Incredible !ndia, Part Two: Kochi… aka Cochin

Cochin, April 4 — This ‘Queen of the Arabian Sea’ is known as Kochi in the local language. Located on 7 islands, it is in the Indian state (there are 39) called Kerala, and its government is Communist — by election. We saw hammer-and-sickle red flags along one roadway. This state has 33 million residents, 2.3 million in Cochin, and has been a spice-trade mega-port for more than 1,000 years. Today it is still a leader in pepper production and export, along with cinnamon, tea, coffee, coir and coconut. In fact, Kerala means ‘land of coconut.’ Today 90% of all Indian pepper goes out through Cochin. Do not underestimate the importance of the Spice Trade in the history of Asia and Europe and the confluence of the two. I’m right in the heart of that history now. As the saying goes, ‘Follow the money.’

Cochin has been occupied by three foreign countries: first, the Portuguese, who were the first colonial seat in India. They built a fort (long since destroyed) and a church, using native coconut trees for wood. The local royal family had invited Portugal to come to protect them from attack by neighboring states — which Portugal was glad to do. They were allowed to found a Catholic church; they also built schools. The Portuguese also brought African slaves.

Today Cochin is 56% Hindu (they do eat beef in this state), 24% Muslim, 18% Christian, mostly Catholic. Indian states compete to win Who had the first European church: today we were told that the Portuguese built the first, Saint Francis (below) in 1503, and the first fort in India, in 1500. In 1665 the Dutch took over and the church became Protestant. They tolerated other religions, including Judaism. In 1814 the British took over and this church became Anglican, which it remains today (with 2,000 members).

Inside, you can see the punka — two long, white fabric fans suspended on ropes, running down the two sides. People called punkawallas pull the ropes to swing the fans to cool the parishioners.

A ‘walla’ seems to be anyone who performs a job – just tack ‘walla’ onto the end. The fellow in the marketplace who sells chai tea is the chaiwalla, etc.

Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese explorer who ‘discovered’ Cochin, was buried in the Saint Francis Church. His son came later and took the remains back to Lisbon. More about da Gama in my later lecture on The Spice Trade. He was one of those explorers whose name I remembered — but not why. The Mattancherry Palace was our next stop. Wiki’s summation — I especially like the last line: ‘The Palace was built and gifted by the Portuguese as a present to the king of Cochin around 1555. The Dutch carried out some extensions and renovations in the palace in 1663, and thereafter it was popularly called [the] Dutch Palace. The rajas also made more improvements to it. Today, it is a portrait gallery of the Cochin Rajas and notable for some of the best mythological murals in India, which are in the best traditions of Hindu temple art. The palace was built to appease the king after they plundered a temple nearby.’ It was not exactly palatial, so I took no pictures of the outside, and inside, we were not allowed to take photos of the wonderful wall murals, so here are a couple off the net.The palace had beautiful, heavy, dark, carved wooden ceilings and 500-year-old teak floors in perfect condition.

Our guide, Madhu, asked us a couple times if we could understand him. He learned English in Kerala and never studied it abroad, so he realizes he has a thick accent. He would occasionally turn around and speak to the driver in their local language… he told us, ‘I know, we speak very fast…to you our language sounds like peas rattling in a tin can.’ While Hindi is the national language here, there are 1,652 different languages in India. Yes, you read that right. Cochin is not too bad off, by Indian standards. Quite a few residents actually work in the Middle East, sending money home to their families here. All the houses have electricity, and their TVs get 600 channels, including BBC, CNN, French, Spanish and English stations with movies. Didn’t get a picture, but we passed the ‘Pee Pee Hotel.’ Also an enterprise called ‘Susan Advanced Fertility.’ No relation. The first western church we saw, one of many... I don’t know about the brass column in front, not to be confused with the lamp post to the right.

Starting in 1720, the occupying Dutch sent their uniforms and clothes to a local laundry established for the purpose — which still exists today. If you are a guest at Tissa’s Inn and you send your laundry out in this bag, this is where it comes. Called Dhobi Khana, it consists of boiling-water boilers, cement vats with beaters who beat the clothes against the cement and toss them out into a pile, a huge drying yard where fabric is stuffed between the fibers of the rope (no pins required), and pressers who use charcoal-heated irons to press the clothes.

Wall art on the way out of the Laundry.

Meanwhile, over at the beach... The famous Chinese fishing nets were invented 700 years ago. They are lowered into the water then raised, filled (maybe) with fish. No boats required. Normally the fishermen fish in the morning, but since there were two cruise ships in town, they were operating them around noon when the tourists wanted their pictures taken as they ‘helped’ raise the net and paid the fishermen $1 for the privilege.

The beachfront was filled with vendors of all sorts: ‘a man selling ice cream’ (he wasn’t ‘singing Italian songs’)... peppers displayed in a unique fashion... fish... a woman (many women and children) selling bracelets...

These women were enjoying the afternoon at the beach. They had taken a group selfie with one of our Viking women — everyone was giggling.

For some reason, a large hole had been dug in the sand along the road, in the shade of a large tree. For some reason, there were two water buffalo in it.

Walking away from the beach, we ended up on this street of colonial era houses, converted to hotels or restaurants. I asked about the giant trees — Chennai had been described as a city with tree-lined avenues. No. Cochin is a city with giant 400-to-500-year-old ‘rain’ trees brought here and planted by the Portuguese... they are ubiquitous, magnificent and shade the streets.

En route to our next stop, we passed this man and his machine that grinds sugar cane to produce juice, a refreshing drink. Though not one that any of us sampled. We had been warned onboard that should we wish to purchase, for instance, a coconut that had been decapitated so we could drink the coconut water, we should be sure to have purloined our own straw from the ship. Kingfisher is a local beer.

Welcome to ‘Jew Town,’ founded in the 17th century. Our guide, Madhu, was quick to add that that is not a derogatory name. While there was a thriving Jewish quarter before, today there are only five Jews living here — 3 women and 2 men — descendants of emigrants from Spain. Today the shops selling antiques, clothing, jewelry, etc are run mostly by people from Kashmeer (aka Kashmir). The black Ethiopian Jews did not settle in this neighborhood. Jewish tourists sometimes come to the quarter to make a minyan and participate in prayers.

This is the home of one of the 3 Jewish women. She is 94.