Jew Town Rap

From Monday afternoon to Friday morning – time shot by before I could say “manaslayo”. Why would I say “manaslayo”? If you knew the first m of Malayalam, you would understand. We stepped in late into the state and decided to step out early, before the weekend said its customary Hullo. The flight to Hyderabad was well into the afternoon and having all the morning to reach Cochin, we made the most out of it. A couple of wayward stops, once to puttu and once to tea, pretty much pushed our limit to the runway.
We had another 2.5 hours to my flight. The IBM office was in the heart of the city, on the way to Jew Town, conveniently placed for us to check-in our luggage and check-out ourselves. Traffic for a small town like Cochin is still on the high side. Its not like the town has a very high population of vehicles; there must be some Reason lurking around that I couldn’t reason with.
30 minutes or lesser and we were at Jew Town. The “town” as its referred to really is but a few lanes strung together by a spattering of authentic Jews and Jewish shops, a synagogue and plenty of antique shops that sell antiques related to Hindu kings from Kerala and TN largely. Wee bit of a disappointment. When I’m in Jew Town I really would appreciate the Jew Town rap vis-à-vis thappanguchi.

Ignore Tappanguchi and other related dance forms. Here's the god of dance in Jew town.

Its called a Verpu. If any of you know it, please do educate me about the purpose. Very intersting engravings on the outside of it. This, btw, is the largest in the world.

Nothing to do with Jew Town. This photo felt like it could use some publicity !

Minor adjustments… we moved on. Plenty of good photographic opportunities, simply due to the Diaspora of colours that congregate at each place. Loading some of them here. We knew pretty much that the prices would all be inflated and a hard bargain is really called for. Reminded me of “The Merchant of Venice” and the biscuit Bassanio got. We did better than him against his clan-mates – no purchases made! ;)

Torah pyaar Torah magic... said our king to the visitors. :)

The synagogue has a modest architecture compared to even present-day churches or temples – instructions on the board outside suggest that you stay away from the place if you are dressed indecently. About 90% of urban youth won’t be permitted in methinks. The synagogue’s closed on Fridays they wrote, and we read. With time running short, there wasn’t much justice done to the place, which otherwise can take in the better part of a day for one with the eye for antiques – as opposed to an antique eye. Some quick driving and deft flicking of pedestrians into the narrow gutters hinging the road, by our driver, meant that atleast 2 of us were reaching office in time, and cleanly, if I may add. I risked missing the flight by a comfortable 8 odd to 7 even minutes. Not to be. Murphy was on a break and we made it on time. Apparently Murphy was else where, in the flight that I was waiting for. It eventually took off 2 hours late.

A portal to the past.

Looking forward to writing an introductory piece on the people @ on the client side. Nice blokes all, but come with their idiosyncrasies and I hopefully, will not be tarnishing their reputation too much.