Last Sunday, young parishioners under the St. Mary's church at Mundakkayam, Kottayam, assembled on the church premises for a special occasion and took out a procession to Yendayar, a sleepy village on the eastern high-ranges of the district.
There they visited the St. Joseph's church, a sister parish situated in the valley of the the Wagamon hills and offered prayers in remembrance of John Joseph Murphy. The occasion was the 65th death anniversary of the legendary Irish settler who was instrumental in reshaping the destiny of Kerala as the country's largest producer of natural rubber.
A couple of kilometers from the parish, the cemetery where the Irishman was laid to rest, however, has been lying unattended. The compound walls have begun to overgrow and weeds stand several inches high. Slowly yet steadily, the tomb is going out of the public's gaze and out of the minds of the authorities concerned.
