The start of our travels, a taxi to the little village of Chennamangalam to visit one of the first synagogues in Kerala, over 400 years old, and now beautifully restored. Kerala, sometimes called God's Own Country, with a reputation for tolerance between religions.
A respectful guide asking if I am Jewish, I try to explain that the line was broken when my great great grandfather Cohen from Germany married a gentile, my great grandfather possibly choosing business over religion when he emigrated to Manchester.
Our plan is to try and meet with the Malayalam poet Kuzhur Wilson en route to Thrissur.
Sadly his mother has died a few days before but he says ' Please still come'
Our driver constantly making contact via mobile phone for directions, we rendezvous by a bridge. Wilson jumps into the front seat of our taxi, we grasp hands in condolence. We are invited to his house for lunch.
On the way he directs the driver down narrow winding roads and we arrive at a river with huge boulders, and a tiny Shiva temple. A quiet spiritual place.
Then on toward his farm where again we stop in the middle of wide open paddy fields to look across to an island of palm trees where his dream is to open a writers retreat, a Temple of Poetry.
Then on to the Catholic village church graveyard to pay our respects to his mum, buried three days before.
Then to his home, where Agnes Annam his six year old daughter has been waiting in anticipation of our visit for five hours, a beaming smile!
We ate the best Thali ever, made with home grown organic vegetables. They will not eat non-veg for 41 days. He brings a photo of his mum to the table.
Mary his wife is an English Lit teacher, loves Shakespeare, dreams of visiting Poets' Corner, tells us how lucky she was that her parents allowed her to marry for love, how the good education for women in Kerala gets wasted as once married they are expected to live a life of domesticity.
As we leave Mary says ' We are secular '
