CENTENARY HALL, CSI CHRIST CHURCH, PALAYAM, TRIVANDRUM

 CENTENARY HALL, CSI CHRIST CHURCH, PALAYAM, TRIVANDRUM 

Lest we forget.

John Kurien, former CGM of NABARD was jolted when a young man talked of the Centenary Hall that the members of the Christ Church  had  built with their own hard work over a period of two years. The young man was advocating  the outright erasure of the Centenary Hall from where it stood majestically all these 67 years.  According to him the building - a really sturdy building at that - had outlived its utility.. He wanted it demolished at once and was clamouring for  building a large structure at a very high cost in its place to serve future generations.

John Kurien reminisces: 

Every day after school,all the boys would reach the Church compound and carry bricks to the work spot

They would water the earlier construction 

Any other work our Benjamin Achen said, we would do and leave by 5.30 pm to our homes 

We had sacrificed our play time 

Our parents earned very little and by way of cash contribution it was too little as the scale of pay had been Rs.40 to 120 

But our mothers in all homes kept three times more daily pidiyari for the Hall instead of one handful everyday when the Parish Hall to commemorate the Centenary of the Church was being built. 

We had three congregations then

The English paid more, the Tamils who were merchants then, too contributed well and  the Malayalam, mostly Govt.Servants that too mostly clerks and teachers also paid what they could

The end result was, for two years the children got less food as the rice for the month bought once when parents got salary, was to be given as pidiyari three times more

Benjamin Achen,when he learned that Emperor Haile Selasie was visiting Trivandrum, used his good relations with Justice T.K.Joseph, then Judge of the High Court Bench in TVM and managed to get a visit by the Emperor to our Church through Rajbhavan

The visit was fruitful,we sang Ethiopian National Anthem, me too, as the boys' soprano on that day. 

He was much pleased and gave a generous donation of Rs 25,O00 for the construction of the Centenary Hall.

Out of the total cost incurred of Rs.56,000 between 1956 and Nov 1958, the balance - Rs.31,000 - was raised by three congregations from  around 160 contributors , out of which 143 were members of Christ Church and the remaining were well wishers

The contribution list preserved by parents is still kept in safe custody

I do not think the present generation families whose average income at present is more than Rs 1.5 lac per month, would  give thrice their daily contribution similar to the pidyari of our parents' time to the project they propose.

Talking is easy to deceive others ,but actual giving and using the God given property through His grace alone is to be pondered in right spirit