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Babykutty Ammamma, my cousin's wife wrote after reading my post on Professor.G.D.Gabriel, U C Collage, Aluva.
"I have fond memories of Gabriel sir. I worked as a junior lecturer for a year in the English Department in U C. College after I graduated. He joined the department that year, in 1964. He advised me on what books to read. He introduced me to A.J. Cronin. I got hooked after reading ‘The Judas Tree’. I remember his wife and baby girl. He was very well respected by everybody".
And I replied.
"That was wonderful. That you were an English teacher. That I never knew. That too at the UCCollege. That we both think highly of Gabriel Sir.
Teachers like him inspire you. They nudge you unassumingly. You are transformed even without you ever knowing the transition.
What was unfortunate was, except for him and EN - E Narayanan Nambiar the English Department at UCCollege was devoid of merit in teaching. The rest had degrees and qualifications. But they never knew they were not really conveying. Even the pronunciation was rank bad for some of them. I don't blame anyone. They taught as they knew. But in the process they succeeded in ruining the prospects of a generation who reached out to them to garner knowledge.
It was the bane of Kerala. It still is. Everyone thinks he is the supremo, whereas he is nowhere when he competes with non Keralites.
I had stumbled upon AJ Cronin somehow as I ambled along without a care, without direction, without purpose. Just as you were hooked, I too had been. I think I have been through almost everything he created. May be I had a horror of Judas, I held off Judas Tree till the last. It was good. But enamoured by what I had read earlier, it did not arouse the feeling I had when I read titles like 'Keys of the Kingdom'.
Ammachi here was an avid reader. Once I gave Keys of the Kingdom to her. Afterwards she told me she had read it several times and each time it had evoked tears
Happy we vibe"
