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Subrat SaurabhAuthor of Kuch Woh Pal
In Search of a Destiny is about Udup, a village boy from Kerala. He was a good student under the discipline of his father. Much against his wishes, he is sent to a boarding school. After graduation, he continues his higher studies. He takes several degrees in chemistry and teaches science in a school. He resigns from the school in order to look after his sick mother and obtains a job to teach chemistry closer to home. Against all odds, he competes and wins the Fulbright scholarship and leaves for the USA. At the university, he is overwhelmed with the hippie culture, women’s liberation, drug use and sexual freedom but stays at the sidelines. After submitting the PhD thesis at MSU, he tours Venezuela on being invited by his classmate and accepts a job from the Ministry of Education. He suffers misgivings of failure at the job for his lack of knowledge of Spanish, its people and culture. Against all odds, he survives, succeeds at work and returns to India to get married. He settles down with his wife Melody in Venezuela and raises three children. Eventually, he accepts a job from the petroleum industry. He is assigned to the Bon Bini island refinery but finds the going difficult and returns to Caracas. He moves his family to a border town in Venezuela near Colombia for the education of his children. His family becomes noted by the FARC. As the terrorists close in, he moves his family to New Jersey, where the family takes roots and his children graduate from good universities. After twenty two years, he retires from the petroleum industry and returns to India after being away for forty years while his children pursue the American dream. After settling down in his house in Kerala, he starts several projects for the good of the society.
Joseph Ulahannan Matchanickal
Dr. Joseph Ulahannan Matchanickal, a PhD from MSU writes about his adventurous life, using the pseudonym Udup. The writer has a master’s degree from the University of Madras and was awarded the Fulbright scholarship to study Science Education in the US, a subject he thought about five minutes before the interview. He reached the US during the Vietnam Was protests, the Woodstock festival, Kent State shootings, hippie revolution, women’s liberation movement, drug culture and sexual liberation. He tried to make sense of them but was afraid to get involved. After submitting the thesis, he toured Venezuela and was offered a job to design the curriculum for a community college. Against all kinds of obstacles, including language and culture barriers, he continued, achieved recognitions and got a job in the prestigious petroleum industry. He had to deal with issues related to educating his children, their cultural identity, their future life partners and a place for his permanent residence. As a pensioner from the petroleum industry living in Kerala, he spends his time writing, teaching, social service and agriculture. His adventurous life is something that he never imagined in his wildest of dreams. He was never in control of his life; there was a higher power that guided, lead and even carried him through the labyrinths that he travelled. The destination, however much he planned out, turned out to be totally a different port. However, the travel was enjoyable and the destiny a pleasant surprise.
