Chapter 9: In the footsteps of Kali

Next morning at 9.30 a.m Huck’s groom Akram arrived with the gig. He deposited Mimi at Mattencherry Palace, where she was met by two elegant young Indian females dressed in brightly coloured saris. Akram then drove me into Cochin where we visited a score of temples, the majority dedicated to either Vishnu, Shiva, Khrisna, or the elephant-headed god Ganesh. At each venue, I would show a Temple priest or Guardian the sketch of the Ankh, and Akram would ask if such a design decorated their temple. After a negative response from each one I was about to call it a day, but Akram informed me that we had one more temple to visit, one dedicated to Kali, the goddess worshipped by Thuggees. We pulled up outside the temple and I and Akram approached the portal guarded by a priest carrying a lathi, a heavy bamboo stick bound in iron. I pulled the sketch of the Ankh from my pocket, but as I walked towards him he menacingly raised his lathi and shouted at me in his native tongue. Akram motioned for me to go back to the gig, which I did while he pacified the irate guardian. After a moment or two, Akram came over to the gig.

“Give me the drawing, sahib, and I will show the priest.” I handed over the sketch and waited until Akram returned a few moments later. “The priest says there is no mark like this anywhere in the temple, sahib.”

“Why was he so angry when I approached him? Is it forbidden for Europeans to enter the temple?”

“Everyone and anyone may visit the temple, but there was a disturbance at the temple sparked by a European female some time ago. Since then all Europeans have been refused entry.”

“What happened?”

Akram pursed his lips. “The priest will only speak in Telegu, although he understands Malayalam well enough. My Telegu is adequate for most conversations but speaking to the priest of the Goddess Kali I found it difficult to fully understand him. It appears a European female offered to sell some slave girls to join the temple’s troupe of devadasis...”

“What are devadasis?”

“They are temple dancing girls who have dedicated their lives to the deity of the temple where they live. They use their talent to glorify the God or Goddess of their temple.” He gave what could only be regarded as a leer. “Some High Priests allow the devadasis to offer their bodies to worshipers for a fee.”

“In other words, they are religious harlots!”

“No sahib, they are entertainers, who use their bodies to glorify the deity. They pass all money received to the High Priest of the temple.”

“And it was the female trying to sell slaves that caused the disturbance?”

Akram frowned. “I could not quite understand from the priest what actually happened but somehow, during the confrontation between the High Priest and the European female, worshippers in the temple came to believe the woman was the reincarnation of the Goddess Kali. They started chanting Kali’s name and a crowd gathered, pushing and jostling to see this reincarnation. The temple guards drove off the woman and her servants, and peace was restored.”

“She had servants? What sort of servants?” I was having certain unpleasant thoughts as to who this European female might be.

“The priest described them as servants, but others thought they were Kali’s bodyguard as each carried a tulwah...” He saw my question forming on my lips and explained. “A tulwah is a sword, sahib, and the servants were not Indians.”

“When did this disturbance take place?”

Akram went back to ask the priest, who was still glaring at me from the portal of the temple.

“The priest says it was during the festival of Makara Vilakku, sahib.”

“When is that in the European calendar?”

Akram thought for some considerable time before answering. “That would be at the beginning of the month you call January, sahib.”

Eloise had left Pondicherry just after Christmas Day. If she had sailed to Cochin in the same dhow that had brought her from Egypt it could well be her and her Nubian guards who were involved in the fracas at the temple. But there had been no mention of any other European female, so where was Chastity Crudwright?

Leaving that question unanswered I decided to purchase some native clothing, thus ending the search for a temple with an ankh.

Akram steered me to a vendor, probably a relation, and I picked out two sets of mundu and kurta. Akram showed me how to tie the mundu so it would not undo, and I practised until he was satisfied I would not embarrass myself, or him, when walking about in the garment. I made to pay for the items and proffered a Marie Therese thaler, assuming it would be recognised and taken in exchange. The coin was recognised as legal tender along the Malabar Coast but unfortunately, the vendor did not have enough rupees to give me change. The items purchased came to one rupee and eight annas, and there are ten rupees to a thaler.

There was nothing for it but to search out a money changer and exchange thalers for rupees.

“There is a money changer in the next alley, sahib,” Akram said, and he led me through a chattering throng of brightly dressed Indians, past the open-fronted ‘shops’ offering all and any services – from cooked foods to haircuts – all transactions carried out on the pavement, or what passed for a pavement in Cochin. Fortunately, the money changer, Ramjam Bhutti, spoke English. It was a fractured and heavily accented variant of the noble language but at least we were able to converse without the help of a translator, which was just as well as Akram had other errands to attend to.

Bhutti examined the thaler closely, bit it, and then smiled. “This is a pukka thaler sahib, I will give you nine rupees and eight annas for your thaler, allowing me a commission of eight annas.”

I agreed to his fee, and we exchanged coins.

“I have not seen a thaler for many months,” he said. “Not since the commotion at the temple of Kali. The memsahib who instigated the fracas had changed ten thalers here not an hour before the disturbance. Had I known she was a trouble maker I would have charged her a higher commission.”

“Can you describe the memsahib?”

His description left me in no doubt that the woman was Eloise de La Zouche. I asked him if there was any other European female with her when she had changed her money.

“There were no other females with her but she was accompanied by two fierce-looking black men with tulwahs. I learned later that the memsahib had attempted to sell the slave girls who had arrived on the dhow with her to the temple...”

“How do you know she arrived on a dhow?”

“My brother-in-law, Gopal, is a trader in rice. The captain of the dhow wanted to purchase two hundred sacks of basmati rice. He told Gopal he had intended buying the rice in Pondicherry but had to leave port before he could contact a merchant. He blamed his passenger, the European memsahib, for having to leave Pondicherry so abruptly. While onboard my brother-in-law saw a half dozen or so young Arab girls who were for sale, or so the captain of the dhow told him.”

“Could they have been African or Indian girls?”

“Gopal said Arabs, but they could have been of any other race. Gopal knows much about rice but very little about females else he would not have married my sister.”

“Did the European memsahib leave on the dhow?”

“No, the dhow sailed for Muscat the day before the trouble at the temple.”

“How do you know the dhow sailed for Muscat?”

“The captain had told Gopal where he was bound when the rice was being loaded, and the dhow was from the Land of Sheba...”

“The Captain of the dhow was Omani, not Yemeni...”

“Yemen, Oman, they were both ruled by the Great Queen of Sheba. My ancestors accompanied her to her land after she had visited King Solomon...”

“You are Jewish? “ I asked in surprise. Ramjam Bhutti was no Jewish name, and he appeared to be a typical Indian; round-faced and slight of build, who spoke English in the sing-song cadence of Indians. I would have laid odds there was no trace of Jewish blood running in his veins.

“My ancestors were Cochin Jews. The Portuguese were amazed to find Jews and Thomas Christians here when they arrived. They soon set about persecuting the Jews, so my ancestors became Portuguese Christians. All that did was delay their persecution as the Portuguese suspected, rightly, that my ancestors had only converted in order not to be burnt at the stake.” Bhutti shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands in such a way I knew that he had Jewish blood. “What did they expect?”

He clapped his hands, and a young girl appeared as if summoned from a lamp. ‘Bhutti spoke to her in what I took to be Malayalam, the local language. When he had finished the girl nodded her head and scuttled away.

“I have ordered some chai and tiffin. We may as well enjoy the time before your man returns sahib.”

I did not know what tiffin was but imagined it would be food of some sort.

“So you are a Catholic, Mister Bhutti?”

“No, sahib. Jews who converted to Portuguese Christianity were later persecuted so my ancestors became Thomas Christians, those Jews who had been converted by Didymus Judas Thomas, who was a Jew of course. However, after persecuting Jewish Catholics the Portuguese turned their attention to the Thomas Christians, who it seems were also the wrong sort of Christians. My ancestors realised the only people not being persecuted were the Hindus, so they became Hindus.” He beamed at me. “I have visited every Hindu temple in a ten-mile radius of Cochin. There are two hundred and twenty-three!”

He sat back in his cushion with a degree of pride, as well he might. The young girl reappeared bearing a huge tray with two cups of chai and plates of tiffin. I had a startling flashback to Mollie March, as she was then, carrying a huge tray up to the bedroom the morning after my marriage to Caroline Ashford Braxton-Clark. For a short spell, I was in a different time and a different place until Bhutti proffered me a cup of chai, and I snapped back into the present with a question.

“You have visited over two hundred Hindu temples, Mister Bhutti? I wonder if you have ever come across this symbol?” I went to my pocket for the drawing of the ankh but then remembered I had given it to Akram to show the priest at the temple of Kali and it had not been returned. Instead, I took the amulet from around my neck and pointed to the ankh inscribed on it.

Ramjam Bhutti stared at the amulet and then at me. “You are the Gentile who returned the Star of David to the Chosen People! I am honoured to have you under my roof.”

“I thought you said you are now a Hindu... ?”

“Yes, I am a Hindu, but a Jewish Hindu, and one who knows the history of my people.” He shook my hand with a vigour I did not expect from such a diminutive person. “I shall return the eight annas commission, it is the least I can do.”

I said it was not necessary as he had already repaid me with his hospitality and information regarding the European female.

He beamed me a brilliant smile, well it would have been brilliant had he not been chewing betel nut and his teeth were stained a blood red.

“I can tell you more of the memsahib, “ he said. “She offered to sell six virgins to the High Priest of the Temple of Kali to be trained as devadasis and sexually entertain worshippers. As all six were virgins, the memsahib said, worshippers would pay a fortune to take their virginity. The High Priest was horrified, for three reasons. Firstly, slavery is abhorred in Kerala state, and those who are known to buy or sell young girls are not allowed to worship in temples. Secondly, Kali’s devadasis are not used to sexually entertain worshippers, as happens in temples dedicated to other deities. Thirdly, the imputation that a High Priest, a Brahmin, would lower himself to be a Gharwallah’ -- a brothel keeper -- was grossly insulting.”

“What happened to those girls, did they leave Cochin on the Omani dhow?”

“Gopal, my brother-in-law, was on the dhow just before it sailed. He saw no females; both holds were full of rice and copra with the crew sleeping on deck as there was no space below. Gopal did hear the shrieking of a female coming from the captain’s cabin, but he could not tell whether the shriek was in pain, pleasure, fear or ecstasy.”

“Could he tell if the female was European, Arab, Indian, or African?”

“I doubt even a man of the world would be able to deduce that just from a shriek, sahib, and Gopal is definitely not a man of the world else he would not have married my sister.” Bhutti thought awhile before continuing. “I expect the captain of the dhow had bought a young Indian girl in Pondicherry, where slavery is still rife, and one can purchase a virgin for ten rupees – a supposed virgin.” He drained his cup of chai and popped a medu vada into his mouth. “Gopal saw the memsahib, along with her retinue, leave port a few days later on the Shikaree. According to Gopal, there was a small crowd chanting ‘Kali, Kali, Kali’. as the vessel left harbour.”

“Where was Shikaree bound?”

Ramjam Bhutti shrugged. “Gopal did not say. The Shikaree is a local vessel and no doubt the harbourmaster will have details.”

I was still digesting that information, and a rather tasty upma, when Akram drew up with the gig. During the time I had been with Ramjam Bhutti several young boys had congregated in the street outside his shop. By the time Akram returned I estimate there were at least twenty of the snotty-nosed little ragamuffins milling about.

“They expect you to give them alms, sahib. They believe all sahibs have riches aplenty and it is their duty to give some of their money to those less fortunate.” Akram said.

I fished the eight annas from out of my pocket.

“This will not go very far unless I change another rupee for sixteen annas,” I said ruefully.

Ramjam Bhutti rose from his cushion. “Allow me, sahib.” He reached into his till and took out a handful of anna coins, to which he added the eight he had taken as commission for changing my thaler to rupees. He poured the lot into my hands. “Make sure to fling them far and wide, so that you can escape while they scrabble for the coins.”

I clapped him on the shoulder. “Spoken like a true Jew, Ramjam,” I said, and then flung a handful of annas to my right and another handful to my left. The ragamuffins bolted after the coins like a pack of John Peel’s hounds, allowing Akram and me to depart in relative anonymity.

We had returned to the clothes shop, where I paid for my purchases, and were heading towards Mattencherry Palace when Akram asked me if I had bought any sandals.

“You cannot wear boots with a mundu,” he said, pointing to my Barrat made boots with the concealed knife pocket.

“Do sahibs wear sandals, Akram?”

“No, they do not, sahib, but neither do they wear mundus!” He convulsed with laughter, and we nearly collided with a cow, who regarded us with the look of utter disdain I thought peculiar only to camels and Rossiter Player. Akram pulled to a halt outside a cobbler’s shop.