerala continued to enjoy the patronage of the local kings and the friendship of the local communities. This enabled them to weather the stormy events of history and survive for nearly 2,000 years. With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, almost all of them except a handful, left for their Holy Land. And their story here will soon come to an end. But the fact that the religious and cultural tolerance of the kings and the people of Kerala and their amazing generosity towards an alien people deserve to be recorded forever in letters of gold in our history. No wonder my heart swells with pride to be an inheritor of this wonderful legacy.
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