Adjacent to South Bombay's trendy new sky scrapers and mill-converted-shopping-malls is a Jewish cemetery. When I 'discovered' it a few years ago, I wandered in expecting to see crumbling relics of a community that briefly paused on the subcontinent. Instead, there was a sprightly caretaker keeping the headstones well tended, with fairly recent dates etched into them.

This fascinating discovery was compounded with this discussion I had with a Sydney cabbie last year.

The Economist has added to my knowledge with a review of Edna Fernandes' The Last Jews of Kerala: The 2,000 Year History of India's Forgotten Jewish Community:

Despite what some of them claim, Mattancheri’s Jews are not Kerala’s last Jewish community, nor its oldest. In nearby Ernakulam there are about 40 Malabari Jews, of dark, Keralite complexion. Survivors of a community over 1,000 years old, with seven synagogues, now disused, and once extensive landholdings, the Malabaris were the privileged stewards of Kerala’s ancient kings.

This sunny story, exemplifying most Indians making pluralism a reality, is juxtaposed with Hindu-Christian tensions in India.