MALAYALAM
Inspiring biography
B.R.P. BHASKAR
ENIKKUMORU SWAPNAMUNDAYIRUNNU: Varghese Kurien, as told to Gouri Salvi, Translated by Prameela Devi, DC Books, DC Kizhekemuri Edam, Good Shepherd Street, Kottayam-686001. Rs. 120.
VARGHESE KURIEN built India's best-known cooperative and created a popular brand name. As a young man he had wanted to be a metallurgist but fate deflected him into dairy engineering and provided him opportunities, which he used in the best interests of dairy farmers. In the process, he won recognition for himself as the father of India's White Revolution.
In Enikkumoru Swapnamundayirunnu (I too had a dream) Kurien narrates the inspiring story of his life with a sense of history. In the preface, which is in the form of a letter, he tells his little grandson that when he reads the book a decade or two hence he will understand the reasons that prompted his grandfather to serve the nation's farmers.
He hopes that young people of the 21st century will find his autobiography a reminder of the struggles of the immediate past.
Kurien's was a life full of adventure, and his smooth flowing narrative conveys much of the thrill that he had experienced.
Accounts of encounters with political leaders, which were mostly pleasant, and with bureaucrats, which were often unpleasant, constitute the best part of the story.
Looking back with pride on what he, a Christian from Kerala, was able to achieve in distant Gujarat, he wonders if a Gujarati will be able to reach such heights in Kerala.
Controversy dogged Kurien's footsteps, and he uses the book to reply to his detractors. Unfortunately, the manner in which the third person singular has been rendered in Malayalam conveys an impression of incivility at some places.
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