Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
When Jewish women crooned in Malayalam
|
There was a time when the Jewish women in Kochi sang Malayalam songs. With the community's population shrinking rapidly, gone was this practice and the songs. K. PRADEEP meets Dr Scaria Zachariah who is on a mission to salvage these songs.
|
Prof. Sarah Cohen
THE EFFORTS of a New York anthropologist and a Malayalam language professor have helped save the musical heritage of the Jewish women of Kochi. For nearly 50 years songs in handwritten notebooks had been tucked away in drawers, next to the folded saris and other prized possessions. Most of them, written in rounded, feminine letters, the pages turned yellow through age, are artefacts of an endangered culture.
Kochi was home to a small Jewish community for perhaps nearly 2,000 years. Here, unlike other orthodox communities, the Jews did not follow the Talmudic injunction against women singing in public. For centuries women in Kochi performed to songs written in Malayalam. Every woman had her own song notebook that she used to carry to the community celebrations.
The songs, which they jotted down, were passed through the generations. Most of these are Biblical narratives that incorporate classical Midrash, some with a delightful Indian twist and even with strong folk overtones. These songs demonstrated the knowledge of the women in various texts, which in Jewish culture were usually restricted to men. These learned grannies and aunties, literate in both Hebrew and Malayalam, had an ear for poetry, music and a flair for language.
Kochi is one of the very few places in the world where the Jews can claim centuries of peaceful coexistence with the local population. But today only a handful of them live here, the synagogues and other homes which once echoed with the sounds of women singing, dressed in their fine saris, jasmine flowers neatly plaited into their dark hair, are silent now. But a world away, in Israel, the great-great-granddaughters now get together regularly once a month for the past two years, to snatch from oblivion the liturgy and songs, to loop them, all valuable pearls into a string that will last.
And the catalysts for this revival are Barbara C. Johnson, professor of anthropology at Ithaca College in New York, who has been studying the Cochini Jews in Israel since the early 1970's and Dr. Scaria Zachariah, professor of Malayalam, at the Sree Sankara University of Sanskrit, Kalady.
Dr. Zachariah is collaborating with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Ben Zvi Institute in publishing a book of the songs in Malayalam with translations into English. Also on the anvil is a CD of the songs to be produced with the assistance of Edwin Seroussi of the Jewish Music Research Centre.
When the Jews migrated to Israel they carried the songbooks with them. But there the Malayalam song performance declined to a bare minimum till this revival. Though the Cochini Jews preserved many aspects of their unique culture the Malayalam songs were almost lost mainly due to the declining use of this language and the limited time they got for traditional celebrations. In the late 70's and 80's tape-recorded versions of these songs, used mainly for research and documentation did not affect the wider community. A video recording of their `kalipattu' was widely circulated in the community there and remains an invaluable existing record of the dance steps and clapping involved in this performance, for the contemporary women who wished to learn the dance steps and of course for the researchers.
Prof. Scaria Zachariah
The turning point for the Malayalam songs came with the first visit of Dr. Zachariah to Israel in 2000. The Malayalam-language presentation at a Moshav Nevatim programme and his personal meeting with the members of the community stoked the embers of this dying fire. He spoke to the gathering in Malayalam and this was enough to break the ice. It was as though they were transported to their childhood that was filled with sounds of Malayalam, scent of spices from the bazaars and the kaleidoscope of brightly coloured saris.
"I was invited to translate and decipher the archaic language used in these songs. It was a daunting task because over the generations the songs had been hand copied. So puzzling textual variations had entered the texts. To further complicate matters most of these songs were written in archaic Malayalam, which were not fully comprehensible to the Jews themselves. Moreover, there were rustic, localised words, words that were broken off during the course of singing, all that turned understanding them difficult," says Dr. Zachariah, an expert in 16th century Malayalam.
"No one really taught these songs. There was an old lady who used to come every Saturday and take me to the synagogue. She used to force me into singing the hymns and also initiated me into the songs. There were a few seniors who used to lead the song sessions in which I joined. Once they left I was the only one who knew how to sing them. I used to gather a few women and sing these songs during those special occasions. Now, after the death of my husband, I have stopped singing and there is hardly anyone who knows to sing anymore, at least, in Kochi," says Sarah Cohen whose voice has been recorded and who, along with her husband Jacob E. Cohen, have been very important sources in the collection and translation efforts.
Most of the songs are associated with weddings and the many specific sequence of rituals during a wedding. There were songs for the making of the silver betrothal ring, the tying of the `tali,' the boiling of raisin wine for the wedding blessings, the bride's emerging from the ritual bath and the procession of the bridegroom to the synagogue. There are others that contain advice to the bride or the groom on how to lead a good Jewish life, others that praise the beautiful bride and the handsome bridegroom.
There are special occasion songs designated for the time of circumcision and a few for other cycle of events; blessing songs and the kalipattu which were performed along with dances similar to the kaikottikali dances. In Kochi, the members of the Kadavumbhagam community performed the dances.
It was Dr. Zachariah's zeal to pass on this heritage to the world that made this an international project. Dr. Zachariah and Albrecht Frenz have published a book with German translations of 28 Malayalam Jewish songs. He has presented a paper on `Understanding Jewish Malayalam Songs' at a seminar on Indian Studies and Jews at Oxford and now the a bilingual publication of the songs is ready for release. "These songs in Malayalam and Hebrew, is titled `Karkuzhali.' It will, we hope, be accessible to the members of the community, the few in Kerala and those in Israel. Ophira Gamliel has done the Hebrew translation and commentary. In fact, it was Prof. David Schulman of the Hebrew University who introduced Ophira. This volume is a major landmark in the continuing evolution of the hyphenated Kerala-Jewish culture. It is a tribute to all those who had earlier worked towards the preservation of this rich culture," feels Dr. Zachariah.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
|
