Cutchi Memon Digest
Kerala
ﮐﮁﻲ ﻤﻴﻤﻦ ﮢ ﺍﯿﺠﺴﭧ - ﮐﻴﺮﻻ
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January 2015
EDITORIAL
The Cutchi Memon Community has a unique cultural background and historical relev-ance. The community is widely spread in various cities and towns in the country. Though much influenced by the cultures of the places of their abode, a strong thread of their especial cutchi culture remains unbroken. When Cutchi Memon Federation was constituted four decades ago we had hoped to see a national level organization of all Cutchi Memons that would enable a dialogue and mutual understanding among the members of the Cutchi Memon Community and establish a platform for a cultural reunion. ................More
CUTCHI MEMON FEDERATION
With faith, simplicity, hard work, good character and truthfulness as their basic principles of life, Cutchi Memons were prompted by a desire to live together in an organized society. This led to the formation of their "association" or Jamat. In fact, wherever Cutchi Memons settled down, they invariably got together to form "Jamats" which was one of the greatest contributions of our forefathers to the fraternity.
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HISTORY OF CUTCHI MEMONS IN KERALA
Anizham Thirunal Marthanda Varma, the Prince Royal of Venad, a land mass between Kanyakumari on the Indian Ocean in the south and the hillock of Varkala in the north extending to the coast of Arabian sea in the west and Sahya mountain terrain in the east, had annexed the principalities upto the north boundary of Aluva, excluding the territory of Cochin and the British occupied land piece of Fort Kochi to form a wider state of Thiruvithamkoor (Travancore). .............More
CUTCHI MEMON JAMAT, THIRUVANANTHAPURAM
Cutchi Memons began to settle in Travancore from The beginning of the 19th century. A few Cutchi Memons were invited from Bombay by the then Dewan of Travancore, Raja Kesava Dasa. These families settled first in Alappuzha and Arattupuzha, then very important ports on the west coast of the former Travancore state. They were encouraged to settle in Travancore with a view to increasing its export trade.
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CUTCHI MEMON JAMAT, BHUJ, CUTCH
Bhuj is the capital city of the Kuchch District of Gujarat. It is an irony that Cutchi Memons who left Cutch have prospered wherever they went. But Cutch remains undeveloped and Cutchi Memons mostly poor, not withstanding the fact that around 200 Cutchi Memons are involved in various business ventures such as wholesale of grains, fruits and vegetables, cloth merchandising, grocery (kirana), mobile retailing, electronics sales, property sales, and buying and selling of new and used cars as well as commercial vehicles, running of panullas and bidi shops included. ........ More
PANJO CUTCHI RASODO
Kutchi cuisine is relatively simple. It consists of Khichdi, the main dish eaten with Kadhi - a savoury curry made of yoghurt using curry patta, ginger, chillies and finely chopped vegetables as garnishing - onions and pickles. Some common dishes include Khaman Dhokla, a salty steamed cake; Doodhpak, a sweet, thickened milk confectionery and Shrikhand, dessert made of yoghurt, flavoured with saffron, cardamom, nuts and candied fruit which is eaten with hot, fluffy pooris. A typical Kutchi meal consists of Bajre ja Rotla, Dhal, Odho, Kadhi, Garlic Chutney, Chutneys of Mint and Coriander, chopped Onions in Vinegar - all served in earthenware, and 'Goad' (Gud—Jaggery). ........More
ORIGIN OF CUTCHI MEMONS
The Cutchi Memon community is more than six hundred years old. There are various theo-ries about its origin. The generally accepted story runs as follows: In the year 512 AH, (Around 1404 AD) some 700 persons belonging to the Lohana community of Thatta in the Sindh region accepted Islam from Pir Yusufuddin Qadri, a disciple of Pir Abdul Qadir Gilani of Baghdad. (According to another theory the conversion took place in 1422.) They were invited by the ruler of Cutch to stay in his kingdom. The newly made Muslims were called “Mumins”
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OUR LEADERS
Haji Abdul Sathar Ishaq Sait
Born in 1896 in Talasserry, Malabar in the erstwhile Madras Province (now in KannurDistrict, Kerala). The four storey building where he was born is still in good shape at Wadhyar Peedika, Thalassery. His father was Haji Ishaq Haji Ayub Sait and mother Fathima Bai. He married Asia Bai, daughter of Abdul Sattar Omar Hash-mani of Thiruvanantha-puram. (Step sister of Abdul Rahman Abdul Sathar Sait and Joon-us Abdul Sathar Sait) Asia Bai died without any issues and he then married Halima Bai of Bangalore, who was reportedly assasinated by burglers in the early 1980s, while in Karachi. ..............More
GANDHIJI AND DADA ABDULLA JHAVERI
Luis Fischer, the author of “The Life of Mahat-ma Gandhi”, one of the well known biographies of Gandhiji, writes that when Mohandas Kara-mchand Gandhi returned from England after doing his law in London, he started practice in Rajkot with the help of his elder Brother. “But Mohandas was a complete failure as a lawyer in Rajkot as well as in Bombay when he could not utter a word during petty cases in court”. At this juncture, a Memon from .............More
A few Cutchi Memon families from Cutch and Bombay (now Mumbai) came to Alleppey in the early part of the 19th century. The illustrious and famous Dewan of Travancore State, Raja Kesava Dasa, invited them to establish trade and business in Alleppey, then a developing port. A few Gujarati and Parsi families were also invited. Traditionally a business community, Cutchi Memons found Alleppey to have all facilities for conduc-ting proper business, and migrated in large numbers. Prospering in business and making good fortunes, ......... More
CUTCHI MEMON JAMAT, ALAPPUZHA
Cutchi Memons came to Mumbai sometime between 1813 and 1816 as they were attracted by its business opportunties. After settling down, they organized themselves into a Jamat. In 1898, they got together under the leadership of prominent members known as Patels. These persons had unquestionable authority over matters relating to the affairs of their brethren. In 1931, the trustees of the Sait Karim Mohammed Sulaiman Trust built a Jamatkhana for the members. In 1939, the trustees of the Cummoo Jaffer Trust established a Girls’ School ........................... More
CUTCHI MEMONS JAMAT, MUMBAI
QAYDO CUTCHI JO
Cutchi can claim to be older than Sanskrit. It belongs to the ancient group of Prakrit langu-ages, the fore runners of Sanskrit. They were the spoken languages of the common people. Sindhi was the language of the people south of Persia reaching up to the banks of River Sind-hu (Indus). Cutchi is a variant of Sindhi differing only in intonation of certain words and vocabu-lary added later from Urdu and Gujarati owing to the Sindhi migration to Urdu and Gujarati speaking areas. In spite of the fact that Cutchi has been influenced by various local languages it is uniformly understood by most Cutchi and Sindhi speakers. Whether Sindhi or Cutchi had a script of its own is unknown, though it is said that
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CUTCHI MEMON CLANS
Following the trade or profession in which the Cutchi Memons were engaged they were recognized as different households or families known as ‘Nukh’ in Cutchi or class. Thus families who were primarily providing services in the mosques were designated Zikriya; professionals in tailoring as Sui, masons as Selat, carpenters as Vaaddow; traders in grains as Peediya, ghee as Ghet, potatoes as Bhatda, vegetables as Bakalo and so on. Some Cutchi Memons in Mumbai adopted their professional titles following th Parsi tradition. We also have Japanwala, Kolkatawala, Rangoonwala according to the place of their first migration or trade affiliation. Curiouly enough there were no butchers, Qasayis, among the known Memon families. ............................ More
EVOLUTION OF A NAMING STYLE
Cutchi Memons migrated from Cutch at the beginning of the 19th century and settled down as traders mainly in port towns. Some even went to other places in Africa and the Middle East. Their honesty, hard work and charitable nature resulted in enormous prosperity in business. They became so well known in main trading centers of coastal India that the words “Cutchi Memon” meant “businessman”. The local people were so impressed by their generous nature that almost every Cutchi Memon was greeted by the local populations as “Seth” meaning a rich man or rich businessman, according to the prevailing custom among the people of Mumbai and north Indian states ............................... More
A MARITIME ADVENTURE RETOLD
An adventure story related to the migration to Arattupuzha was narrated by Rabia Bai (d. 1951 aged 90) wife of Abdul Sathar Omar Hashmani. Rabia Bai’s father and uncles were good navigators and she was also familiar with the sea. She, with her father set out from Mandvi in Cutch in a sail boat towards what they called, Malabar. For them the entire Arabian Sea coast from Beckal (Kannur) down to Kolachal (Kanya Kumari) was Malabar. The boat had a few other passengers and she had with her a Sindhi calf and some beautiful Cutchi furniture and a large wooden box containing ‘Karachi Halwa’ made by one of her uncles for their relatives in Malabar. The boat was supposed to lay anchor at Kollam or Arattupuzha after a three months long voyage. The wind was favourable all along and they were expecting to lay anchor in the next few hours or a day or two. Suddenly came a strong storm and the furious waves broke the vessel into pieces. The halwa box also broke into planks and, Allahu A’lam, the waves parked her on one of the planks. ......................... More