Building on dreams

EAR TO THE GROUND

Sobha Developers' PSN Menon builds an international school for the poor and a grand old-age home in Palakkad.

What does a billionaire dream of ""besides making a few more billions?

At 59, PSN Menon of Oman, originally from Kerala, has joined the elite group of 946 richest people in the world with a fortune of $1.3 billion, earned through the real estate and construction business.

His Sobha Developers is listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and he is known for building cities, IT parks, hotels, et al.

But there is more to what he does. In his native state, he is better known for philanthropy, which, as we know, comes in all shapes and sizes. It can be down-to-earth, like that practised by Mahatma Gandhi. And it can be like Menon's, all grandeur and magic. It is about making the unreal real, in the best traditions of magic realism as was practised by Palakkad's most famous author, OV Vijayan.

Menon's dreams begin and end in his native village of Moolancode in Kizhakkanchery panchayat and the nearby Vadakkanchery panchayat in Palakkad district.

Thanks to Menon, the structures that are coming up there are beyond what the locals could have imagined.

There is an international school ready to open on June 1. Admission to the school, which will not charge any fee, is restricted to the students from the poor families in the two panchayats. The number of students enrolled is 220. The target: 1,300.

One of them is Anjana, 5, who works at the nearby construction site of Menon. Many other parents of the students can be seen mixing sand and cement on the premises of the school, including her mother Ammu.

Besides, Menon has adopted these two panchayats. Patients from the villages queue up at the grand health centre manned by a residential doctor couple.

An old-age home, Sobha Hermitage, stands next to the school. It has a gymnasium, a laundry and an Internet connection in every room. Though the facilities are free, the likes of Ammu and her husband are not welcome. Inmates include a former official of Larsen & Toubro, couples who used to live abroad, a former deputy general manager of a PSU and an uncle of playback singer Yesudas.

But why have one five-star school for 1,000-plus children when he could have built more modest schools for thousands of children? In Malayalam, it is said there are no questions asked in a story. His reply: Building 100 schools was never his dream.

For now, Menon is God, at least for the two villages and the 50 couples in Sobha Hermitage. The stories of his school, the old-age home, his being weighed in gold at the Guruvayur temple, his grand Sobha city coming up in Thrissur, are already the talk of the area.

"I don't want to create models for others to replicate. Why should I want anyone to replicate it? I am doing my bit in the manner I like." This is billionaire-speak as he showers with his fingers fine grains of sugar on his plate of powdery uppumav as four uniformed assistants and his bejewelled wife, after whom the company is named, attend.

He has dreams for Kerala. But it is for the politicians and media to fulfil. Not for billionaires.

It is not magic realism. It is realism. Here it goes: There has to be political consensus for the development of Kerala and the media has to drum this up constantly. NRIs can provide the money.

Menon's life itself has been no less than magical. At the age of 10, he lost his father and soon his mother, who was living away from her four children in the shadow of a manic depression. After dropping out of college, he landed in Oman.

The story stops there. All one hears after that is that he has been building palaces for the rulers. How? Kathayil chodyam illa. Don't ask questions in a story.