IT WOULD WALK OVER YOU

 

One day I had referred to a friend, of  late Jacob George and of the property he had bequeathed to his church.

The friend later wrote to me, "Where can we locate details of the property gifted by late Jacob George?"

I replied, "Try as much as I did, I couldn’t locate it, because those who knew had kept their mouth shut.

But the period I could guess.

It could be between 1992  and 1996 or 96 - 99 or 2001 - 2003.

I do remember there was a mention of it in an annual report with a red/rose coloured cover page.  Not the size we have now.  Something like the size of a convention song book. There was just one sentence. "We have received the property of Jacob George."

Then there was no mention of it anywhere.

The former Sexton/Church peon had once told me, it was sold to a member of the church.   But I am not certain who it is.

He had also said it was sold off as 4 cents although it was 5 cents.

The first time I had mentioned it in the  Church Committe 2011-14 meeting, a senior member said it was sold to build a new structure. The next time I brought it up he said he didn't know anything about it at all.

No one knew anything.

At home my wife asked me why was I bothering about it when Jacob George's family members were unconcerned. I replied it was because  I had worked with him and because  he was a good man. 

I still feel bad the manner  in which  the dead had been ignored and dealt with. The church took hold of his property that was bequeathed to it and they had sold it off. The least it could have done was to keep alive the memory of one who had done something good for it.

But no, they were materialistic to the core. 

And to think that a prime building at the YMCA bears his father K.George's name, to think that K.George was a former Chief Secretary of the state, to think that Jacob George's elder brother was the doctor who had set up the ENT dept in the TVM Medical College, to think that Jacob George was the classmate of film actor Madhu (hearsay), to think that Jacob George's birth was rather late in the life of his parents, and to think that Jacob George was a bachelor that had made no one speak up for him though he belonged to a great family the members of which were still a part of the church,  all those were of no interest or consequence to the ungrateful church that found it convenient to push his memory down the precipice into ignominy.

The rationale and the message to the unsuspecting do gooders  of the church is quite simple. Never gift anything to the church. The church would never remember you. It would walk over you."