The Peacock’s Tale

As David herself admits, she began by thinking that she would write the history of the Jews in India — but slowly as she unearthed old documents, letters, photographs — vistas unknown unfolded, peopled with legendary characters and wondrous tales, David began to then assimilate, part fiction and part fact, to re-create lives of Bene Israel, or the Children of Israel, in India.

Obviously, the task is awesome. For instance, in India the spiritualism of so many eras blur (as they very well should) ritualistic endeavours. And so, when David’s Jewish ancestor Bathsheba prays, she worshipfully puts at the feet of the Nagdeva a lamp, five coconuts and some flowers.

But at the same time, she also takes a vow to journey to Sagav, near Kandala. According to legend, here lies the relic of the Eliyahu Hannabi cha tapa — the hoof mark of the Prophet Elijah’s chariot, embedded on a stone. It is said that he had come to Alibaug from Mount Sinai, on his way to heaven after leaving Israel.

The assimilation of David’s early ancestors into the Indian subcontinent is similarly of mixed mythology — while escaping from the Greek ruler Antioch, seven Bene Israel couples had been swept in a shipwreck onto the Konkan coast. According to popular belief, it is mentioned in the Puranas that when the fourteen corpses lay on the Konkan coast, Parshuram, who was circling the earth and realised that the fourteen foreigners belonged to an ancient race, brought them to life.

From that Puranic beginning, David brings us into a very contemporary world. The family she has re-created symbolises each era — but unfortunately, as she describes in her own “story” as well, demonstrates very little freedom outside the Bene Israel community, for the women and the children.

On the heartening side, however, is her father’s involvement with animals — which ultimately leads to the setting up of a zoo, in Ahmedabad. The relationship between her family and their animal kingdom is at times more tender than their inter-personal affairs, and that is where the book is poignant, but not sentimental.

But perhaps some of the most touching moments in the book belong to Esther’s own story. It is so brutally honest — and so disarming — that even if only very little of it is autobiographical it is rare to find this kind of bare-to-the-bones truth.

David has managed to encompass many disparate elements into her book — the history of the Indian Jews, the growth of a family and their love for the animal world — and she has even managed to bring in the impact of identity and dislocation. Both as a woman looking for the ideal “life partner” as well as the Jew who returns to Israel trying to find her final home.

Finally, Book of Esther makes riveting reading, because David has not only revealed to most of us a community about which we know very little in India, but also because she tells the story in an unbroken chain with each new person, animal or place to whom we are introduced, leaving a firm, indelible impact. Much like the impression in mud of a peacock’s footprint, which her grandmother carried with her like a lucky mascot.