PREFACE

SHANKAR RAJ
MICROSOFT NEWS EDITOR,
(Former- Chief Editor, The New Indian Express,
Kerala and Karnataka)

Flat No. 2A,

Vanguard Home, 492 A,

2nd Main Road, G.M. Palya,

Bangalore- 560075

Karnataka State.

Ph: 09845034515,

09341622554.

  

My association with Joseph J Thayamkeril spans over three decades. The very fact that our friendship and association have lasted so long, and still continues to steam ahead in a choppy journey called life, shows the intensity of his feelings for friends and colleagues. I first met Jose, as we all endearingly call him, when we were at the Law College in (then) Ernakulam, in the mid ‘70s. What struck me most were his simplicity and his positive attitude towards people and events. This is reflected in abundant measure in Memoirs, his autobiography too. It is often said that it is easy to be complex, easy to put on airs, easy to camouflage one’s true self, but  extremely difficult to be simple. And simplicity is personified in Jose and his autobiography.

It is this simplicity that made me think when I was told to pen a preface. I took a long time to gather my thoughts, arrange my words and knit my association with Jose, though still so fresh. I had to look and think through the prism of an infant. I owe Jose an apology for the delay in sending this preface though he, as usual, showed immense patience.

Jose sent me the first draft last year and I was amazed at the way he had arranged and neatly stacked the memories of his early life. And the ease with which he pulled them out to showcase them to the readers. But I surprisingly found the picture of Jose a bit hazy in places, fleeting between events and popping in and out of years that passed by. I told him that the autobiography should have more of the person and to wrap the events and co-players around. This he did well in the revised draft without much of verbal joust or indulging in self-propellant fuel of words.

`Memoirs reflects Joseph – simple, straight and soulful. It is an easy read and Jose has painted in words his early days in Kumbalam and his life with his parents, the moulding hands of his mother and others who touched his life – all with the same ease and calmness as the gentle waves of the backwaters when they coddled up to the shores near his house. Jose does not pry open the past or unfold the events in his life in a hurry. He hand-holds the readers, taking them through the labyrinths of Kumbalam and his life.

I also found the canvas of his life vivid as Jose has scooped strands of thoughts, beliefs and his association with tradition from a healthy soup that was abundantly available through his parents, the people around him and the place that nurtured him.

Jose has done justice to his work and the Memoirs is a milestone that has plotted the other milestones in his life. What makes the autobiography different is that it has a plethora of information dovetailed neatly into various chapters – a dash of science, nuggets of information cherry picked from his surroundings and some unknown facets. In doing so, he has had the support from his able and highly supportive wife Sally, Prof Shailaja Mani, Prof Mathew, Smt. Tonya Kampani, a veteran graphic designer and Shri. Jatin Kampani, a well-known freelance photographer and Shri. Shinu, the graphic designer who did the DTP work. When Jose said that his children, Kiran Rose and Karan Jose enjoyed the narrative, probably that was an understatement. 

A good work in chronicling life and events.   

SHANKAR RAJ