Autobiographical Note

 “Any other heart but one that had been used to worse tribulation, would have either broken down on the spot, or resorted to reckless revenge. My heart never seems to have broken. It withstood this gross insult flung upon a son by a parent, with considerable calmness.

In those days everybody thought a postal job, a very covetable one. Even now people persist in that mio-belief. So I had to find out somehow or other. But whom, whom in all the world of uncles and aunts, was I to approach? I never thought of approaching my own uncles. I couldn’t bring myself as much down as all that. I had heard that another of my distant uncles atTrichur had advanced some money to my brother as a loan in times of need, and though I would also approach him for a loan. But the unanswerable question. “Your father has enough money in the Bank, then why do you come to us?” never struck me at first. It was a question that I couldn’t answer without serious injury to my self-respect. So I chose not to answer it. I was humiliated. He directed me to another uncle of mine, at Irinjalakuda. The same unanswerable question was repeated there. I felt I had lost everything. My just elder brother wrote another letter asking his old employer at Ernakulam to lend me the required amount, but he also promptly regretted his inability. In the meanwhile, my fool company in Cochin had indeed me to fall into my first and perhaps last indulgence in a youthful indiscretion and I was still suffering from the after effects of the same.

All my energies, mental and physical were enhausted. If I had a little less of self-respect (I have it one bit too much) I could have asked any of my uncles and most probably succeeded. But I kept quiet, and prayed to my Lord Jesus. The voice of my agony would have touched my Lord. He who had saved me out of every tight corner could not fail me this time. I had prayed for a longtime that I should pass in the competitive examination, and for a long time I thought my prayer had gone unheeded. This time too it was heeded to, and in a most wonderful way too. I was just sitting in a sullen and gloomy mood, because I was suffering in mind and body and I couldn’t hide my sufferings. My employer, himself a strict man of business took pity on me, and asked me just how much money I wanted. I had never asked him for help. I had known that he was too much of a businessman, and also I knew that he did not want me to leave his company. So his question naturally took me by surprise. I mentioned the amount Rs. 120/ and promptly he gave me a cheque for the amount.O! I did’nt know how to thank him or thank my Lord.”  

(From an autobiography written at the age of 23.