https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i2.035
Migration as a Narrative Trope: A Critical Study of Kerala Jews in Select Works
JESLIN MERY JOHN
Guest Faculty,
Santhom Malankara Arts and Science College
Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
PROF. (DR) ASHA SUSAN JACOB
Principal
Bishop Speechly College for Advanced Studies
Kottayam, Kerala
Abstract: The lived experiences of each diasporic community are starkly different from one another, yet the repatriation to one’s homeland is a shared dream cherished by almost every member of a diasporic population. For the Jewish population settled in India, the very word aliyah (meaning a return to Israel) rings a bell to the scrambled emotions lying dormant in their collective memory. Setting foot in the holy land of Israel has been the greatest ambition the Indian Jews sought after. However, when confronted with the sudden prospect of permanent migration, they reel under the strenuous task of extricating the ligature with the land of their birth. Such rumbling vignettes of migration, for the most part, are documented in artistic works in a better light than official histories. The paper which examines the literary and visual representations of the Jews of Kerala makes a comparative study of the Malayalam novel Aliyah and the Malayalam film Gramophone, the narratives which lend an insight into the historical circumstances and the political underpinnings behind the mass exodus of the Kerala Jews. The juxtaposing of these migration narratives provides a panoptic overview of the subtleties and complexities of what humans psychologically go through while tackling spatial displacement. Their fictional canvases unveil how positionality and selfhood are connected, and how the forces of migration intersect with people’s personal choices, thereby unsettling the fixity of home and roots. More importantly, they function as historical and cultural narratives, reimagining a momentous convergence of temporalised space and spatialised time.
Keywords: Migration, Diaspora, Identity, Minority, Kerala Jews
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