By the time I returned to Cochin from Calcutta, Richard Warren had left for London. He was a Partner with Thomas, Cumberlege and Inskipp, and he would take up the thread from where he left off. I was however disappointed that I could not give him a farewell party!

I inherited Richard’s flat. I was familiar with No. 2 Napier Street, of course, because of the combined parties Richard and I had thrown on its terrace. It had a large open cement tank to store water which, we had converted into a ‘cooling off’ pool. Many locals, as well as, outside visitors such as David Tyman, VA at Tea Estates India at the time, had jumped into this pool to cool off. Sundays were often cooling off days, if you get my drift!

One of the attractions for me about Cochin was that my maternal grandmother lived 50 miles south. I was born in a small town called Tiruvella, where my mother’s father a doctor, had decided to settle. I was very close to my mother’s mother as she had looked after me during my early years. My father left for London to do a PhD at the London School of Economics when I was one year old. He returned when I was five! My father, Dr. P.J. Philip, was a scholar by disposition and had won accolades and a gold medal at the Madras University. He was one of the favourite students of Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, who was to become the second President of India. In fact it was Dr. Radhakrishnan who scribled a letter on his pad to Harold Laski, the head of LSE. He merely wrote, “This is to introduce Philip. I highly recommend his admission to LSE!” The title of my father’s thesis was, “British political thought between 2 World Wars”. My father told me later that his thesis was well received by the British political parties. Prof. Laski was the Chairman of the Labour Party for a couple of terms.

My mother went to live with her parents during my father’s absence and having their help made raising her young son a lot easier. She was in her early twenties and did not want to sit at home and, when I was a little older, decided to take up a position with the Trivandrum YWCA, which was a hostel for young working women. I was left behind in Tiruvella with her parents, who spoiled me no end and over compensated because of my ‘orphaned’ status.

My grandfather Dr. A. E. John had retired as the head of the State’s medical services. He had taken a boat to England at the turn of the 19^th century, braved the stormy seas and sailed for 3 months via the Cape of Good Hope to get there. He acquitted himself well and got himself an FRCS degree (Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons).
On his return he joined the Travancore Medical Service. Going to the UK for study in those days was the privilege of a few. Not only did you need the funds to pay for the journey, tuition fees and stay, but you had to have the intellectual ability to clear the entrance examination of a reputed teaching hospital. At the end of his service he retired to Tiruvella as this place was near the town of Kottayam, and had become a popular place to live in. Several people who had finished their careers bought a few acres and planted vegetables and fruits, and raised livestock and chicken to take care of their food requirements. The Pamba river close by was teeming with fish and the sea was not far away.  Some people, such as my grandparents, bought paddy fields to take care of the family’s requirement of the staple grain – Rice. The excess crop was sold off to the wholesalers.

My love for dogs started here. My grandfather always kept a good looking Alsatian. Those days the German Shepherd Dog was called Alsatian by those in the British Empire. Brittan was not keen to promote anything German. In one sense the nomenclature was not incorrect – Alsatia was a place in Germany!
Though we had cows, goats, poultry and people, the Alsatian got pride of place in the pecking order. Little was I to know at the time that Dogs were to become a very important part of my life. At one stage my wife and I had 22 dogs in our home in Coonoor, but that’s a story for a later day!

My grandfather was the Lord of the Manor, or at least that is what my grandmother led him to believe, but as I can remember she ran the entire establishment – servants in the house and in the fields – like clockwork. In those days girls were married off, as early as 14 or 15, and seldom carried on their studies beyond middle school but my grandmother did not need a formal education to do an excellent job bringing up three children and managing a large household and properties.

With my father away in London and my mother in Trivandrum, which was an arduous half a day’s travel, I attached myself emotionally to my grandmother.

My father’s parents lived in Chengannur, actually 5 miles south of Tiruvella but a trip there was a major event and not undertaken flippantly. In any case, I did not want to be separated from my grandmother, so we did trips only when my mother came home on holidays.

My paternal grandfather P.J. Philip was a charismatic person and a great orator. Once, when Mahatma Gandhi was visiting Central Travancore, the Congress Party asked my grandfather whether he could be provided accommodation for a night. The Mahatma seemed impressed with Philip and later an invitation was sent to him to join the Congress Party and the Freedom struggle. My grandfather was orphaned at the age of 8 and was brought up by his older sister and her family. In his teen years he heard a call to serve the poor and take care of their welfare. He left the Orthodox Church that the family was an integral part of and joined a mission minded Christian group. He did not veer away from this higher calling to join politics of the day.
He did his theological studies in Serampore near Calcutta, and later at Anderson College, Indiana in USA, and became known as Reverend P. J. Philip, serving on the World Council of Churches, and establishing several churches in Travancore and the Malabar region.  My father’s mother was a college graduate and was an active partner in her husband’s work. She was careful with her diet and exercise and while most people of the era died in their sixties and seventies, she lived to the ripe old age of 99!

When my father returned from London, I got to know his side of the family a lot more. Today, the larger Philip family, now dotted largely in India, UK, and the US, are very close to one another. We look forward to celebrating each other’s birthdays, weddings, and important occasions. This family bonding is a unique legacy left behind by my grandparents, Rev. P.J. Philip and Elizabeth Philip.

I wandered off a bit to give my readers a snapshot of my family. At the time, I was working with J. Thomas, the only person left from my immediate family in Kerala, was my maternal grandmother. There were limited job opportunities in the State, which was largely a rural, agricultural economy. Educated people migrated to the big cities in search of work. The most favoured jobs were with the government. It was the most secure employment on the planet! Once you joined the government there was no way you could be sacked. The most the government could do as a punitive measure, was to transfer you to a ‘hardship’ place.

My grandmother in Tiruvella was overjoyed that I was now working in Cochin. She could see me more often than on the annual visit I used to make when I was growing up in Delhi. Now that I had a two bedroomed apartment, I looked forward to having her come and stay with me, but she was reluctant to leave her home in Tiruvella for more than 2 or 3 days. There were many things that required her attention there.

However, I was sure to visit her whenever the paddy was harvested or the coconuts were plucked. My grandmother would give me a share of the sale proceeds and that helped me pay my Club Bills!