Indian Writing

For me, the Jewish graveyard is like a yardstick about how long we have been in India, as the names and dates are written in Hebrew, English and Marathi. So, even if we say our prayers in Hebrew, at heart we are Indian, as at home we speak Marathi, Gujarati or English.

Yet, the outsider syndrome continues to bother me, because at the synagogue, there are moments when I feel like a minority within a minority community, as I am not fully conversant with the rituals. I like being a Jew, but do not know how to be a good Jew…so I amuse friends by calling myself a good Jew, meaning Gujju…

In a series about global migration, the NYT looks at the Kerala story.

Men seeking wives place newspaper ads, describing themselves as “handsome, teetotaler, foreign-employed” or “God-fearing and working in Dubai.”

Elsewhere, a woman who went to the Middle East to work as a housemaid and labourer so that her husband could repay his debts. When she returned after two years, she found that he had squandered the money and was planning to marry another woman… The story ends in violent tragedy.