Retd.Prof.Manavai P.N.Diaz
Dept.of. English , Loyola College, Chennai

Ever since Francis Xavier, the Jesuit saint planted the Catholic faith at Manapad, the coastal hamlet became the Head quarters of Jesuit machinery work.
Zebedee Miranda of Manapad village was a pious, generous, businessman in Ceylon. His spouse Susaiammal Poobalarayan was a God-fearing, service-minded, ardent member of the Legion of Mary. They had nine children. Maria Michael, Jonjit, Louis, Hearty, Anslem, Catherine, twins Manuel Xavier and Susai Michael and Qinie.
During a visit to India in 1936 Zebedee Miranda expired and his liquor business in Ceylon floundered. Susaiammal thereafter went to Ceylon, wound up the business, came back to Manapad and brought up her children giving them the best education she could afford.

Of the nine children, twins Manuel Xavier and Susai Michael were born on 22nd July 1926. Manuel Xavier had his elementary school education at Manapad middle school, pursued his high school studies at St. Xavier’s High School, Palayamkottai and later graduated from St. Xavier’s College, Palayamkottai. Thereafter he did his B.T. professional course and served in Manapad as a school teacher handling English and Social Studies from 1950 to 1956.

In 1956 he joined St. Joseph’s High School, Tiruchirappalli. As a private teacher candidate he appeared for the M.A. History examination in Madras University and after obtaining his degree joined the Department of History in Loyola College, Madras as a Lecturer on 8th August 1960. He became a professor on 1st April 1980 and retired in May 1985.

After his retirement he became a Research scholar for two years at Krishna Devaraya University, Ananthapur, Andhra Pradesh. Thereafter he returned to Loyola College Chennai and continued teaching the undergraduates in the Evening College and post-graduate students in the self-financing college till 19th April 2000 when death laid its icy hands on him.

Prof. Manual Xavier Miranda had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. He treasured books and loved reading. In his middle age circa 1968 he learnt French at the Alliance Francaise de Madras which helped him to translate the Jesuit French records while he did his Doctorate. He worked from February 1975 to December 1982 and submitted his Thesis on The Jesuit Experience in Tamilnadu: The new Madura Mission 1838 – 1938 on the last day of 1982 and got his Doctorate just before retirement.

Prof. Miranda was a very good teacher. It was historian Philip Guedalla who said “History repeats itself: Historians repeat one another’’. Yet, each history teacher leaves his stamp on the method of teaching. Loyolite – 2000 (Loyola College Evening Annual) has two entries on Professor Miranda’s teaching:
1. “He was gifted with an extraordinary memory. That was obviously noticed in the felicity with which he shared the details of History. His flair for details and profound sense of humour made him and an effective teacher.’’

2. ‘’Listening to him in the class was a pleasure because of his chaste English. He would mesmerize his students with facts and figures from History”.

Prof. Miranda held the evening college dear to his heart. Except for two years immediately after his retirement and for another year towards the close Prof. Miranda stuck to teaching evening college students and never deserted them even during his Ph.D programme.

He served as the first lay Vice-Principal of Evening College from 1990 to 1996. During this term of office he used to stand at the main staircase admonishing late comers and truants.

Prof. M.X. Miranda was keen on extra-curricular activities. Without confining his academic activities to his department alone he participated in seminars, workshops, NSS camps and debates. He was a director of the day-scholar centre. He was a guide to students during many educational tours all over India. He was the general-secretary of Loyola Staff Association: was election commissioner of the college: was convenor of the constitution drafting committee: was secretary and later president of the Catholic Staff Club. He was associated with the Institute of Correspondence Courses at the University of Madras. He taught at Ryan’s I.A.S coaching centre for more than a decade.

Prof. M.X. Miranda was an impressive orator in Tamil as well as in English. He had addressed the students of many schools and colleges in and around Madras. When the Department of Ethics and Religious studies held a symposium on “The Moral Principles in Thirukural’’, he delivered a well thought-out lecture on “Love and Happiness’’. His comprehensive and well prepared speech on “The History of Modern France’’ in the college French association was a treat. During the Independence Day celebrations in 1996, Prof. M.X. Miranda delivered a scintillating address on “The Various Stages of Freedom Struggle’’.

Prof. M.X. Miranda was eagerly sought-after by Manapadians during weddings for proposing toasts. He used to wax eloquent on such occasions on the beauty of Manapad, Manapadians, and the mission of St. Francis Xavier at Manapad. At a wedding, when a bride came on a flying visit from the U.S. and approved the already arranged bridegroom, Prof. Miranda while proposing the toast, parodied the historical aphorism thus: “She came, she saw and she married.”
When Prof. M.X. Miranda was a Fulbright Scholar in residence at Wheeling College in 1984 he was appointed the resident warden of the ladies hostel there and this assignment, he attributed was out of respect for his grey hair! During his sojourn there he happened to converse knowledgably with Ellis R. Dungan, the famous cine director.

Prof. Clarence Motha feels proud to mention that Prof. M.X. Miranda was the first lay vice-principal of the Evening College: the first to go on a Fulbright scholarship to Wheeling college: the first to get his Ph.D. in History from Loyola College: the first lay dean of Ethics and Religious Studies in Loyola College.

Prof. M.X.Miranda was also a gifted actor. In the 1950s the Manapad Student’s League staged a Tamil play “Idhuthan Communism” in the centenary hall at Manapad. In this play written and directed by him Prof. Miranda appeared in the role of a Minister from Kerala. With his versatile acting and Malayalam dialect he stole the show. He wrote and staged a play at St. Joseph’s High School, Tiruchi. The play that he wrote and directed for the staff of Loyola College during his Golden Jubilee was a big hit. When his paternal uncle Issac Miranda a versatile actor — who during the Passion Play at Manapad used to play the role of the Roman centurion Longinus who pierced the side of Christ on the Cross — expired the choice for Longinus fell on Prof. M.X. Miranda, his nephew. But not even for the love of acting, recalls Sr. Marie Berchmans would he consent to lance our Lord on the cross!

Thomas Carlyle, the historian and biographer, said, “The history of the world is but the biography of great men”. Historian Prof. M.X. Miranda wrote biographies on great men as well as on ordinary persons. He wrote on Fr. Beschi S.J., Fr. Rajarishi Lazarus S.J, Fr. Dominic Diaz S.J. and on his village school master, Augustine Diaz.
Prof. M.X. Miranda had a keen sense of humour. In his biography on Augustine Diaz he paints him thus: “he wears half trousers: but for him it is three fourths’’. In the same sketch he refers to the monetary fluctuations among fishermen thus: “If these students (sons of fishermen) are absent for class on a day it means that there is a big catch of fish or their sarongs have gone for washing”

Prof. M.X. Miranda was known for dubbing persons with apt nicknames. Literature, Mythology, History and Hagiology, were fertile for him for sobriquets. An unusually tall person was “Gulliver’’, a man with immaculate white hair was a “Pani Thalaian’’, a man with a bald pate was “Garibaldi” and an apprentice teacher riddled with a volley of paper arrows was ‘’Sebastian”.

Prof. M.X. Miranda was a fluent writer in English and in Tamil. He wrote Tamil articles under the pen name “M.X”. He wrote many History text books in Tamil which were prescribed for schools and colleges. In his article Historicity of the Holy Relic at Manapad he traces the history of the Cross in general, in India and in Manapad in particular.

Prof. M.X. Miranda as a research scholar directed future historians to trace the link between Pearl Fishery Churches and the Filipino churches since the days of St. Francis Xavier. In his article Social Apostolate of the New Madura Mission( 1838 to 1988 ) written on the occasion of 150 years of Jesuit presence in Tamilnadu, Prof. M.X. Miranda studied the social mission of the new Jesuits under two headings :
1. Conventional Social Service
2. Social Justice and Liberation

The Conventional Social Service strategy included creation of parish schools, medical service through dispensaries (where he refers to quinine as a Jesuit powder), opening of orphanages, tackling the diabolical effects of toddy (which pioneering Jesuits called pei thannir) through temperance societies, taking care of prisoners through prison apostalates and rehabilitation of the physically challenged.

The strategy of social Justice and liberation includes involvement of the Jesuits in developmental projects, women welfare, uplift of the depressed classes, reform of criminal tribes, tribal welfare, liberation of women, war against casteism and battle for justice. In his piece he wonders along with the then Jesuit Provincial of India “Are options reduced to slogans rather than lived in deeds?”

In his doctoral thesis, The Jesuit Experience in TamilNadu he holds that the history of Christianity in India is not an eastward extension of the western ecclesiastical history but an integral part of the history of India and that the religious experience cannot be confined to the Church alone. He concurs with Fr. Pedro Arrupe S.J. the former Superior-General of Jesuits that any human activity which is not criminal or immoral can be a means of access to God. Thus the Jesuit has to see his role entering every human activity and the Jesuit evolves as a man for others. Prof. M.X. Miranda places Jesuits in this context and tries to construe their experience under three headings:
1. Origin and Development of Jesuits in the Madura Mission
2. Jesuit’s contribution to the Church in India in general and to South India, in particular.
3. The extent of interaction between the Jesuits and the people.

Biographer Carlyle said a well written life is almost as rare as a well spent one. Those who knew Prof. M.X. Miranda will testify that his life was well spent and his many good deeds instead of being interred with his bones live after him.
May the turf lie lightly on him!