An Unlikely Recruit
It was kindly providence that brought Verghese Kurien to work at dairy engineering in a part of India that was so different and far from his native Kerala. Kurien was born in Calicut on November 26, 1921. His father, Puthenparakkal Kurien, was a civil surgeon serving in Madras Presidency. In his fifteenth year, Kurien passed the Secondary School Leaving Certificate Examination. Too young for admission to an engineering college, he took a Bachelor of Science degree from Loyola College, Madras, graduating in 1940 with the seventh rank in the presidency. Intelligent, hardworking and ambitious, he was a credit to his family and community.
Shockingly inadequate living quarters (there was no bathroom until Kurien contrived a suitable enclosure with corrugated iron sheets), insalubrious surroundings, and enforced idleness: Kurien might well consider himself to be serving a term of punishment. A natty dresser, he no longer took trouble over his appearance but grew a beard, wore khaki overalls, and began to smoke continuously. His brother sent him an old-fashioned cook-bearer named Anthony, who carried out his duties in full panoply of turban, sash and starched uniform. This added the final touch of absurdity what Kurien could only regard as a farce.
Anand was such a small town that a newcomer was bound to be noticed and talked about. As a meat-eating bachelor (in a largely vegetarian town), and a Malayali-Christian with a phoren (phoren is the vernacular pronunciation of foreign) degree, he provided ample scope for speculation in local gossip.
So determined was Kurien to keep himself usefully occupied that he undertook a private expedition to Bombay to sell the milk powder. With the help of his friends he made a list of likely customers, then tried them one by one. At the end of two days when he was almost at the end of his list, he found a buyer. A biscuit factory was prepared to take all five tones of the milk powder. Tried but pleased, Kurien returned to Anand in a fatefully altered state of affairs.
Image: Collection of milk at a village society.
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