Yes­ter­day, Anne Cher­ian wrote about vis­it­ing the syn­a­gogue of the Cochin Jews in India. She will be blog­ging here all week for Jew­ish Book Coun­cil and MyJew­ish­Learn­ing. 

My moth­er wasn’t the only Jew in our small town in India. There was Aun­ty Ruby and her fam­i­ly before they immi­grat­ed to Israel, and there was always Aun­ty Sarah. Aun­ty Sarah was a won­der­ful seam­stress, and when I was tak­ing Bharat Natyam class­es, she made me a bag to hold the bells that went around my ankles when I danced. Sewn at the bot­tom, in a loop, were a string of bright blue beads. I kept the bag long after I stopped danc­ing, because she had part­ed with the beads – so pre­cious because they were from Israel – for me, and so they were dou­bly precious.

When her niece and nephew vis­it­ed from Bom­bay, I played with Riv­ka and Rueben. Years lat­er, when I was study­ing toward my first master’s degree at Bom­bay Uni­ver­si­ty, Rivka’s grand­par­ents, whom I called Granny and Grand­pa, became my guardians (every stu­dent from out of town need­ed a guardian who could take care of her should the need arise). Grand­pa died while I was there, and that was the first Jew­ish cer­e­mo­ny I attend­ed. No one cel­e­brat­ed the high hol­i­days; it was usu­al­ly birth and death that brought out our Jew­ish faith.

When I came to study at Berke­ley, my involve­ment and knowl­edge of all things Jew­ish grew expo­nen­tial­ly. Mom’s cousin, Uncle Bob and his wife Bar­bara, took me to the syn­a­gogue in San Fran­cis­co, and I had my very first Passover with their fam­i­ly. It was at a love­ly hotel, and I was starv­ing by the time the wait­ers served the plates. I saw this pale green, flower-shaped puree in the mid­dle of the plate, and popped it into my mouth. Next thing I knew, my eyes were smart­ing and I was reach­ing for water. It was horse­rad­ish…and how we all laughed, because read­ing about it isn’t the same as see­ing it – or tast­ing the bitterness.

By the time I was writ­ing The Invi­ta­tion, I felt very com­fort­able hav­ing a Jew­ish char­ac­ter. Con­fes­sion: I am very lazy about research­ing, but every­thing, from Jonathan Feinstein’s name to his sud­den inter­est in hav­ing a Bar Mitz­vah for his son, came right out of my own knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence. When I did a read­ing in San Fran­cis­co, Aun­ty Bar­bara came along with her care­tak­er. She hadn’t read the nov­el yet, and I hoped she would get a kick out of see­ing her daughter’s name, Ellen Krueger, who appears as a minor character.

Anne Cher­ian was born and raised in Jamshed­pur, India. She lives in Los Ange­les, Cal­i­for­nia, and vis­its India reg­u­lar­ly. Her sec­ond book, The Invi­ta­tion, is now avail­able. Read the final part of her posts for the Vis­it­ing Scribe here.
Born in India to an Amer­i­can Jew­ish moth­er and Indi­an father, Anne came to study com­par­a­tive lit­er­a­ture (Eng­lish, Clas­si­cal Greek) at Berke­ley and meet her Amer­i­can fam­i­ly. She stayed on to pur­sue her dream of being a writer. The Invi­ta­tion, her sec­ond nov­el, fea­tures Lali, an Indi­an, who mar­ries Jonathan, a Jew­ish doc­tor, the cou­ple being a reverse of her parents.