SPRING 2022 HAS ARRIVED SO HAS NOWRUZ AND IMMENSE HAPPINESS IN OUR LIVES

It has been an extraordinary day..

My friends in Iran prepared and started celebrating NOWRUZ the Persian New year, remembering a time long when Zoroastrianism was the creed of the country. This is a very happy day in the calendar of Iran 

I was happy to see photos of the tables set and also the book of Hafiz which the Iranians read and believe on a daily basis..

I was driving for a reunion with two of my closest friends in Florida when I was sent a video of a reunion of my family members in London. It was so emotional to me to watch the surprise of people making special efforts to be with one another.

I stopped the car and cried.

When I arrived at the home of my friends..

we had many things to be happy about and grateful about..

I had insisted on this french custom of apertif, when on arrival of a guest, you open a bottle of champagne..

The sun was still up in the sky as the spring equinox was knocking on the door 

All the restaurants were full.. were they celebrating the arrival of the spring? We had chosen a Greek Restaurant that we had eaten before... we were welcomed and seated and our feast and conversations continued. 

I love lingering conversations over delicious dinners ...

languorous is the word that comes to my mind .. the tropical languor and the quote from Anaïs Nin about Tropics being a hammock for Lovers..

We chose a nice bottle of Brancott Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand to wet our palates and ready for the food ahead. 

I thought of my friends in Iran celebrating. On the other side of the coin, I thought of my friends in Ukraine and thoughts of ways of helping them. 

By now we all have become familiar with the Ukrainian colours. A friend of mine painted this to display in the far reaches of Washington State.

I am not very good at acute medicine like the doctors and nurses of Medicins sans frontieres but I am a Medico del Mundo who is good at compassionate chronic care. and as soon as possible, I will be there in person helping Ukrainians with the little knowledge of Medicine that I have.

The Restaurant, Souvlaki was packed to the hilt and the waiters were running around looking eager and harried. We were greeted warmly and seated and a crew member whom we were familiar with, attended to us, that added a little softness to our dinner. 

The food started arriving as we tasted a greek salad and our NZ wine.

The conversations touched upon a lot of subjects we have in common. We had met as junior doctors at the teaching hospital of University of Miami and shared many of our passions: Food and Travel..In the past we had travelled to Jamaica, Mexico, Cuba, England and Wales, and also him being a water person, we had spent time togther in the islands of the Bahamas.

His wife whom I call the glue of our friendship is South African and very knowledgeable about Nutrition among other things and a wonderful catalyst to our conversations 

We drove back to their house which is not that from the restaurant and continued our conversations until midnight, our usual chat of 7-8 hours on our reunions, with the most attentive hostess. 

During the past two years I have been very busy offering help during the psychological isolation of Covid pandemic. I can assure you that no one was spared from the ravages of complicated thoughts going through their minds 

I have never stayed so long in Miami as I have during the pandemic and thus exposed to the quotidian ways of going about and conduct. Miami is an immigrant town and the mentality of immigrants from poorer countries dominate the discourse in this town. The capitalistic discourse is very strong here.

I wanted to talk to my friends whether the qualities I had learned from the Native Indians: Humility, Gratefulness and Compassion has in anyway been eroded through the Covid pandemic. It was an interesting discussion. My best friend was born in Miami and thus has a good and liberal and open minded view of what is happening in this town. 

Messages arrive on this first day of Spring from all over the world 

from the wild coast of Washington state came this message:

Pink salmon berry blooms, scotch broom, and little pussy willow Buds gathered beside the road on our walk.

Waiting for friends to join me to share this view ..

A lovingly prepared Jewish breakfast ..and good company.

There are people who are in urgent need of help or moral support or affections in this world. I light candles for them 

someone or other was having afternoon tea at Fortnum & Mason..

It is nice to enjoy the mild weather of the southern florida and every little difficulty becomes bearable when you pay attention to the nature around you .

a colleague sent me this video of his visit (taken in september 2021)

So my dear friends, wherever you are in this world, I share a part of my heart with you..

In the end it is not the genetics that would define us, it is not the geography that would define but definitely the culture that would give us our identity.  I am an Australian Jew working with Indigenous people, based in.Miami .But on days like this, with overabundant joy and contentment, our cultures do not matter, we are all connected. As Lakota Indians would say Mitakuye Oyasin, we are all related. 

It was good to listen to this song. When I first listened to this I was reminded of Manu Chao and also some old fashioned calypsonians. But this Catherine, Northern Territory born Australian is as universal in his music as anyone can be.

The Love Me or Die

C. W. Stoneking

I studied evil I can't deny
Was a hoodoo charm called a Love Me or Die
A fingernail, a piece of her dress
Apocathery, Devil's behes'
I will relate, the piteous consequence my mistake
Fallin' slave to passin desire
Makin' the dreaded Love me or Die

Against a Jungle primeval green
She had the looks of a beauty queen
No bangles or chain, wearin' broken shoe
75 cent bottle perfume
I said, "Good mornin'", I tipped my hat
All the while I was cunning like a rat
Smilin gaily, looked her in the eye
I felt in my pocket, the Love me or Die

My past history, one to behold
I studied magic from days of old
Membership, secret societies
Power and wealth in my family
But Matilda, darling
Why you don't take my wedding ring
Like a demon under the floor
I buried the hoodoo down the back door

Lawd, word broke through the town
That a fever strike Matilda down
9:30, the doctor arrive
Priest come runnin, quarter to five
Standin' in the weeds early next day
I saw the meat wagon rollin' away
I seen Matilda layin' in the back
Her old mother wearin' a suit of black

Sound the trumpet, and bang the drum
I wait for me judgement to come
I know her spirit is down beneath
I hear the weepin' and gnashing of the teeth.
Flames of Hell licks at my feet
In the shadow of the Jungle I feel the heat
Matilda's waiting in Hell for me too
All 'cause she died from a bad hoodoo

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: C.w.

HAPPY NOWRUZ FROM A VERY HAPPY  PERSON IN MIAMI FLORIDA USA 

I DONT CARE FOR TRAVEL LISTS BUT WHEN VARADERO BEACH IS ON IT, I CAN POUND MY CHEST

 

Top 10 Beaches in the World for 2022

1. Grace Bay Beach – Grace Bay, Turks and Caicos
2. Varadero Beach – Varadero, Cuba
3. Turquoise Bay – Exmouth, Australia
4. Quarta Praia – Morro de Sao Paulo, Brazil
5. Eagle Beach – Palm – Eagle Beach, Aruba
6. Radhanagar Beach – Havelock Island, India
7. Baia do Sancho – Fernando de Noronha, Brazil
8. Trunk Bay Beach – Virgin Islands National Park, U.S. Virgin Islands
9. Baía dos Golfinhos – Praia da Pipa, Brazil
10. Spiaggia dei Conigli – Lampedusa, Italy

Varadero is a beautiful beach and thousands of tourists from abroad and Cuba visit the lovely water and sands each year. It is approachable throughout the year. 

Whenever I have visitors from USA or Australia, they want me to organize a trip to Varadero... it is a pleasure indeed..

One thing is for sure, there are beautiful beaches all over this planet whether they make into someones list or not.. virtually thousands of them ..

Varadero, Cuba

ON THIS FRIDAY NIGHT, SPECIAL THOUGHTS FOR UKRAINE AND JE SUIS AUSSI UKRANIEN

 It is a Friday night and as the sun was setting I got the table set to welcome Shabbat and joyously shout. Shabbat Shalom to all those who would hear and all those who would listen in this world of mine inside our planet

Every Friday night without fail, whether I am on the road or not, I try to light candles. and remember the songs that has been engraved in my heart that brings me close to my people.

On this Friday, I am not only a Jew but Je suis aussi Ucrainien.. I am also Ukrainian. Soy Ucraniano tambien. Eu tambem sou ucraniano..

This is not the first time the Russians have committed atrocities against the Ukrainians, what are they afraid of ? 

What the brave UKRAINIANS have taught us in such a brief time 

SOLIDARITY 

HUMANITY ..

Tonight I thought of my friends still inside Ukraine. They are in my heart.. 

WHAT ALL HAPPENS IN THE COURSE OF A DAY...AN UNUSUAL DAY IN AN UNUSUAL LIFE .. HUMILITY, GRATITUDE AND COMPASSION, SAY THE INDIGENOUS WISDOM

 it has been an extraordinary day of euphoria: doing exactly what you want to do with your body, thoughts and mind.

It began with a poem arriving from a friend who is doing a PhD in Persian studies .

One of Iran’s most influential 20th century poets, Forough Farrokhzad has been called “the last prophet of truth-telling that [Iran] has seen.” This poem, “Mian-e Tariki,” was first published in Iran in 1964, in her fourth poetry collection Another Birth. It has been translated from the original Farsi by Sogol Sur.

Amongst Darkness

Amongst darkness
I called you
there was silence and a breeze
that took the curtain.
In the sad sky
A star was burning
A star was leaving
A star was dying
I called you
I called you
My whole existence
like a bowl of milk
was in my hand.
The moon’s blue glance
was striking the glasses;
a sorrowful song
was rising like smoke
from the city of crickets
like smoke it was trembling
on the windows.
All night long there
Between my breasts
Someone was panting from despair
Someone was uprising
Someone was wanting you
The two hands of their head
were refusing
All night long there
from the black branches
a sorrow was dripping
The air akin to ruins
was shedding on them
My little tree
was in love with the wind
with the wayward wind
Where is the home of wind?
Where is the home of wind?

Forugh Farrokhzad is familiar to all lovers of Pesian literature.

The verse was sent to me in Farsi recited and I listened to the cadence.

It was to predict what lay ahead on a day like this, for this person devoted to friends, indigenous people and his own people.

“What is important is humanity,” Forugh had said, “not being a man or a woman.”

"I called you and there was silence and breeze" was almost an divination of the day's happenings..

I had lit candles for five friends of mine inside UKRAINE, one having just left Kharkhiv with her two cats, the other in Kyiv mourning what is happening to Mariupol..the one near the Nuclear plant praying the Russians would treat it gently? 

I prepared myself a Moroccan Mint tea and prepared to go to the National Park where the Indigenous people live

A tall elegant lady is ushered in, at the place where I can do medico-cultural interviews. She wears the traditional hand sewn skirt of her people.

Present was also another member of the tribe, facilitating today with interviews and reminding me of important "things to do" from the conversation.

I am impressed how respectful of each other, two women, separated by a generation. My interviews are so deeply culturally oriented, even though I am their Endocrinologist, I am not there to look after numbers from a blood test but to take care of them as people.

One lesson emphasized by her: I have no respect for doctors who are not humble and she refuses to see anyone she perceives to be arrogant . In the patchwork of american medical system, a patient has to see an array of doctors and not so doctors to resolve their problems.

Reminded me of what the Meskwaki Indians had taught me:

Be humble and show respect to whoever is sitting in front of you.

Text messages were arriving from London, Tehran and Hanoi.. little swabs of tenderness to the heart  I dont think that these friends realize how wonderful they make me feel with their short or long sentences or abrupt declarations of feelings or discourses.

Three of us, two tribal members and I got into the car and drove to visit a patient. We stood at the front yard of her house, and between the three of us, we could attend to a lot of her needs.

The younger Indian had prepared a meal and we were able to bring portions of the meal to the older lady. Because of the isolation of the indigenous people, food is always a welcome gift.

A message of such happiness arrived soon after I left the home of the patient 

This is such a life changing offer to this aspiring scientist. I am happy in the little part that I played. I was so so excited. 

I remember my good friend LS in Melbourne saying: You are good at bringing your friends closer to their dreams. 

I cannot imagine the happiness in that household today and for days to come ..

Rest of the day was spent visiting other indigenous people in their traditional homes and with the help of the younger workers , we accomplished a fair bit. Each one had a lesson to teach and one has to pay attention. The last one we visited was an artisan, and he wanted me to look after his friend. Concern for his friend more than a concern for himself ..

We did take care of his friend ..

The lady who had prepared the food had one tray food left over and she reminded that i should take it home for dinner. Home made, safe ingredients and made by a colleague.. how can I refuse?

Thank you..

Each day we do a little bit to make the life of another person better, in whatever capacity we have.

Some one sent me Ghazal 95 of Hafiz. 

that reminded me that NOWRUZ would be here soon.. I will think of all the people celebrating Nowruz all over the world.and wish them happiness 

I am grateful for a day like today and I thank my friends all over the world including some special ones ..

My final thought for this blog was a verse from Pablo Neruda:

„Let us forget with generosity those who cannot love us“

 

KINGSTON, JAMAICA AND MADRAS INDIA ..WHAT DO THEY HAVE IN COMMON? THE HENRIQUES FAMILY

 I have visited the teeming city of Madras (now called Chennai) on many occasions and had the pleasure of living in Kingston, Jamaica for a short while.

While searching for lovely Masala Dosai at vegetarian restaurants, the. last thing you would think would be the jewish history in this erstwhile citadel of British Raj. 

In fact Madras has a rich Jewish History.

Wikipedia has a nice article on the various branches of the illustrious Henriques family (origin Spain, left for different parts of the world via Lisbon where they were prominent).

Plan of Fort St George and the city of Madras in 1726,Shows b.Jews Burying Place Jewish Cemetery Chennai, Four Brothers Garden and Bartolomeo Rodrigues Tomb

Rabbi Salomon Halevi(Last Rabbi of Madras Synagogue) and his wife Rebecca Cohen, Paradesi Jews of Madras

They were called Paradesi (foreign) Jews as were the "white" jews of Cochin who had arrived in Cochin from the Middle East in the first decades of 17th century at the port of Saude (Portuguese, after the church Nossa senhora de saude) now mistakenly called SAUDI!

The Henriques De Castro family included several prominent Sephardic Jewish Business men of Portuguese descent, they were called Paradesi Jews of Madras. They traded in diamonds, precious stones and corals, they had very good relations with the rulers of Golkonda, they maintained trade connections to Europe, and their language skills were useful. Although the Sephardim spoke Ladino (i.e. Spanish or Judeo-Spanish), in India they learned Tamil and Judeo-Malayalam from the Malabar Jews.

Notable members of this branch include

Samuel de Castro came to Madras from Curaçao and Founded of De Castro Trading house.

Fernando Mendes Henriques Established The Colony of Jewish Traders of Madraspatam

Last Jewish Business House of Chennai, Owned by Henriques De Castro Family existed till 2007

Henriques De Castro Transports

Henriques De Castro Industrial and management consultants

Isaac and Rosa Charitable Trust, Henriques De Castro family.

Members of the family include

• Isaac Henriques De Castro (9 June 1883 in Amsterdam-18 October 1944 in Auschwitz) 
• Levi Henriques De Castro(12 March 1921 in Amsterdam-8 February 1978 in Chennai) 
• Sarah Levi
• Davvid Levi

Holocaust Memorial of Isaac & Rosa Henriques Decastro, Translation

In loving memory of My beloved friend and his family

Who were murdered by Adolf Hitler, Germany.

Isaac Henriques De Castro Alias Isaac Anna (Brother), Isaac Anna was always ready to help us and considered to be one among us

Rosa Henriques De Castro Alias Rosa Anni (Sister In-law), Rosa Anni was named with a Tamil name, showing the love her parents had for Tamil people

“They Will Never, be Forgotten”

C N Annadurai Former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu

( in Tamoul)

Henriques and their descendants are of Spanish/Portuguese origin. The majority of the Paradesi Jews in Cochin where they flourished were of Turkish, Middle Eastern Origin.

One branch of the Henriques family branched out to the Caribbean and the region is full of history of the Portugese jews who had arrived from Amsterdam . I had the privilege of meeting that grand statesman of Barbados, Mr Barrow, who informed me that his name is an anglicized version of his ancestral name of Baruh, the jewish family who had arrived in Barbados from Recife in Brasil.

One of the first jews to set foot upon Xamayca for that matter one of the first europeans to set foot on Jamaica may have been Luis Torres, the cartographer with Cristobal Colon (his own jewish origins are disputed)

Luis de Torres (died 1493), perhaps born as יוסף בן הלוי העברי, Yosef Ben Ha Levy Haivri, ("Joseph the Son of Levy the Hebrew") was Christopher Columbus's interpreter on his first voyage and the first person of Jewish origin to settle in America.

While still a Jew, de Torres served as an interpreter to the governor of Murcia due to his knowledge of Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, and Portuguese. In order to avoid the expulsion edict against the Jews of Spain, de Torres converted to Catholicism shortly before the departure of Columbus's expedition. Columbus hoped that the interpreter's skills would be useful in Asia because they would enable him to communicate with local Jewish traders, and he may also have believed that he would find descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.

It is a great irony of history that the first european man to set 

foot on Brasil, Jamaica, Cuba and who knows where else were 

Jews! 

Many of the Jamaicans wont believe you if you were to tell them

that the Jews were there before the Africans..

The number of Jewish residents increased from year to year; the were allowed to reside there on condition that they took the oath o allegiance before the governor. Thus in the year I668, Salomo Gabay Faro and David Gomes Henriques, two years later Abraha de Soza Mendes, and in I67I Abraham Espinosa and Jacob de Torr came from London. They all of them possessed the rights of English citizens. The English government, in order to increase the numb of industrious settlers on the island, instructed the governor, S Thomas Lynch, to absolve the new arrivals from taking the oat of allegiance, and to grant all inhabitants the freedom of thei religious worship..

The Jews in Jamaica and Daniel Israel Lopez Laguna Author(s): M. Kayserling

 Source: The Jewish Quarterly Review , Jul., 1900, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Jul., 1900), 

pp. 708-717 Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press 

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1450701

The Jewish history of Jamaica gives a glimpse of the role 

played by jewish migrants from Europe (originally conversos

or later Sefradim). The names are a roll call of who is who in 

the ancient Sefardic world..

If you spend any time in Jamaica, the jewish names would 

become familiar to you, they are all ancient sefardic or marrano

names 

and one name that would be repeatedly mentioned would be 

Henriques or Enriques who has a lineage as long as the history 

of colonization of Jamaica.

There are not many active synagogues in the Caribbean, but 

the two most beautiful ones are in Kingston Jamaica and 

Willemsted in Curacao

Many things to note in this picture.

One of the few synagogues in the world with sand in the floor .

No seperation of genders in the people listening to the orator., 

in this case none other than the indefatigable Ainsley

Henriques, the leader of the community. The architect of the 

synagogue was Rudolph Cohen Henriques, this structure is 

more than a century old, but the synagogues had been present

in Jamaica for centuries.

I always had an interest in isolated or remote jewish 

communities in the world .. Cochin in Kerala and Rangoon in 

Burma are two favourite ones.. Singapore  Marrakech Iquitos all

have special places in my heart. The place I stay in Havana 

Cuba was built by a Jew before the triumph of the Cuban 

Revolution!

Lakota Indians say MITAKUYE OYASIN meaning We are all 

related. that has a different sentiment to the Jews.

HOW DID I ENCOUNTER PABLO NERUDA AND ALVARO MUTIS ? IN NEW YORK OF COURSE

 I have always identified myself as a Jewish Boy from Melbourne, even though I have lived in other places and other countries. Learning to speak Spanish, I am fairly proficient in it now, was not on the horizon, let alone reading the best known poets or writers in their native tongue.

Spanish has been a great gift

It opened up Latin America for me

It gave me a home 

it gave me many friends 

I was studying in Sweden and was on my way home to Australia when I picked up the New York Times Review of Books and there for the first time, I learned about Pablo Neruda, with a poem If you Forget Me translated by Alistair Reid. After reading it in translation and then trying to pronounce the words in its original spanish, I made up my mind to learn Spanish, it would take me years, so that I can read Neruda as he wrote them. I as fortunate to have read his poetry in his native tongue in each of his three houses.  Santiago de Chile (La Chasscona), Valparaiso( La sebastiana)  and Isla Negra..

I introduced many of my English speaking friends to GABO, Gabriel Garcia Marquez when his book One Hundred Years of Solitude came out.. Somewhere in his many interviews he mentioned that his good friend Alvaro Mutis was a better writer than him. It so happened that on another transit through New York city one of the magazines had a poem called Caravansary translated.. I just loved it.

Maqroll El Gaviero became my alter ego and I became Maqroll El Gaviero Judio with a good friend Abdur Bashur, the lover of palms and many others from the latin american literary dream world...

Here is an excerpt from the CV of Maqroll El Gaviero Judio.

...On receiving a note from the Malabar coast that home of an aging Jew was about to be passed on to him, he imagined himself ensconced there, waited on by thin Malabari Moslems who questioned their faith, with his traveling companion, the Prince of Palms and the little girl who loved him so much that she continually adoringly attached herself to other lovers in faraway lands she dreamt of visiting with him. Making vagrancy a profession young people all over the world could aspire to, he plans to convert the 700 year old synagogue, when it is not in use, of course, into a Museum of Vagrant Peoples where others may find refuge from the restriction imposed upon them by their fear of being alive

Alvaro Mutis, Gabo, Neruda, Alejo Carpentier, Lezama Lima these classic writers are always in my world view and my head. Leonardo Padura is trying to enter that space.

Imagine my great pleasure when a close friend from that huge land to the south that speak the lusitanian tongue, said she had managed to procure a copy of the poems by Alvaro Mutis!

I have been dreaming of this poem for months if not years and it is to arrive from that land in the south..

Some unexpected pleasures are too sweet to describe.

I repaired my self to Ricky's cafe and gave special instructions to the venezuelan waitress to make Cafe Cortadito like we drink in Havana and began writing what came to my mind

so this is my CV (dont ask me where I went to medical school or studied my postgraduate course in Anthropology)

In Akko, he as ejected from the Hummus Store of Sayed the Palestinian, only to find himself staring at the lodgings of the medieval poet from Isfahan.

A proto-dravidian immigration offer at the middle of the night refused him entry to the land of Dosai and Idly, forcing him to spend the night on the cold floor of a rundown airport, with a group of Nigerians waiting to be deported.

In Cochin, overcome by hunger, he dressed himself as a priest and helped himself to the sacred wine and wafers, he was condemned but forgiven by the venerable patriarch of the Syrian Catholic Church, on the promise to become a christian, a promise he never kept.

In Baracoa, in the eastern part of the island of Cuba, his name is written on plaques honouring him as an authority on local indigenous archeology and a photo of him dressed in Lakota Indian regalia is kept besides the Cross that Cristobal Colon left there on his visit to Cuba in 1493. Syncretic followers of the afro-cuban religion worship him as YEHOO the spirit of Friendship and Fertility.

This my dear friends is my life

I am feeling extraordinarily happy, but slightly worried how I will survive the CDG-JED-COK flight on the dry airline of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia..

Alvaro Mutis with Gabo..