Saturday Evening Post
Making of the Encyclopaedia
From the Horse’s own Mouth
George Menachery
Twenty
Because we were using the A4 format of the Brittannica for the pages and 8 pt. Times Roman font in single space, each page could accommodate more than a thousand words. Mr. Nayak the manager of the press used to joke saying that a powerful lens also must be provided with the book. There was some truth in the criticism and I used 8 and a half pt. font for the Indian Church History Classics. For future books I think I will go for 9 pt. types.
I gathered together all the manuscripts, printed sources, reference books including different dictionaries and Atlases that I was using and also photographs and slides not deposited earlier with the B. N. K. and stowed much of it into a huge trunk my father had bought for me when originally seeing me off to the boarding house of the Trichinopoly college, which then carried even my bedding in it. What that enormous trunk could not contain I put into two or three bags. All this I carried to Madras.
In Madras I rented two rooms in a hotel (actually nothing more than a lodge), the rent was only Rs. ten per room per day. This hotel I was acquainted with from 1965 and whenever I used to go to Madras I used to stay there invariably, that is until 1979.
This is how I got acquainted with this hotel. In 1965 my principal Rev. Dr. Thomas Moothedan, D.D. summoned me to his office and showed me a letter from Dr. Dickinson from the U.S. In that letter Dr. Dickinson, Asia Projects Director for the ISS-FERES Project at The Hague, had invited college principals to send to Delhi capable young lecturers for an interview to recruit research officers for the ISS-FERES sponsored survey of Christian Higher Education Institutions in India. This survey later gave birth to the AIACHE, the All India Association for Christian Higher Education. Fr. Moothedan suggested that I go for the interview and also informed that first class train fare would be given to the candidates. The principal probably wanted me to get a chance to visit Delhi at no expense to myself. In Delhi the interview took place in the Le Meridian Hotel. In addition to Dr. Dickinson Dr. AdiShashaiah was also present on the interview board. A few days after returning home I got a postal cover postmarked Athens. Wondering who was writing us from Athens father opened the envelope. It contained a letter from Dr. Dickinson announcing my selection as a research officer for the ISS-FERES study of Christian colleges & c. in India. Dr. Dickinson later entrusted the printing of the project questionnaire consisting of more than six hundred questions and innumerable subsidiary questions. Visiting some colleges in various parts of India as part of the project gave me an opportunity to come across a cross section of Christianity in India, this added to my knowledge of Christian history and culture in India, as my visits to Newman Circles around the country had helped me to have a comprehensive and inclusive view of Christianity in India.
Since first class fare would be given I thought I will go to Delhi by plane, especially because there was no time to get there by train on the specified day. And I can return in ordinary sleeper class. That was an adventurous journey, but this is not the place to describe it in detail. One unforgettable event in that trip let me record. In those days there was no Nedumbasseri airport. All flights took off from the Military Airport on the way to the Cochin harbour. The plane would proceed to Bangalore via Trivandrum. I was seated in the plane in time. But the plane was tarrying. Then a person was brought to the plane by two police constables. He came and sat down in the seat next to mine. He asked me where I was going, what I was doing, and so on. When I said that my name was George Menachery he said that it was a well known family. This made me a little proud I might say. Then I told him that I was a lecturer in English at the St. Thomas College, Trichur. He said that it was a most famous college where EMS the first chief minister of Kerala had studied. I was becoming even more proud. I was sure he was a culprit of some sort as he was brought by two policemen. Out of common courtesy I asked what his name was. “A. K. Gopalan,” he said. It was the great communist leader AKG, M.P., then in political imprisonment, returning after attending the parliament meeting. He was so humble and considerate in his behavior. All the sense of my “importance” evaporated, and I became his lifelong admirer. AKG got down at Trivandrum, walking in between his “protectors” the policemen. The plane stopped at Bangalore. I had to take a new ticket to Madras. After that there was no plane to Delhi from Madras that night. When I got down at Meenambakkam airport I had to find a hotel for the night. I called a Taxi and asked the driver to take me to a nearby cheap hotel. But he drove me all the way to the city to the Ambassador hotel next to P. Orr & Sons. The Taxi fare was high, but the hotel was cheap at Rs. ten per day. From that time onwards I always used to stay in that hotel whenever I went to Madras. The Central railway station was not far away, and all facilities like hotels, bus stops were nearby. And the offices of the Hindu and the Mail were next door. And above all I discovered that the owner was a Malayalee.
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