Kuruvila Cherian
Nalpathamkalam (1941– 2010)

Fr Kuruvila Cherian’s untimely death on 6 March 2010, before he was quite 69, far away from home, in Guyana, should be saddening to everyone who knew him.

In late February this year he suffered a mild stroke. He was treated in a hospital in Georgetown, the capital of Guyana. His condition improved. On March 5 he was discharged from the hospital and taken to the Jesuit house in the city. That day passed off well, but Kuruvila was restless in the night. In the morning he sat up on the bed, spoke, but looked dazed and sleepy. At about 10.20 he fainted. He was rushed to the hospital while a qualified nurse was giving him heart massage. After about half an hour in the emergency care room Dr. Kumar who attended on him announced that Fr Kuruvila had passed away. The Regional Superior of Guyana, Fr Dermot Preston wrote: “The final collapse could have been triggered by a number of fragilities in Kuru’s system... the heart or the breathing ...the still high sugar level despite the insulin injections.” The funeral was to be on March 15, in St Francis Xavier’s Church cemetery in Port Mourant, Berbice, where Kuruvila was working last.

Kuruvila was born on 18 July 1941, to Cherian and Mariamma, the 6th of their 11 children, in Changanacherry. Sri Cherian was a magistrate in the state of Travancore. That required the family to be on the move often. And so Kuruvila grew up with the experience of shifting home often and having his schooling in different places.

After pre-university studies, he joined the Society in June 1958, at Beschi College, Dindigul. He did philosophy in Shembaganur, regency in Loyola School, Trivandrum, graduate studies in Chemistry in Chennai, post-graduate studies in Chemistry at Trichy, B. Ed. in Trivandrum, and theology in Pune. He was ordained in April 1974, in Changanacherry. He was assigned to Loyola school. In 1977 he was sent to do the Tertianship in Hazaribag. He madeApril 2010 11 Kerala Tidings the Final ommitment in the Society in Loyola School in August 1978.

Kuruvila was again assignedto Loyola School. During 1982--1984 he did a Master’s degree in Loyola, Mary Mount, Los Angeles, USA. Then he returned to Loyola. During these two stints at Loyola, Kuruvila handled, simultaneously or at different times, the responsibilities of the Vice Principal of the school, Director of the boarding, and Minister of the Jesuit community. He played an important role in the building of the hockey ground, improving the facilities in the boarding, and acquiring a fleet of buses for the day scholars of the school.

In 1986 he was assigned to AKJM School, Kanjirapally, to be the Principal. He held that job till 1998. In 1998 Fr Kuruvila was brought back to Loyola School as Principal. Dreaming big for Loyola he started improving the infrastructure of
the campus: put up the fence around the football ground, fixed collapsible gates at all entrances to the school, started the construction of the new Junior School (the present CBSE Block), expanded the computer lab and did the spade work for the indoor
stadium (which has been completed magnificently lately). Was Kuruvila attempting too much too fast? The school exam results showed a slight decline. He had difficulty in convincing his superiors about the relevance of his big projects for the school. In
this context Fr Kuruvila left Loyola and the Province in 2000, rather abruptly to the surprise of all.

First he went to Nepal and worked in the Jesuit Refugee Service. Then in 2002 he moved to Africa and served in the Jesuit Refugee Service for some time and then taught in St Augustine’s University, Tanzania. In 2003 he went to Guyana. He continued to serve in the field of education even in Guyana. He was Lecturer in Education in the Berbice Campus of the University of Guyana and became the first Director of the Guyana Human Development Centre in Miss Phoebe. He was appointed Superior of the Pakaraimas & Ru-pununi Jesuit community from 2006-2009 and then finally was a member of the Jesuit team for Pastoral Ministry in Corentyne.

What kind of a person was Kuruvila? Mr Sanish Mathew who passed out of AKJM in 1989 recalls: Fr Kuruvila introduced “pants and shirt as the uniform of the students, wrote the new school anthem, started training programs in computer, music, cricket, basketball, the martial arts, arranged special classes for the weak and free classes for the poor, implemented various revolutionary changes in the school, and thereby gave the students maximum opportunities to learn and to grow”. Fr Kuruvila’s batch-mate and colleague in AKJM, Fr Mathew Kannadan, writes: “Fr Kuruvila was very creative. He plans a lot at night. The class leaders were trained to supervise the class in the absence of the teachers. Kuruvila is a very generous person.
He is a pioneer in many things”. Fr M. M. Thomas, Kuruvila’s senior colleague in Loyola School, writes: “... a scholar and educator par excellence, a resourceful visionary with no pretensions, an indefatigable advocate of the Ignatian Pedagogical
Paradigm, music and sports aficionado, and above all a lovable human being with a heart larger than any of the institutions he served”. Fr Joseph Edassery, Kuruvila’s colleague notes: “He was a person who would dream of greater things for the
development of Loyola School. He was able to visualize new ways of empowering the students... In spearheading this mega project [of the indoor stadium] what was foremost in his mind was the integral development of the students and thus
enabling them to excel in their studies as well as in extra-curricular activities”. Fr Toby Joseph, now on the staff of Loyola School, says: “He was perceived among the staff as a priest who witnessed to Christ and Christianity in Loyola.”

Fr Kuruvila’s Superior in Guyana, Fr Dermot Preston says about a discussion he had with Kuruvila about his next assignment: “...he would hold his hand up in a characteristic silencing fashion and say to me – always enunciating very clearly! – ‘Dermot,
I am an obedient Jesuit. You tell me where you want me to go, and I will go there and do my best’”. And Fr Adolfo Nicholas, the Superior General of the Society at the Golden Jubilee of Fr Kuruvila’s religious life wrote: “Applying your innovative ideas,
always in consultation with the staff, you ushered in new methods and approaches with a lot of interaction between the teacher and the student, encouraging and honoring the students, enhancing the parentsteachers relationship which paid dividends in the
overall development of the students. Your love for the poor found expression in cultivating social consciousness in the students, encouraging them to help the poor and disadvantaged students.... You consider nothing a daunting task for the love Christ
and for the sake of the Gospel.”

I end this write-up on a personal note. I have not worked with Kuruvila, but have noticed him well. In his eyes behind the rather thick glasses, in his face and in his person there was an innocence, genuineness - and a certain vulnerability which found expression as a mild stammer, a hesitation. Fr Kuruvila’s superior in Guyana, Fr Dermot Preston writes that when they took the body from the mortuary, “Kuru’s face had relaxed into a dignified, patrician calm”. We do not want to think in terms of patrician and plebian, but Fr Preston has a point: there was something truly dignified and noble about Kuruvila. Fr M. M. Thomas says that Loyola School was Kuruvila’s ‘first love’. It was in Loyola that he learned the rudiments of the ministry of Jesuit education. It was around Loyola that for years he had woven his dreams of a Jesuit school worthy of the modern Society of Jesus and the modern Kerala. I was aware of all that. And so it was with much reluctance that in 1986 I, as Provincial, asked him to accept a transfer to AKJM - from the premier school in the capital city to a rural school. It did. He expressed it with his characteristic restraint. And yet he went. As far as I could make out he kept no ill feelings towards me. And what great performance he offered in AKJM. With humility and respect I would say: in the life of Kuruvila the grain of wheat fell to the earth and died and bore much fruit.

- Joseph Pulickal