DOCTOR AND THE ARTIST
YOU MEET THOSE YOU NEED TO MEET
Stop looking for them! admonished my Meskwakia teacher,
“dr” Brown. You don’t need to search, they will cross your path.
One such encounter happened today at the Children’s park in Fort
Cochin, a city steeped in memories of the past colonial empires and flimsy
futuristic ambitions of the fluttering imitators of the west.
That memory is now being kept alive by just a few individuals,
most of whom I have met, and was waiting to meet the star of the show, a sous
chef who had gone to Taj Hotel Dubai from his native soil of Fort Cochin
Mr. Thoufeek Zakariya
I had arrived at the same morning after an exhaustive trip at the
Cochin International Airport to the tumult of the dizzying colours of expectant
family members for their dear ones to arrive from their Gulf Destinations.
There was an eerie silence which I later realized was due to the general
strike, forcing all transports off the roads and all enterprises shut. I was fortunate
enough to get one of the few taxis at the airport and was happy to plonk myself
on bed at the Hotel an hour or two later.
As the evening set in, and the atmosphere of this once prominent
trading town now buoyant with the chirping voices of the family reunions on the
beach, I walked along the familiar streets, retracing some steps, greeting some
old acquaintances along the tourist street, full of things tourist streets have
all over the world.
I was in front of the children’s park, facing Koder House on the
other side, when someone came up to me and said, Dr Yehuda? Yes and he said: I
am Thoufeek
Casualidad no es tan casual we say in Cuba and the Indians would
say things happen for a reason. Grateful
for this coincidence, he is here in town for a weeks respite from his work in
Dubai to attend to family matters and was on his way to inspect some building
of which he had seen an old photograph from 1889, It so happened we were
standing right in front of the site where the ancient church once stood and the
landmarks from the photograph from which the main building is missing can still
be elucidated.
You couldn’t imagine how delighted I was at this encounter and
the next few hours were filled with various topics, mostly dealing with
history, to clear some of the doubts we had been entertaining, such as the
Yemeni rather than European origin of the fair skinned Jews of Cochin, most of
whom are dead and gone; the origin of racism among the Jews of Cochin against their
darker skinned coreligionists, among others. Our mutual friend Taha who is
single handedly responsible for the welfare of the last elderly Jew of Jew Town,
Sarah Cohen, joined us and we were like excited school children discovering a
tasty dessert as we sat at Kashi Café looking and comparing various pictures of
the erstwhile church which was moved and later to become Santa Cruz Basilica.
We talked not only about the Jewish history but also the illustrious history of Islam along these shores, the wonderful book of Patricia Fels on Cochin Mosques and went off to look for the interesting tome of the history of the Dutch in Cochin. Perusing through ancient maps in the book, we were able to solve the mystery, much to the excitement of all of us that the building erroneously assigned to be the lighthouse was actually the remnants of the church. As usual in such discussions, the situation in the Gulf Countries, their imported labour and their glorious historical past as traders and merchants all came for a review. Not to mention a favourable mention of my favourite country in the Gulf, Oman. How can we talk if we didn’t talk about Zheng He/Cheng Ho?
We talked not only about the Jewish history but also the illustrious history of Islam along these shores, the wonderful book of Patricia Fels on Cochin Mosques and went off to look for the interesting tome of the history of the Dutch in Cochin. Perusing through ancient maps in the book, we were able to solve the mystery, much to the excitement of all of us that the building erroneously assigned to be the lighthouse was actually the remnants of the church. As usual in such discussions, the situation in the Gulf Countries, their imported labour and their glorious historical past as traders and merchants all came for a review. Not to mention a favourable mention of my favourite country in the Gulf, Oman. How can we talk if we didn’t talk about Zheng He/Cheng Ho?
Thoufeek Zakariya is an erudite historian, almost entirely self-taught
and has no equals in Fort Cochin. Lately to accommodate the rising tourist
trade, there has been self-appointed guardians of local history who are way off
mark (with notable exceptions of course) and also a plethora of extremely self-interested
foreign journalists who see who see in Fort Cochin a ripe fruit to pick up without
doing much background studies or work, thus on their first or third day of
visit, they begin sprouting articles and blogs to misinform the world and undo
the good work of the few illustrious historians such as Thoufeek.
He is a humble man, a pious Moslem but not a pedantic one, as he
would say, anti-Semitism among Moslems arise out of ignorance about Jews. You
realize when you talk to him that here is a man who has done his research in a
methodical, analytical fashion, not easily given to conjectures and
propositions
An impressive person, a Ft Cochin personality in the making, good
friend and a reliable academically oriented historian, we can expect a lot from
him, to unearth various treasures of this forgotten corner of a historic port.
