WE do not know who the first Malayalees to reach USA were. Legend has it that four kalari gurukkal were taken by New York Police in 1939 to train them in kalari combat. There is no further news about these gentlemen. They must have stayed on since a return journey would have been risky after the Second World War started. If they stayed on they either married there and literally got into the proverbial American Melting Pot to lose their identity by merging with the multitudes, or lived a lonely life that ended more lonely. In 1940s we also had a few students some of whom stayed back to become senior citizens in America but most of whom returned home. My classmates who soon after being graduated in Engineering in 1962 left India to do postgraduate studies in USA had an unintended benefit when President Johnson liberalised the visa regime. One of them, past 70, is still working as Chief Engineer with New York Metropolis. There are quite a few of my old classmates who live permanently in Obamaland. They are spread over the length and breadth of that country- from Albany to Alabama and from Dayton, Ohio to Las Vegas, Nevada. They have all done well except one -who also did well professionally of course- who is near blind and lonely, and seems to have disappeared from the radar screen. Nobody knows where he is. We in Trivandrum saw him last year when he paid a visit - the first in decades- and appeared cheerful despite his difficult vision. All efforts to reach out to him later have proved futile. Even his close relatives- one of them a junior colleague of mine- plead ignorance beyond the fact that he was alive. God bless him. Barring one who migrated after retiring here all others worked in USA and scaled heights that commend themselves to be admired.
 
I remembered the closeness of this fraternity of people who were young undergraduates a half century ago as I travelled in USA last month. I was speaking at a function in Dallas and was happy to meet two of my classmates who took the trouble of coming to listen to me. I had a similar feeling of belonging when my cousins in USA and Canada met in New York for the first “Family Conclave" of ours out there. Our extended family is spread all the way from Edmonton in Canada to Christchurch in New Zealand and what binds us is a sense of belonging to a family group. We have in America a cousin who rose to the highest possible echelon in UN Civil Service and another who retired as Dean of a well known Medical School marking one end of the spectrum and a Handyman- he mints money charging something like $50 per call! - at the other with doctors, engineers, teachers, CPAs, nurses, paramedics of all kinds, clerks and clerics, and high government officials between them. Once at the Kudumba Yogam the differences fade away and the oneness gets focussed on. It is indeed a great feeling in today's world marked by indifference and hostility.  
 
It was a bond of a different kind at the Family Conference of the Malankara Archdiocese where I was the main speaker. They were celebrating their Silver Jubilee. It was a remarkable event under the able and effective leadership of Their Eminences Mar Titus Yeldho who hails from Perumbavoor and Mar Cyril Aprem who finds mention in Dalrymple's book From The Holy Mountain. The participation was record breaking and the organisation meticulous.
 
There is a peculiar problem which American families face. The children have very long holidays and the parents have very short ones, if at all. We have a problem here in this country also nowadays with the advent of the nuclear families. In 1950s we celebrated the vacation. And our parents had no reason to worry because we were all covered by the extended families and the basic rural ambience. Today especially in cities the parents are busy at work and the children have to be engaged effectively. So we have Summer Camps, Vacation Bible Classes and lessons in various realms ranging from the culinary to the cultural. In fact we got this idea from USA! They organise camps for children and young adults. Our people have improved upon the American Model by organising a long weekend where parents and children get together and live together, play together and pray together. Soon enough an unintended benefit emerged as the second generation Malayalees came of age. At these conferences boy-meet-girl-shine- in- eyes syndrome manifested itself.
 
 
This was the third Family Conference that I was attending. This one excelled the earlier ones by all standards. The organisers did a wonderful job. While in the IAS I have had the opportunity to organise various events at the state, national and international (read SAARC) levels. I think the young men who organised the conference this year did a job significantly better than what I could have done under the given circumstances. I bow my head before them. Mr. George Korath, the National Co-coordinator, was the unchallenged leader of American Malayalees as FOKANA President some years ago. Mr. Joby George, the General Cove nor, looked like a Prince out of the history books of the Mughal Period in his well designed attire. Had he not migrated to USA he would have been a Minister in government here now. Dr. Manikat and Abraham Mathew, an old friend of mine, also deserve praise for the magnificent success of the Conference.
 
The Conference showcased a remarkable combination of American efficiency, Malayalee heritage in costumes and ceremonial umbrellas and the inimitable chendamelam- incidentally chenda is a uniquely Keralite drum which maestros use to create music- and the Antiochean heritage in scrupulous adherence to rituals. This gave HE Mar Titus the young Archbishop an opportunity to prove that he is a man of God and a man of skills. Normally a few Metropolitans from India would attend. This time none could leave India and this opportunity became a launching pad for the young Archbishop who is chronologically just about the age of my younger child though spiritually my father.
 
The Theme for the Conference was Pauline. It came from 1 Corinthians where Chapter 15 says in Verse 57, "But thanks be to God which giveth us this victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."  I explained that Paul never thought he was writing the Bible when he wrote his Epistles. I also taught about the problems of textual transmission, some of which I had enumerated in these columns while reproducing my paper delivered at the International Latin Seminar. In the first part of my keynote I emphasised Paul as the divinely ordained bridge between the Jew and the Gentile and in the second I explained how Death became irrelevant with Resurrection and how Verse 57 derives substance from Verse 58, how the two verses form an integral continuum the latter defining the consequences of the former. The audience was very responsive and the speeches were well taken.
 
Interestingly there was a Chiriyarangu here also. In all the three Conventions I attended it was part of the programme (let me add that I shall write about the other meetings and conferences later) and I was scheduled to 'perform' as a comedian also!! The word CHIRIYARANGU was invented by humorist and cartoonist Sukumar who started the NARMAKAIRALI here in Trivandrum to hold a monthly chiriyarangu. Dr. Roy Thomas from Chicago, familiar to KAIRALI TV viewers, was the main attraction at the chiriyarangu and I tagged along.
 
On the whole it was a remarkably reassuring experience to attend the family meet and the family conference.