Saturday Evening Post
Making of the Encyclopaedia
From the Horse’s own Mouth
George Menachery
Nineteen
In the Atlanta Sheraton where the Bishops were meeting I felt that things were done in a simple open manner as opposed to some of the practices I had noted in the conduct of Bishops’ Conferences and even other conferences in India. The General Secretary Msgr. Rauch received me with gladness and even great respect. When I showed him the letter from the Cardinal he treated me with even greater respect. He promised to distribute my brochures on the Encyclopaedia at the official press conference at the end of the Conference. That he did it with a short laudatory talk I came to know later from the various national media representatives I met later. Though I failed to ask for or get any monetary help from the USCC, my visit to Atlanta helped the Encyclopaedia project to obtain national exposure of the best kind imaginable. This was the high-water mark of my US visit of 1972.
The Director of New York Archdiocese’s DioMedia was so impressed by our brochure and the USCC General Sectretary’s “pep talk” that she wanted to make the Encyclopaedia the topic of the Mission Sunday national broadcast. She asked me to send her from India as soon as possible some colour matter as without colour pictures and videos no TV broadcast would be a success. I introduced a Syro-Malabar priest in New York to her as my liaison. I could not send the colour material she had asked for till the end of September and finally she broadcast a Syro-Malabar Mass by the priest for the Mission Sunday national programme.
There were many other interesting and novel experiences during my two-month stay there. I will recall only just one or two things here as many of those experiences do not have any great direct bearing on the making of the Encyclopaedia.
I had mentioned earlier how I took with me to the US the letter of invitation I had received from the US PaxRomana as the National Vice-President of the Newman Association of India (PaxRomana) to attendant the Bogota International Eucharistic Congress of 1968. The US Director of the PaxRomana who was in New York kindly arranged residence for me at the Leo House. When the Leo House people had asked the Director whether there would be any problem with the payments for the room he replied that if there were any problem he would settle the bill. I stayed at the Leo House for more than a week and when I left they did not ask for any money and I did not pay any.
At that time the Director told me that he was arranging a meeting of all the PaxRomana Ministers of the New York area to meet me for a talk. The talk would be followed by a banquet dinner at the Dunwoodie St. Joseph’s Seminary.
The talk I gave was a success, to judge by the fact that during the drinks and dinner session that followed three ministers approached me to visit their institutions to attend similar conferences. I accepted the invitation of the Maryknoll HQ and Seminary to give a talk. After my talk at Dunwoodie there was drinks session which was novel for me. All were walking about or sitting in conversation with glasses in their hand. As I was a teetotaler I felt a little out of place. I asked the steward to give me a coco-cola. He said that there was no coco-cola available. But he was kind enough to get one for me from the Seminary refectory and I went about carrying my coco-cola glass among the participants.
It was at that dinner that I first ate a beefsteak the size of the huge plate on which it was served accompanied by all the trimmings. And I was served a similar steak at the hotel where my father’s pen-friend took me with her husband for a dinner. The third time I had a similar steak was at the parish priests’ house at Greenfield, Ann Arbor, Detroit where I was given hospitality by the parish priest at the recommendation of my Jesuit brother’s friend Fr. Stephen, sj of Cannanore, who had stayed there as an assistant vicar during the days of his studies. As a result of these dinners I became an admirer of such steaks and I have been pestering Maggie to make such steaks. She now makes Swiss steaks often but is unsuccessful at making the type of steaks I enjoyed in the US. For that matter not many restaurants in India give good steaks even now though I constantly order beef steak at the best hotels out of my greed for the tasty item I had enjoyed in my days of starvation in the States!
Once a priest in New York gave me a check for US $ 15 for the Encyclopaedia. That was a crossed check and no bank in New York cashed it for me. They said that that check should come through the Encyclopaedia’s account in India. But when I presented the check at a bank in Atlanta the officer told the teller to cash it and I got fifteen dollars in cash, which was a heaven-send at the time.
The Maryknoll Father who drove me to their HQ in New York stopped on the way for a car wash. The machine car wash was a new experience for me. The huge brushes which were rolling all around the car even frightened me, as there were no such car washes in India at that time. The Fathers at Maryknoll arranged for a special dinner at a hotel for me. The Editor of their magazine was my companion at that dinner. He had ordered a number of dishes for me. But I could eat only a small part of it. He told the waiter to pack the remainder for his wife. This packing of items which could not be consumed by the customer was a new experience for me though it is a common practice with Maggy now.
Overall my stay in the US was a help in many ways to broaden my horizons but it did not bring me any money – although to get some funds for the printing of the Encyclopaedia was the primary objective of my US visit.
I think it is high time that I returned to the printing of the Encyclopaedia at the BNK Press, Madras.
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