Came down from the hills yesterday, but it took me a day to figure out that blogger.com requires Windows XP. A lot of machines in old Fort Cochin (am just down the street from a church built in 1503 by Vasco di Gama and his friends) are still using Windows 2000. What would Vasco say? Well, it would probably be in Portuguese but I have the feeling that he must have learned some Malayali in his time here. Of course people have been trading off this coast for its spices long before he showed up. Part of which gives this part of India a very open, cosmopolitan feel. Christians (the orthodox Syrian Church ) claim St. Thomas (the one with the doubts) founded churches here, some converts coming from the earlier Jewish communities (spice traders). The multiplicity of religions and their relative weight (Muslims about 15%, Christians about 24%), the rest Hindus, some animists give this State more of a secular feel than Tamil Nadu...fewer people with "tiklas" on their foreheads and, I realized today, NO cows wandering about. Funny the things you get used to and then all of a sudden miss. Yet again the familiar becoming unfamiliar becoming familiar...no wonder Shiva takes so many forms. The picture by the way comes from a shop in "Jew Town" (yes it's called that in all the guidebooks and street signs) a few blocks away. Which is now not really Jewish anymore, but mostly run by Rajastani traders in crafts and antiques.
