According to the Book of Genesis in Old Testament God told Abram "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you….’’. He took his wife Sarah and his brother's son Lot, and all the possessions to the land of Canaan.

In the case of Mathew Abraham of India, he chose Canada as his Canaan when he left the God’s Own Country of Keralam to migrate to the excruciating cold of Esterhazy in Saskatchewan in 1968. When he celebrates his 90th birthday on March 28, he looks back with angst how he fought and won a treasure trove of love and affection in his adopted country.

Mathew had always a lensman’s eye for his picks

Abraham who started as a teacher of mathematics at the Government High School, Devikulam in the tea country of Munnar in the High Ranges of his native state had many hobbies including nature photography. He graduated to Canon and Nikon from Agfa and Yashica box.  He has been a subscriber to the National Geographic for the past six decades. I found a copy of the magazine’s 2025 issue with 101 Best Photographs of the Year on his table. He won an international nature photography contest by Agfa to have his picture adorning one of their calendars.  

His cosy four bedroom home at Lake View near the Glenmore Reservoir in the South West of Calgary in Alberta is stuffed with thousands of precious antiques he amassed in his spare time after teaching mathematics in Manitoba and Saskatchewan schools. “My students included a few of the indigenous that we call the First Nation,” he told me while driving around Calgary in his Toyota Camry to show me a restaurant owned by one of his former students.

His den of life long collection of antiques

The antiques included high value porcelain blue vases, plates and cups belonging to the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties of China. He raised a beautiful cup and saucer pair and asked me to read what was engraved on their back.  “English Fine Bone China, Royal Collection Trust, Made in England,” under a royal crown insignia.  

There are over a hundred watches, time pieces and clocks many of which boasted of their halcyon Swiss days.  In a room where a most modern workstation was being operated by Abraham’s life partner Ammal, I found an ancient Olympia typewriter with a paper inserted and wondered if anybody was still using it. Definitely not Ammal who speak to friends in East and West by WhatsApp in her Google Pixel phone keeping an iPad at arm’s length.

Blue vases from Chinese Ming dynasty

A decade back when we first visited him, nobody could travel with him in his car as its front and back seats were crammed with his choicest collections. So was the boot of the car. He had a room at the Antique Mall at the Blackfoot Trail Calgary that he maintained on a 370 dollars monthly rent. As he could not drive any more, his family chose to shutter the Antique room and sell the car.  However, the antiques he passionately collected were restored in the cellar of is home. Ammal drives him around in her Toyota Prius.

I saw his eyes glimmer with delight when he showed his collections scattered all around his home. He opened a drawer in his dining room and showed me a collection of rare coins stacked in a box. On top of them was a 10-dollar gold coin issued in 1976 in honour of the Summer Olympics in Montreal. Though I was among the IOC accredited reporters for the Games, I did not possess a gold coin like that.  

Clocks and watches from times yore

Among the mementoes the Montreal organising committee doled out to us was a casketed copy of the medals and a bottle of Canada blended whisky. And of course one sapling of the Canada’s official tree Maple. Among Abraham’s collection was a giant 3.9 litter bottle of Canada Club whisky distilled and bottled in Walkerville, Ontario under appointment by King George V in 1910. I checked, the bottle was empty though it remained a collector’s nugget.

Back in New York, I saw the advertisement of another collector’s item in the shape of an exquisitely carved whisky bottle to coincide with America’s 250th anniversary of Independence. With the ‘’spirit that began in 1776’’ the Viany’s bottle claimed it had everything that was sacred to the anniversary including a portrait of signing the Declaration, the opening words of the declaration itself “We the People” by Fifty States, One Nation.  Priced 100 dollars, its initial offer is for half the price, or buy one, you get two.

Fine Bone China made in England 

Before concluding, I wish Abraham fast recovery from his age-related ailments to be back to normal for his love of the current Canada Pime Minister Mark Carney whom he considers a far better performer than Justin Trudeau. He also admires Tump for his astute deals to shore up US economy. Like American army’s latest tank ‘MIE3 Abrams,’ named after WW II veteran General Creighton Abrams, he too has another day.

In their rebellious youth; Ammal’s teener look

Ammal aka Annamma from Niranam West came to his life in 1971 as one of the earliest BSc graduates in nursing from Vellore Medical College near Chennai, the capital city of Tamil Nadu.  She took her turns to work in Manitoba, Esterhazy and Calgary end up as Nursing Administrator/Manager under whom some 60 white, black, Hispanic and First Nation nurses served. “She is outstanding in all our departments,” commended S. Prince. Assistant Director of St Bonface General Hospital, Manitoba in her letter of recommendation for making her an RN-Registered Nurse.  Ammal’s elder sister Dr. Sosamma Ipe, a veterinary scientist, is a Government of India Padmashree honouree and brother Dr. Kottayil Ipe Varghese a former professor of physiology and biophysics in the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.  

Authorities on antiques and birds

Abrahams have two sons, Lan and Shane. Lan is a computer techie and Shane a mechanical engineer tuned businessman married to Terri, a civil engineer turned lawyer. They have three children-Jacob, Nathaniel and Keira. Sixteen-year old Jacob, 6’4’’, is a national basketball star in the making.  

And there are Terri’s parents, the endearing Richard and Verna who visited our homestead in Keralam and drove us around Calgary and Edmonton where they lived in a beautiful new mansion designed and built by Richard himself. Verna is no more but lives in our hearts.    

A miniature garden bench in their Lake View home

All in the family

A grand family get-together with Richard and Verna in the centre