One Thousand Full Moons (An Old and Rare Book)

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Shri K.P.S. Menon was born in the erstwhile Travancore State, Kerala, in 1898, and educated at the C.M.S. School, Kottayam, and the Madras Christain College. At Oxford he took a First in History and joined the Indian Civil Service in 1921. He started service in the Madras Presidency but was soon. taken into the Foreign and Political Department. The first Indian to be so selected, he held a variety of posts in the North West Frontier of India and Baluchistan, in the Princely States of Hyderabad and Rajputana, and in the Central Secretariat.

He also served overseas: he was the Agent of the Govern- ment of India in Ceylon from 1929 to 1933 and visited the Indian communities in Zanzibar and East Africa in 1934. In 1943 he flew to Chungking with his wife and one of his daughters to take up the post of Agent-General for India in China. In 1944 he made an overland journey from India to China, described in his book, Delhi-Chungking, in 1945 attend- ed the San Francisco Conference as Chief Adviser to the Indian Delegation, and in 1947 served as Chairman of the U.N. Com- mission on Korea, and then returned to be the first Foreign Secretary of India after independence. From 1952 to 1961 he was Indian Ambassador in Moscow and concurrently accredited to Poland and Hungary.

During his retirement, he held a number of honorary assignments, such as President of the Sangeet Natak Akademi; Chairman, Indian Statistical Institute; Chairman, International Wing of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, and President, Indo- Soviet Cultural Society.

His books, Russian Panorama, Journey Round the World, Twilight in China, India and the Cold War, The Flying Troika, Russia Revisited, Lenin Through Indian Eyes, The Indo-Soviet Treaty, Biography of Sir C. Sankaran Nair, Memories and Musings, Changing Patterns of Diplomacy and Many Worlds Revisited have won much praise for their wit, tolerance and restraint.

Shri K.P.S. Menon passed away in 1982 at the age of 84.

A favourite Hindu benediction, wishing a man longevity, is: May you see a thousand full moons! A man will have seen, or lived under, a thousand full moons, by the time he is 84.

In these days octogenarians are not as rare as they used to be, and even a nonagenarian is not altogether a phenomenon. Why, in the Soviet Union a man of 153 is said to be working in a collective farm in Azerbaijan. One must there- fore be careful in using the old Hindu formula.

I once got into trouble by using it. When Sir Amin Jung, an old friend of mine in Hyderabad, reached the age of 60, he wrote to me asking for my "blessings". In my reply I said: May you see a thousand full moons! Twenty-four years later he wrote to me: "I have fulfilled your behest: may I see a few more full moons." And he saw a good few more.

I have lived long enough to see a thousand full moons. I doubt whether I shall see many more, nor am I sure whether I want to.

In common with many Indians I used to send a Christmas or New Year card to my friends at the end of every year. Some of my friends flaunted their nationalism by sending Dipavali cards instead; and some of my parochial Keralite friends preferred to send Onam cards at the beginning of the Malayalam New Year in August or September. One of my friends, Dr. K. G. Saiyidain, a distinguished educationist, who had a large circle of friends in India and abroad, used to send every year, instead of a Christmas card, what he called a New Year newsletter. Those letters contained his experiences and reflections during the expiring year. They were perfectly delightful.