30-12-2018- FIRST POST – by Shikha Kumar
In the late 50s, Esther David was in Mumbai for a cousin’s wedding when she discovered a housing society in Jacob Circle, where a lot of Jews lived. Born and brought up in a house in Ahmedabad, she was intrigued by this concept – members of her community living in different apartments in the same complex. Over five decades later, in 2012, she was in the city again when she stumbled upon another such housing society, near a synagogue in Thane. Given their diminishing numbers – many Indian Jews had immigrated to Israel and other countries in the decades since – the society stood for a wonderful sense of preservation. The novel takes us into Shalom India Housing Society, a fictional complex in Ahmedabad…through interlinked stories, we’re introduced to a host of characters….and the various tenants who move in and out of A-107, an apartment owned by Juliet and Romiel….and move to Israel.
David decided to place the society in Ahmedabad, as it’s a city she knows best. “I believe in what R.K. Narayan said, that you write about what you know best. All my novels and books are set here.”
A common thread running through many of the stories is marriage – as members of the society get together to match-make, with some moving to and from Ahmedabad to Mumbai, Alibaug, Panvel and Pen….Today, many Jewish women in Ahmedabad are from Bombay.”Bombay Brides takes an evocative look at the rites, rituals and traditions of the Bene Israel Jews.
It’s the women’s stories in Bombay Brides that draw you in… she says. “In fact, with any religion, it’s the women who preserve traditions. How do they cope? With every character, I created a situation where I have tried to solve some such problem.” Every chapter begins with an illustration of the character, sketched by David….Nissim Ezekiel, the late Sahitya Akademi Award-winning poet, also a Bene Israel Jew, was David’s role model. “Whenever I met him, we would talk about a lot about cross-cultural conflicts and how we survived as Jews in a country like India, which is so multi-dimensional. We live in the land of four million gods and goddesses and yet, retain our identity.” She terms it the “Jewish secret life…the minute we enter a synagogue, we cover our hair, men wear the kippa and we say our prayers in Hebrew. Everything transforms.”….David’s interest in Judaism deepens with every book she writes.
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9-12-2019- Ahmedabad Mirror – SMALL TALK with ESTHER DAVID by Shruti Paniker – LOVE IN FLAT NUMBER 107
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Bombaty Brides speaks to the diminishing community of Bene Israel Jews, their sense of loss and their struggle to preserve their identity in a multi-cultural space like India.
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8-2-2019 – Fresh Press
Bombay Brides is set in the Shalom Housing society in Ahmedabad, Gujrat. It is largely a collection of stories, told by women, where a character in one makes an appearance in a bigger role in another. The title comes from the reason that many women from Mumbai (Bombay) came to Ahmedabad by marriage and they were called the ‘Bombay Brides’. The style of stories of different residents contributing to the bigger narrative reminded me of Elif Shafaks’s The Flea Palace…The cultural nuances of Indian Jews woven into the novel makes Bombay Brides a compelling read. There is a chant about the barter of goats sung during Passover, women who know Biblical kirtans in Marathi, offering of flowers on graves unlike Israeli Jews who place pebbles, Yom Kippur celebrations and bar mitzvahs. There is ample food in the form of dates sheera, Matzo bread bhakhris, sweetened poha, chicken biriyani, Alphonso mangoes, mutton curry in red masala and lots of ice cream. Each chapter had so many varieties of food, though not in a highly descriptive fashion, and by the end of the book, I really wanted more.
The cast of Bombay Brides is quite eclectic – a volunteer who comes for Torah studies and disappears like Prophet Elijah, a Romeo-Juliet-ish love story, a woman who interprets dreams, a widow who meets a Casanova, match making aunties and a Bollywood crazy Israeli woman. There were women who longed to work, a dark skinned woman who are insecure since the groom does not answer whether he likes her skin colour (reminded me of Katherine Mansfield’s A cup of Tea where the spoilt wife asks whether she is pretty) and a woman with facial hair. The stories revolve around relationships, roots, heritage, the idea of home and are a wonderful testament to the daily lives of Bene Israel Jews of western India. Prophet Elijah makes frequent appearances, sometimes as a saint to whom prayers are offered and sometimes steering the story away from an imminent incident, thus making some stories a bit magical. The book also has illustrations drawn by the author herself. Each chapter was an invite into the lives of women, told through simple lunches of chappati and dal or elaborate dishes of pilaf and ice cream. It was glorious that I felt they all lived in a building next door.
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January 2019 – JEWISH RENAISSANCE – Sephardi magazine published in London.
PUKKA AHMEDABAD – LUNCH WITH ESTHER DAVID in AHMEDABAD – written by Adrian Whittle (travel and architecture writer)
….one of the major problems for the Jews of Ahmedabad is finding a marriage partner. Young people generally seek a spouse in Mumbai, which is still home to more than 3000 Jews or go overseas, particularly to Israel. Whilst, this ensures Jewish continuity, it does not always help sustain the local community, as Mumbai brides often prefer to remain in their home-city and don’t want to move to Gujarat. This issue is also the subject of Bombay Brides, the latest novel of Ahmedabad native and award-winning author Esther David….she is one of the few Jewish writers to have written about Indian Jews. After, three fascinating hours with her, I left thinking; how her work is preserving the tradition of a small community.
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15-12-2019
Blog – Khushboo Sharma – Esther David – Her Latest Novel “Bombay Brides” And The Indian Jewish World That It Brings To Life.
…David has taken upon her shoulders the task to chronicalize the life of Indian Jews, a quaint small section of India’s population that always manages to leave everyone intrigued.
Thus, David’s second and the latest novel Bombay Brides is based in Shalom India Housing Society, Ahmedabad. The block A of Shalom is inhabited entirely by Jews, while Block B is inhibited by a mix of other communities. It is a fictional society fashioned out of similar housing societies in Mumbai.
Explaining why she decided to set the novel in Ahmedabad, David says, “I believe in what RK Narayan said, that you write about what you know best. All my novels and books are set here.”
Marriage is one of the central themes in her novel that binds all the stories together. Thus, characters in the novel are seen matchmaking and also moving to and fro from one city to another for perspective alliances. In fact, this is how the novel got its title.
David explains, “In the 1850s, a lot of young Jewish men moved from Alibaug to Ahmedabad, as part of the British services. And when it was time for them to get married, they started looking for brides in Bombay. Soon Jewish women from Bombay were moving to Ahmedabad. Today, many Jewish women in Ahmedabad are from Bombay.” The book also gives us a sneak peek into the culture and tradition of Bene Israel. It is a community of Jews which is unique for its amalgamation of Jewish and Marathi mannerisms, a community that prays Prophet Elijah and speaks fluent Marathi.
Speaking on the religious angle of the novel, David shares, “Prophet Elijah is a relatively new entry in my life… since the last 15 years. Jews across the world are not allowed to worship any idols or posters or pictures. Indian Jews are the only ones who do. It’s believed that he used to be in Haifa, Israel and on his way to heaven, he passed through India, leaving a mark on a rock in Alibaug. There are several stories about him in the Torah, the Jewish Bible.”
However, the heart of the novel lies in all the women’s stories that it has to tell. For instance, there is the story of Ariella and her husband who had a dream life in Israel until they decided to move back to Ahmedabad. The story of Golda, an exceptional musician, is particularly moving. She is seen leaving her controlling husband when he tries exercising force on her for singing in public.
David says that the stories which have been assimilated in the book do not concern anyone in particular but rather the entire human condition in general. Like she shares, “I’m always on the side of the women. I structured the stories around the human condition… how difficult it’s getting for women to try to keep a profession. They’re all highly educated – music and education are a big part of Jewish upbringing – but the rituals and traditions are quite strict,” she says. “In fact, with any religion, it’s the women who preserve traditions. How do they cope? With every character, I created a situation where I have tried to solve some such problem.”
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15-12-2019
Blog – Khushboo Sharma – Esther David On Her Latest Novel “Bombay Brides” And The Indian Jewish World That It Brings To Life
Esther David published her first novel, The Walled City, at an age that isn’t conventionally considered idle to start a new career. However, not only did David absolutely shatter that stereotype by writing a successful novel at 50 but also made it clear that she is not backing off or stopping any time soon.
Recollecting how things turned out in her favour, she shares, “I was not sure if it would work, but it did. And suddenly there was an explosion when it was translated into French, and I was introduced to a lot of people. That I came from Ahmedabad was surprising, as most people thought Jews are in Bombay. I realised that very few Indian Jews had written about their community, the little there was it was by foreign Jews.”
Thus, David has taken upon her shoulders the task to chronicalize the life of Indian Jews, a quaint small section of India’s population that always manages to leave everyone intrigued.
Thus, David’s second and the latest novel Bombay Brides is based in Shalom India Housing Society, Ahmedabad. The block A of Shalom is inhabited entirely by Jews, while Block B is inhibited by a mix of other communities. It is a fictional society fashioned out of similar housing societies in Mumbai.
Explaining why she decided to set the novel in Ahmedabad, David says, “I believe in what RK Narayan said, that you write about what you know best. All my novels and books are set here.”
Marriage is one of the central themes in her novel that binds all the stories together. Thus, characters in the novel are seen matchmaking and also moving to and fro from one city to another for perspective alliances. In fact, this is how the novel got its title.
David explains, “In the 1850s, a lot of young Jewish men moved from Alibaug to Ahmedabad, as part of the British services. And when it was time for them to get married, they started looking for brides in Bombay. Soon Jewish women from Bombay were moving to Ahmedabad. Today, many Jewish women in Ahmedabad are from Bombay.” The book also gives us a sneak peek into the culture and tradition of Bene Israel. It is a community of Jews which is unique for its amalgamation of Jewish and Marathi mannerisms, a community that prays Prophet Elijah and speaks fluent Marathi.
Speaking on the religious angle of the novel, David shares, “Prophet Elijah is a relatively new entry in my life… since the last 15 years. Jews across the world are not allowed to worship any idols or posters or pictures. Indian Jews are the only ones who do. It’s believed that he used to be in Haifa, Israel and on his way to heaven, he passed through India, leaving a mark on a rock in Alibaug. There are several stories about him in the Torah, the Jewish Bible.”
However, the heart of the novel lies in all the women’s stories that it has to tell. For instance, there is the story of Ariella and her husband who had a dream life in Israel until they decided to move back to Ahmedabad. The story of Golda, an exceptional musician, is particularly moving. She is seen leaving her controlling husband when he tries exercising force on her for singing in public.
David says that the stories which have been assimilated in the book do not concern anyone in particular but rather the entire human condition in general. Like she shares, “I’m always on the side of the women. I structured the stories around the human condition… how difficult it’s getting for women to try to keep a profession. They’re all highly educated – music and education are a big part of Jewish upbringing – but the rituals and traditions are quite strict,” she says. “In fact, with any religion, it’s the women who preserve traditions. How do they cope? With every character, I created a situation where I have tried to solve some such problem.”
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26-1-2019
Deccan Chronicle – Lifestyle, Books and Art
‘Building’ Ties
DECCAN CHRONICLE. | CHERYLANN MOLLAN
Monochrome illustrations of women peeking out of windows dot the yellow book jacket of Sahitya Akademi Award-winning author, Esther David’s latest novel BombayBrides. The intriguing book brings to life Esther’s fictional Shalom India Housing Society (SIHS), a residential building in Ahmedabad populated by Bene Israel Jews. As we move from one chapter to the next, the author nudges us into the homes, lives and minds of the occupants, weaving a web of stories that bring to light not just Jewish traditions, rituals and dietary preoccupations, but also Jewish community life, cultural conflicts experienced by them and their umbilical connection to Israel.
Esther, who has penned many books on her dwindling community (“At the moment, we are about 140 Jews in Ahmedabad. We regularly meet at the Synagogue and are a close-knit community,” she says), shares an anecdote that reveals how SIHS came to be. “At age seven, I was bridesmaid for a cousin’s wedding in Mumbai with a cousin older than me and we were to accompany the bride into the Synagogue while holding her veil. On the next day, after the wedding, we accompanied the newly married couple to their new home at Jacob Circle. This was in the late fifties and early sixties when Bene Israel Jews lived in a housing society. While researching for my other novels, I discovered another Jewish housing society at Thane, Mumbai. This is how SIHS came into existence. It has been the stage for almost all my novels, as it is a city I know best,” says Esther.
And Bombay Brides, (a title inspired by the fact that most Jewish men in Ahmedabad are married to women from Mumbai) too starts off with a story about the newly-married Romiel and Juliet, who, after moving to Israel, rent out their A-107 apartment in SIHS to Jews visiting or living in the city. And through the apartment’s tenants, Esther brings to life different people and personalities, each with their own strengths, failings, stories and quirks. There is… the angst-ridden musician, Raphael, the fabulous cook with a penchant for gossiping…and several others…Esther says…..I created Lisa or Yael (characters in the book) after meeting many Lisas and Yaels and put them into one character…The book also has Prophet Elijah, also known an Eliahu Hannavi, who flits in and out of homes, smoothing bumps in the lives of his devotees…While the book encourages us to look closely at the Indian Jewish community, the reader doesn’t feel like an outsider, because Esther, through the fates of her characters, touches upon themes that are universal in their appeal. And so, we see reflected in the book the power of faith, the capricious nature of fate, the need for connection and acceptance, the pain of separation and the trials and joys that come with belonging to a community. But brace yourself for the last chapter, because it drives home a message that is important in this era of divisive politics and unending wars — that hate does well in starting wars, but it does the opposite to personal stories. Esther David’s latest novel explores the lives of inhabitants in a building, and through this, the aspirations, fears and preoccupations of the Bene Israel Jewish community.
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13-1-2019- EYE- THE SUNDAY EXPRESS MAGAZINE of THE INDIAN EXPRESS.
Interview of Esther David with Alaka Sahani
In her latest book, BOMBAY BRIDES, Jewish author-artist Esther David strings together 18 stories of love and loss, set in a flat in a Housing Society in Ahmedabad that is rented out to tenants from the Bene Israel Jewish community, by a young couple, which has moved to Israel. Through these fictional and quirky accounts, Esther David, who received the 2010 Sahitya Akademi Award, describes what it means to be the last members of a diminishing community, with all its idiosyncrasies. Esther David says, “ “It is a balancing act to retain the Jewish ethos in multi-cultural country like India.”
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14-12-2019 THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS, CHENNAI.
“BOOKS – at a Glance” – BOMBAY BRIDES.
Tag-lined stories of love and loss in a transit flat, BOMBAY BRIDES is about home heritage, rites, rituals and roots. It offers Esther David’s evocative observations of the last surviving members of a community, accompanied by exquisite illustrations.
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21-1-2019
India Today – Book Review
Love and Loss in an Apartment – by Joanna Lobo
Esther David is known for her writings on the Jewish experience in India. David sets her stories in Ahmedabad. Bombay Brides is set in a fictional Shalom India Housing Society. Each chapter talks about one ‘Bombay Bride,’ – for that is where most Jewish men in Ahmedabad found their wives….the stories are about Jewish women, their problems are familiar, unfaithful and violent husbands, women treated as servants, their lives stifled and bound by convention and their innocence used against them. Some women rise above circumstances and take decisions to better their lives, like Golda who leaves abusive husband and goes on to become a successful singer. But, all of them are strong characters with unique identities, supported by a tight-knit community. Theirs are stories of longing, of the romantic nature, but also for an identity and their search for home; in prose that is simple but evocative.
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‘Esther David’s world has no boundaries; the Jewish experience in India is what she knows best.’ Nona Walia, Sunday Times
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‘Esther David’s novels are about the Indian Jewish people; they are full of colour and remind one of Isaac Bashevis Singer and his Polish spirit’ – Marie-France Calle, Le Figaro
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Blurb – HarperCollins
Stories of Love and Loss in a Transit Flat.
When Juliet Abraham, who is Jewish, has a runaway marriage with Rahul Abhiram, a Hindu, their families are initially furious but soon relent. They buy the couple an apartment in Shalom India Housing Society, Ahmedabad. However, once the couple leaves for Israel, they rent out the apartment to a series of tenants from the Bene Israel community, for each of whom it becomes the venue of an unfolding love story.
Myra comes to India from America to teach the Torah to Indian Jews. Wooed assiduously by Ezra, she instead escapes into a new life with a Hindu guru. Ruby rekindles an old flame, only to find out too late that men betray. Ilana, a strict and uptight police officer, is forced to meet potential grooms by her parents and realizes that it’s good to let loose sometimes. And Bollywood-crazy Sangita has many adventures in India as she tries to trace her grandmother’s grave. The mischievous Prophet Elijah, benevolently presiding over the small community, occasionally creates havoc but finally makes sure that peace prevails.
Bombay Brides is about home, heritage, rites, rituals and roots. It offers the delights of SahityaAkademi Award-winner Esther David’s exquisite light observations on what it means to be the last surviving members of a diminishing community, accompanied by her marvellous, evocative illustrations.
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Dr.Shweta Rao Garg – Assistant Professor, DA-IICT Ahmedabad –
Ahmedabad : City with a Past – April 2016
Reading this book is like talking a walk in the crowded walled city of Ahmedabad – it is fast paced, it takes you in a quick succession from one street to another, from one alleyway to the next, from the overbridge to under, from slums to plush malls, from medieval temples to dargahs. It is but natural that you are swayed way, lost in the labyrinths of the city, but hold on tight to the book, the author and the memory keeper, Esther David will guide you back safely in her favoured auto rickshaw for a breather at the banks of Sabarmati River, then drop you near one of the old gates, just so that you may lose yourself in the city and its past, yet again.
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Blurb – AHMEDABAD:CITY WITH A PAST – Esther David
HarperCollins Publishers India
ISBN 978-93-5029-787-1
(Paper back and ebook)
There are many legends around the founding of Ahmedabad. One has it that some time in 1411 AD, a dog was looking for easy prey on the bsanks of the river Sabarmati when a hare attacked him and drove him away. Sultan Ahmed Shah witnessed the scene and, impressed by the hare’s spirit, decided to build a city right there.
Six hundred years later, Ahmedabad is a city at the intersection of the old and new. Centuries-old dargahs and havelis stand alongside high rises and glitzy shopping malls inhabited by an affluent class rooted in tradition. Once known for its textile mills, it is now one of the world’s fastest developing cities. But, while the fortification of the original walled city crumbled long ago, divisions between its varied groups have come to the fore, violently pulling them apart.
Esther David, a member of Ahmedabad’s small Bene Isrel Jewish community, is a storehouse of city stories. In Ahmedabad : City with a Past, she takes the reader on an intimate rickshaw ride through a city full of life and wondrous contradictions.
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Deccan Herald – Review of AHMEDABAD: CITY WITH A PAST –
THE SOUL OF A CITY – by Maya Jaypal
MINIATURIST ESTHER DAVID TAKES US ON A JOURNEY THROUGH HER CHILDHOOD IN AHMEDABAD, A CITY LOOKING TOWARDS THE FUTURE WHILE STILL ROOTED IN THE PAST.
This is the work of a miniaturist, who by definition is an artist whose specialty is small discreet works. Esther David is a miniaturist describing the city she grew up in, accompanied by exquisite hand-drawn-almost like etchings of the city’s foibles, chosen for their unusual environments. Her admiration and acknowledgement of the impact of Ahmedabad on her life comes through…. the style is easy, inviting the reader into her world.
Leena Misra Indian Express, Books “City of Memories” – 9-4-2016
Leena Misra is Resident Editor of Indian Express, Ahmedabad.
From Zen, the opulent industrialist’s home, in the newer Satellite area of Ahmedabad, to the love story of Sparky and Mandy, a three legged stray and his mate, in a not-so-new part of Ahmedabad, Esther David takes the reader through a 140 page nostalgic tour of the city, through its many peoples, places, fables, in her latest book : Ahmedabad :City with a Past. Through this narrative, David tries connecting the old and new Ahmedabads only to find that while one moves on, the other lives in memories. You meet the citizens of a diverse city : Ramattar, the tea vendor outside the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Mohmed Isaq, the autorickshaw-wala who tells her the story of the remains of the city’s fortwall, or Aunty Mary, who runs a restaurant serving Goan food in Khanpur. …The author’s nostalgia about the traditional Ahmedabad when women sat with huge sev-making machines to fry the chickpea flour snacks, or when children went about with rock salt collecting sabras ( raw rock crystals) on new year, on the eastern bank of the Sabarmati river, does not reconcile with the Ahmedabad where people eat out, and ride Mercedes Benz and Porches. For her it is a city split into Hindu and Muslim Ahmedabad.
.…The book begins with the detailing of Zen, a lavish glass house of an industrialist where she was a guest, where food lifts took meals up to rooms and its members rarely dined together on the glass dining table. …It is contrasted to the obstinate dining table of her own home in old Ahmedabad. It was transported out of the old house with great difficulty and refused to enter the new homes of the family. “With time, it has become larger, as it absorbed the load of our memories. It could not be forced into smaller tenements or apartments.” It finally ended up as a small coffee table which moved with her to an apartment near Zen, where she held a rather reluctant housewarming party.
Paul John – The Times of India – 13-2-2016
CITY OF MYTHS LIVES ON IN THE MIND
(Esther David’s book depicts Ahmedabad, a city, that is at the crossroads)
History rarely mentions grandmothers. Yet, grandmother Shebabeth was the first ‘illiterate’ historian for Sahitya Akademi Award winner Esther David in her childhood. Shebabeth and her housemaid Mani introduced five year Esther to a rich tapestry of myths, legends and stories about the multi-cultural city of Ahmedabad.
About 64 years later Esther has finally revealed these living images to Amdavadis in her latest book, Ahmedabad : A City with a Past. Esther is credited to being a pioneer of Indo-Jewish literature, but this new book is her first ‘non-fiction’ venture…her narrative explores Ahmedabad, a city that stands today at the intersection of ancient monuments and modern-day high-rises and glitzy malls. Esther brings to the fore how the Walled City was an inspiration for founding fathers of modern architecture…The author says,”The Ahmedabad I knew, exists in my mind. I often recreate it, with its fables and city stories, which are the soul of the city. I wrote this book to capture that imagery, which will soon be lost.”
Dr.Shweta Rao Garg – Assistant Professor, DA-IICT Ahmedabad –
Ahmedabad : City with a Past – April 2016
Reading this book is like talking a walk in the crowded walled city of Ahmedabad – it is fast paced, it takes you in a quick succession from one street to another, from one alleyway to the next, from the overbridge to under, from slums to plush malls, from medieval temples to dargahs. It is but natural that you are swayed way, lost in the labyrinths of the city, but hold on tight to the book, the author and the memory keeper, Esther David will guide you back safely in her favoured auto rickshaw for a breather at the banks of Sabarmati River, then drop you near one of the old gates, just so that you may lose yourself in the city and its past, yet again.
Shruti Panniker – Ahmedabad Mirror – Ahmedabad : City with a Past – 14-3-2016
COME, VISIT MY CITY
Her ground floor apartment in Gulbai Tekra houses cupboards that swell with an impressive collection of books. Amid Shakespeare, Darwin, Gabriel García Márquez and her own novels, a book of fairytales shyly peeks out. Ask her, and she smiles, “That is my daughter’s favourite, and mine, too! “ There’s something else that makes her smile, too. A smile that reaches her eyes when talking about Ahmedabad. That’s author Esther David for you, who speaks about her city of her birth with a fondness that cannot go unnoticed.
David, also a columnist and an art critic who illustrates her own novels, is ready with her new book, Ahmedabad City with a Past. She celebrates Ahmedabad like none else -through words, drawings and of course, love.David believes there are two Ahmedabads within the city. “After 600 years, this city still lives, it has survived time. It has vibrancy, is full of life and retains its rich heritage through architecture, life styles, arts and food, “explains David, adding “We have two Ahmedabads. And I’m fine with it. Why?
Because cities exist in the mind and Ahmedabad exists in mine. “ She goes on to explain the east and west sides -the old and the `new’ co-exist.David, whose father founded the Ahmedabad zoo, also reveals how much of works went into the book that took four years to take shape. “
The Old City is holding onto its own, onto its tradition in a unique way,“ says David, adding that Ahmedabad is “my stage where I set my novels“.She writes about the Jewish life in India, belonging to the “small Bene Israel Jewish community“. And this book ensures the reader hitch-hikes a rickshaw ride into the walled city, to absorb its varied hues, laced with rich fables and wonderful stories.
Letter from Nissim Ezekiel – ….your writing is a formidable work of literary art.
Namita Gokhale-Biblio – The Walled City has a Jewish subject, which is uniquely Indian.
Le Figaro by Marie-France Calle – Esther David evokes a world of colourful Indian Jewish characters, bringing to mind Isaac Bashevis Singer’s evocation of the Shetetls in Poland and the Dybukks haunting them. (Shetetls are Jewish dwelling places or Jewish villages in East Europe and Dybukks are spirits or ghosts which possess people according to Polish folklore.)
The Hindu by Rivka Israel – With Book of Esther, Esther David has done for the Bene Israel, what Rohinton did for Parsis.
Alain and Christian Londner wrote – After writing the poetic novel “The Walled City” around the city of Ahmedabad and the delicious “Book of Rachel” which dealt with the heritage of food and old monuments, “Shalom India Residence” is constructed in a brilliant manner with Jewish portraits facing a universal predicament of the human situation. It expresses their cross-cultural conflicts as they try to preserve their rites and rituals, a phenomenon faced by most people today, as we live multicultural lives. Written in a manner reminiscent of famed French Jewish author Georges Perec’s novel “La Vie mode d’emploi “ meaning – “Life A user’s Manual.” Actually, this novel is like a kosher sauce and has a series of brilliant stories about the lives of Bene Israel Jews, a mini-microscopic community of India. It is a splendid novel, as the narration runs through the novel with a certain sour-sweet humour and brings into focus the in-defeat able spirit of its characters.
Ranjit Hoskote-Gentleman – This book is a celebration of colours, fragrances, rituals, textures and variously coded emotions of a vanished milieu. A living archive, it is a visit to the childhood museum.
Amy Kazmin – The Jerusalem Report – A potent ground breaking powerful novel, which is brutally honest.
Randhir Khare- Indian Review of Books – Jewish literature has down the ages, displayed a unique ability to flow in continuity like an underground river. Esther David’s first novel catches mystical and magical rhythms of life with an individual voice, which enriches the novel.
The Hindu – It is indeed rare to find a writer in Indian English who responds to her environment and the spiritual and cultural heritage.
The Sunday Express – The Peacocks Tale by Kishwar Ahluwalia – A Jewish woman traces her ancestry. The result is a vivacious Indian story.
Bachi Karkaria – Times of India, Sunday review – The circumscribed lives of women, span thresholds and tragedies. It is a canvas of small things, which take the form of big shadows on the wall.
Business Standard – Book of Esther is a masterpiece in story telling.
The Sunday Express – The Peacocks Tale by Kishwar Ahluwalia – A Jewish woman traces her ancestry. The result is a vivacious Indian story. Delicately woven between memory and fiction, Book of Esther reminds one of a fine tapestry where humans, birds, animals coexist in myriad kaleidoscopic hues. Each thread of the elegant deftly chosen colors spins life and stirs the elements.
Sunday Midday by Bachi Karkaria – I couldn’t put your book down and the fact that it is by you and about you was not the only reason. I found it warm, subtle and from the heart. The book deafened me to the Diwali bursting all around me for reasons bigger than gender benders. Its undercurrents was about people, indeed the whole community trying to find a honorable compromise between assimilation and individuality.
The Jerusalem Post by Shalva Weil – Book of Esther is East of Esther’s Persia, a full scale Jewish novel of the unique Bene Israel community of India.
India Today – Special Issue – by Geeta Doctor – It is a raw mango of a book, as sweet and tart as the memories of an Indian childhood….to most people it would consist one portion of R.K.Narayan, the sheer exuberance of Malgudi, a dash of sentimentality from Tagore’s Kabuliwallah…David, uses the recipes she has garnered to tell Rachel’s story with the same zest and involvement, which Rachel employed to cook for her family.
Sahara Time – by A.J.Thomas – Book of Rachel by Esther David is an astonishing specimen of a novel. It has a unique structure in that the author captions each chapter with the name of a dish found in a rare recipe of Bene Israel and follows the recipe through its entirety…the acclaim that Esther David is receiving is like a well-cooked Jewish dish, this novel too appeals to the taste buds of the cultured reader.
Femina – by Manju Ramanan – Rachel, a Bene Israel woman uses food to please, ensnare, establish control as well as entertain various characters of the novel. Food is her arena. Her platform to rule the world.
Mans World – by Jerry Pinto – Esther David is one of those quiet miniaturists who captures Jewish life in India in her novel Book of Rachel, without resorting to too much romanticism or too much nostalgia.
Saima Shakil Husain – Dawn – Karachi – In the literary tradition of Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate(1992)and Marsha Mehran’s Pomegranate Soup(2005), Ahmedabad native Esther David has cooked up the often mouth watering Book of Rachel which lovingly depicts India’s fast diminishing Bene Israel (Jewish) community through its culinary arts…the title of the book has an ‘Old Testament” feel to it; encouraging one to expect a narrative involving one of the heroes or prophets of the ancient Israelites. Indeed the novel’s protagonist Rachel is something of a heroine…as a tribute to the ancient myth about the origins of the community – seven couples survived a shipwreck – invokes an emotion similar to that inspired by the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
Deepika Shetty – The Sunday Tribune –… when I think of Gujarat I think of a lot of things, colour, humility and above all these women, strong women who have emerged in their own right from Bhavnagar to Bhuj and from Ahmedabad to Surat. The images that spring in the mind are those of women, strong, independent and always on the go…..Esther with her clever pen and equally adept brush strokes sketches out the sharp, jagged tip of the iceberg variety kind of stories, which challenge you and probe you to ask questions….Esther’s writing has its roots in real life, invariably all the stories are imbued with a deep sense of realism….some stories begin with an idea, some with an image. As images of Gujarat reverberate in each story, the message in each of the stories is universal. Yes, there are Pols, the Guptanagar slums, but the victories and defeats of the women in the Pols speak louder than the local context in which they are represented.
There are strong metaphors, chilling endings, but each of the stories keeps you asking for more.
Hindustan Times – Khushwant Singh – When Steve Irwin, the famous crocodile hunter was killed by a sting Ray in September, last year, I had concluded that only Australia produced daredevils who could capture dangerous animals like crocodiles, alligators and venomous snakes with their bare hands.
I was wrong.
Many Indians have being doing so down the generations and do so to this day. Among the most famous was Reuben David of Ahmedabad. He not only captured crocodiles and snakes but also tigers, lions, langoors, bears and a variety of birds in his home and the zoo he set up. He formulated his own herbal medicines to keep his friends in good shape. His life story has been written by his daughter Esther David. Her line drawings illustrate how close he was to birds and beasts :he had been living with them. He sat by a female crocodile while she was laying her eggs and helped her to incubate them. It is a true life story of how harmonious human-animal relationships can be, any person who gives his love to an animal or bird will have it returned in full measure. The book is specially meant for teenagers but makes an equally fascinating read for grown-ups.
About Esther David by Subashree Krishnaswamy
In the firmament of Indian writing in English, Esther David’s voice is like none other. Refusing to be pigeonholed, boldly defying categorisation, Esther remains… well, quintessentially herself. Her writing is much like Dilhi Darwaza, her favourite haunt in Ahmedabad: colourful, irrepressible, bustling with life, zesty, where people from every class jostle for space, where the seamier side of life is unabashedly and unapologetically displayed. Above all, it speaks tellingly of the human condition.
Esther set the tone with her impressive debut, The Walled City, which is set in Ahmedabad, the city of walls. The ingenious title runs like a metaphor throughout the novel, where walls of all kinds exist. Written in the first person, it traces the lives of three generations of a large extended Jewish family, as seen through the eyes of an impressionable a young girl. The sheer exuberance she sees around her – the gods, the festivities, and the symbols – to which she is irresistibly drawn, is in sharp contrast to her strict, almost spartan upbringing, dictated by her religion. She struggles, she rebels, she fights, she submits, yet never gives up the valiant search to carve her identity. She tries to make sense of a life, torn apart not only by conflicting personal emotions but by a city divided, seething with tension, where old values have crumbled.
Yet Ahmedabad remains home, from which she can never escape. Esther brings her artist’s sensibility to the novel: no detail escapes her eye, and the imagery is fresh and startling. The characters – the parents, the grandparents, the cousins and old retainers – crowd our minds, refusing to leave, even long after we put the book down. We share the vicissitudes of the protagonist – who tantalizingly remains unnamed – making them our very own, as we wait breathlessly to learn about her fate. The book is well produced, enlivened by Esther’s charming sketches.
In her second book, By the Sabarmati, Esther recreates the lives of women who live in the fringes of society, people who we might meet every day, but people who we never notice. An outcome of a project aimed at creating social awareness, it is a plucky effort – not many writers in English are given to writing about people who don’t speak English. Slipping off her shoes, Esther walks barefoot with them, laughing and crying, sharing their joys and sorrows. Investing them with the dignity they deserve, she shares with us their courageous tales, deftly drawing out their creativity in the process.
There is just one word to describe Book of Esther: gutsy. Many an author has been known to borrow extensively from family lore and legend, but not many would admit to doing so. Esther firmly states that the book is loosely based on her family. Deeply personal and unflinchingly honest, she chronicles the lives of a prodigiously talented Jewish family (characters all), sweeping across places, generations and times with a deft and sure hand. It is about discovering a Jewish heritage in an alien ethos, about being a miniscule minority in India, about wanting to belong, yet desperately holding on to one’s identity. Sliding effortlessly between fact and fiction, the anecdotes, by turns moving, funny and poignant, flow effortlessly.
The novel begins in the nineteenth century, with the redoubtable Bathsheba steering the fortunes of the family, which finally chooses Ahmedabad as home. The descendants inherit the healing teach; but Joshua, defying tradition, chooses to tend to the voiceless, founding the city’s first zoo. Esther, sensitive and unusual, shaped by her unusual upbringing, the legacy of which hangs heavy, struggles to find her identity and roots. The journey takes her across continents, to Israel andFrance, only to find its way back to the nest – Ahmedabad – like a homing pigeon.
The impressive novel is not merely a chronicle of a Jewish family; it is the testimony of survivors.
Esther, author, artist and columnist, is a gifted storyteller who steadfastly refuses to compromise to suit the market. She grapples with issues that concern her, and in the process showcases realities that are universal. Reading is a sharing experience, yes, but with Esther readers make a kind of secret bonding, as if she were speaking to them alone.
Subashree Krishnaswamy
(Subashree Krishnaswamy was Editor of Indian Review of Books and editor of Esther David’s first novel THE WALLED CITY)