A Home Away From Home
Home is often more than a dwelling, transcending the boundaries of four walls to something more intangible. A home can be a sentiment defined by the place and people coming together to form a dynamic multicultural community. 26 year old Danish Muzamil stands as a prime example of that. “I decided to leave my home and move to Kochi 3 years ago to help my brother with his business,” he says. Sitting in the store that he runs with his brother, far away from his home, his Kashmir, Danish goes on to tell his story. And in his voice echo a hundred other voices, all narrating the story of finding a home away from their homes.
“My brother came here in 2007 and he set up this shop. He came here for a good business opportunity but ended up finding his second home here. He started liking Kochi so much that he adopted its food, language and culture as his own. Today he can speak Malyalam fluently, as good as any local!” Hailing from Srinagar, Danish decided to join his brother in 2016, right after he finished his graduation. A fairly recent addition to the growing Kashmiri trader community, which has been doing swift business in the beach towns of Fort Kochi and Mattancherry, Danish sells jewelry, carpets, and handicrafts in the mornings and afternoons, and spends his evenings with his fellow traders. “Kochi is very peaceful and the people here are welcoming, so it wasn’t very difficult to settle here. I still do miss my home in Kashmir, but we have a tight-knit albeit small community of Kashmiris around us, so we all get by,” says Danish.
Kochi, a city that has welcomed ethnic groups from various parts of the country for centuries, received the Kashmiris too with its traditional warmth. With the onset of the 21st century, as the Jews of Mattencherry slowly started to return to their homeland, the vacuum was filled by the Kashmiris taking over the shops and houses vacated by them. While one community diminished, a new culture started blooming in the timeworn lanes of Jewtown. A lane that was once full of antique stores and Jewish homes slowly started filling up with Kashmiri trinkets and Pashminas. “In the 1990s, there were hardly two or three Kashmiri shops in Jewtown. But, as business boomed and tourists expressed interest, people from back home started moving here,” says Danish. Today, Fort Kochi and Mattancherry, which beckons tourists from all over the world, has given this trading community ample chance to flourish in their business.
A stroll through Synagogue Lane will bring you face to face with exquisite collections of handicrafts and antiques from the Valley, carefully curated and displayed by these Kashmiri businessmen. Ranging from various products like handicraft, papier mache items, carpets, jewelry and the famous Pashminas, you can get a quick glimpse of Kashmir in the midst of Kochi’s sweltering heat. “While most of the goods get delivered to our stores here, it’s the Pashminas and carpets that we carefully curate. On our trips back home, we usually pick them out, and bring them back with us to ensure that they are handled safely,” says Mushtaq Drabu, yet another Kashmiri of Jewtown. And if you are wondering who buys these warm Pashminas, well he has an answer for that too. “We get a lot of tourists from all over the world, but it is mostly the Europeans who express their interest in the shawls. Sometimes a few NRI tourists are interested as well, but that’s quite rare. During our off-season, even the locals drop by to buy our things, but of course, they never touch our shawls,” jokes Mushtaq.
Much like Danish and his brother, 32 year old Mushtaq made his way from Kashmir in 2012, in search of business opportunities. “In the seven years that I have spent here, I have never been made to feel like an outsider. The people of Kochi are friendly and peace-loving and have accepted us as one of their own. I am very happy in Mattancherry and we Kashmiris have found a new family here. We celebrate together, we grieve together and even conduct silent protests together during times of trouble in Kashmir,” says Mushtaq. But of course, the longing for one’s homeland never goes away. Most Kashmiris settled in Mattancherry have left their families behind and mostly during off-season, they return to spend a few months with them. “I have left behind my parents in Kashmir, so I always make it a point to go back for a month or two every year,” says Mushtaq.
On asking Danish what he likes most about his life in Kochi, he says, “Well, it is not just work for me. I get to meet so many people coming from so many different countries. I get to learn new things from them every day! I have even picked up different languages like French, German and Russian by making small talk with the tourists who drop by this shop. But the best part is that they give me a glimpse into their culture and I give them a glimpse into mine.”
