Padmabhushan K.HM. Cherian concealed a tremendously vibrant mind and spirit behind a misleading facade of easy going innocence. Despite the striking resemblance of physical features between his father Mammen Mappillai in his sixties and himself, the son never struck awe into the hearts and minds of those who cane in contact with him, as the father sometimes did.
Some at least must have been so deceived by his placid exterior as to believe that they could easily take advantage of him; only experience could make them wiser; for K.M.Cherian was nobody's fool. Even his grand-children of whom he was fond to the point of appearing indulgent, could not easily exploit him.
He has often been misunderstood. I know at first hand that he was particularly misunderstood in the matter of the Syrian Orthodox Church dispute as it exploded in the early seventies. People were ready to accuse him of betraying the Church, and I shall never forget the query his youngest grand-daughter Mary (then aged seven) put to me - "Achen, why do they call Valliappacha Judas? The words "Judas" and "traitor" were actually used in front of the Malayala Manorama by a group of people participating in some Catholicate day celebrations. Many still think that K.M.Cherian was favouring the Patriarch against the Catholicos.
There was nothing farther from his mind than that the Syrian Patriarch should have any powers to interfere in the life and administration of the Church in India. On the contrary, his real desire was to keep the Patriarch reasonably happy so that he doesn't do the malicious and uncanonical things which he has recently done. I was talking to the Patriarch in Damascus almost exactly about the time when Sri.Cherian was breathing his last in Kolencheri. When I mentioned that I left Sri.Cherian sick in bed, the Patriarch stood up in respect to this Indian layman. It was by infusing such deep going respect in others that he was often able to bend their wills to his, and get something done for the good of all. In the Syrian Church dispute of course, his efforts were practically fruitless.
But throughout his life, with that quiet assurance and seeming innocence, he pleaded a thousand causes with many people great and small. The measure of his success is the volume and variety of tributes that accrued to him on his death. Even his inveterate ideological enemies came to his death-bed. For they too knew that if he fought, it was never to defend his own interests, but rather to guard and promote the interests of the people as he understood them.
His great concern, as he once told me, was to figure out what he should say every day to the people of Kerala, for he estimated that at least five lakhs of people read the Malayala Manorama each day. He was shaping their minds, and attitudes and aspirations, not only through editorial comments, but through the selection and presentation of news items also. Often he felt overwhelmed by this great responsibility, which sometimes made him restless. But the real secret behind his apparent tranquility was a deep faith in God, a faith which has often been an inspiration to me. Many factors have gone into the deepening of that faith -- his own associations with the Madras Christian College and some of the illustrious Christians who served there, the unmistakable impact of the life of his saintly uncle Sri.K.C.Chakco, and the training he got from his own illustrious but unsung mother. Yet what purified and refined that faith in an unusual measure was the crucible of suffering.
The coincidence of his domestic crisis with the Bank crisis was indeed the great test of his faith. He suffered unjust imprisonment at the same time as the illness of his wife and daughter. During that time he developed a transcendent faith that made it easy for him to weather the many crises through which Kerala, Manorama, M.R.F., the church and his brothers and family had to pass from time to time. He told me once that he had the reached the stage where he had overcome two basic fears which plague lesser men-- the fear of poverty and the fear of death. There were occasions when Manorama or M.R.F faced collapse; he was undaunted, not only because his faith had been refined in the crucible of suffering but also because he had mentally adjusted himself to the possibility of the loss of all wealth and even of his own life.
It was my privilege by a strange coincidence to have long sessions with him just before his death. I too was a patient in Kolenchery taking refuge in the home of his son to be healed of a liver infection, when he became laid up with coronary infraction. In fact he died on the bed which I had vacated a couple of days before. So during our common confinement, we talked for long and often. Once the conversation moved around to the matter of death, and what it means. With a child's enthusiasm he said to me, "O death is such an exciting thing! I am dying to die. I am inquisitive. I want to know that is on the other side. It must certainly be exciting. At least none of the thousand headaches and irritations which we have to face daily on this side. Death is s door opening into something lively and exciting. Christ stands behind that door. Through death we must enter life".
We pay tribute through these memorial lectures to the man who has entered life through death, and is watching us with compassion and indulgence from the other side. May many more among us be enabled to walk his way - the way of integrity of character, unselfish service to the people, and above all a deep and rich faith in God.