J J Murphy: Kerala’s Rubber Man
J J Murphy: Kerala’s Rubber Man “On a rainy day in Ooty, South India’s famous hill station, some nuns were walking along a road in the cold. Suddenly, a car stopped by and the gentleman driving it offered them a lift. He asked why they were not using a vehicle in such inclement weather. The nuns replied that their convent did not have one. The next day, a local dealer delivered a brand new Dodge car to the convent. The astonished nuns thanked the donor. They also told him they could not keep the vehicle because there was no money to engage a driver or to buy petrol. The gentleman assigned a driver on his payroll to the convent. He also instructed a petrol bunk to forward the convent’s bills to his office.” This is an anecdote about a man you’ve probably never heard of – an Irishman named John Joseph Murphy (1872 – 1957). But in the rubber plantations of Kerala, Murphy is a legend. A planter who arrived in India at a very young age, it was Murphy who set up India’s first commercially su...
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