Skip to main content

Winter


The spiders and the roaches beat a retreat
As November moves on to gnarled mists.
They are not like the human beings
And cannot put on layers to suit the season.

Man is the crown of God’s creation
‘cause he can add on layers and beat the season.
His smile can shine through the mist
With a dagger tucked away behind the mask.

Masks and layers make life’s winter warm
And conceal the colour deep down
While we fumble through the mist
Searching for the very same colour.





Labels:

Comments

  1. UppalNovember 17, 2014 at 8:12 PM

    Interesting winter offering!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 17, 2014 at 8:24 PM

      Could be valid in any season with some modification :)

      Delete
  2. UnknownNovember 17, 2014 at 9:39 PM

    Super poem and lovely words. Since you said it is valid for any season, i would prefer rain or sun! Not too fond of cold.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 17, 2014 at 10:16 PM

      I'm also not fond of cold, Shweta. In fact, winters are a pain for me. But the layers that people put on even in the other seasons - they are far more scary.

      Delete
  3. K.A. AcharyaNovember 17, 2014 at 11:45 PM

    Beautiful poem.Man can add layers to beat not only any season but any situation. It is difficult to know the true nature of man.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 18, 2014 at 10:08 AM

      So many layers, masks and chameleon-like colours. Very difficult indeed to know the true nature.

      Delete
  4. AnonymousNovember 18, 2014 at 10:58 AM

    Beautiful lines..

    ReplyDelete
  5. Kokila guptaNovember 18, 2014 at 11:50 AM

    Great symbolism! and the man spent most of his life to gauge beneath the layers and artificial warmth of others forgetting, his own reality in the quest.. yeah liek you n Shweta I too prefer sunshine and may be some blue clouds with silver lining :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 18, 2014 at 1:01 PM

      The masks have been both amusing and frightening. These days I find a few of them become terrifying...

      ... We are the sunshine people :)

      Delete
  6. UnknownNovember 18, 2014 at 12:18 PM

    Nice to read a poem by you sir, so far I have been enjoying the articles. Nice take on winter, unfortunately for me Chennai doesn't offer much change in climate.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 18, 2014 at 1:02 PM

      I write poems very rarely, Athena.

      I know Chennai, like my home state Kerala, doesn't offer much variety by way of temperature.

      Delete
  7. Sunshine-struckNovember 18, 2014 at 2:46 PM

    Searching for the very same colour. Spot on!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 18, 2014 at 5:47 PM

      That's the one of the paradoxes of life I have noticed.

      Delete
  8. i b aroraNovember 18, 2014 at 4:42 PM

    i like the second line

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 18, 2014 at 5:48 PM

      It's poetic, I know. I seem to have borrowed it from somewhere because a similar line is there somewhere in my mind written by some known poet.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pranita a perverted genius

Bulldozer begins its work at Sawan Pranita was a perverted genius. She had Machiavelli’s brain, Octavian’s relentlessness, and Levin’s intellectual calibre. She could have worked wonders if she wanted. She could have created a beautiful world around her. She had the potential. Yet she chose to be a ruthless exterminator. She came to Sawan Public School just to kill it. A religious cult called Radha Soami Satsang Beas [RSSB] had taken over the school from its owner who had never visited the school for over 20 years. This owner, a prominent entrepreneur with a gargantuan ego, had come to the conclusion that the morality of the school’s staff was deviating from the wavelengths determined by him. Moreover, his one foot was inching towards the grave. I was also told that there were some domestic noises which were grating against his patriarchal sensibilities. One holy solution for all these was to hand over the school and its enormous campus (nearly 20 acres of land on the outskirts
13 comments
Read more

Randeep the melody

Many people in this pic have made their presence in this A2Z series A phone call came from an unknown number the other day. “Is it okay to talk to you now, Sir?” The caller asked. The typical start of a conversation by an influencer. “What’s it about?” My usual response looking forward to something like: “I am so-and-so from such-and-such business firm…” And I would cut the call. But there was a surprise this time. “I am Randeep…” I recognised him instantly. His voice rang like a gentle music in my heart. Randeep was a student from the last class 12 batch of Sawan. One of my favourites. He is unforgettable. Both Maggie and I taught him at Sawan where he was a student from class 4 to 12. Nine years in a residential school create deep bonds between people, even between staff and students. Randeep was an ideal student. Good at everything yet very humble and spontaneous. He was a top sportsman and a prefect with eminent leadership. He had certain peculiar problems with academics. Ans
25 comments
Read more

Queen of Religion

She looked like Queen Victoria in the latter’s youth but with a snow-white head. She was slim, fair and graceful. She always smiled but the smile had no life. Someone on the campus described it as a “plastic smile.” She was charming by physical appearance. Soon all of us on the Sawan school campus would realise how deceptive appearances were. Queen took over the administration of Sawan school on behalf of her religious cult RSSB [Radha Soami Satsang Beas]. A lot was said about RSSB in the previous post. Its godman Gurinder Singh Dhillon is now 70 years old. I don’t know whether age has mellowed his lust for land and wealth. Even at the age of 64, he was embroiled in a financial scam that led to the fall of two colossal business enterprises, Fortis Healthcare and Religare finance. That was just a couple of years after he had succeeded in making Sawan school vanish without a trace from Delhi which he did for the sake of adding the school’s twenty-odd acres of land to his existing hun
19 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
37 comments
Read more

Sanjay and other loyalists

AI-generated illustration Some people, especially those in politics, behave as if they are too great to have any contact with the ordinary folk. And they can get on with whoever comes to power on top irrespective of their ideologies and principles. Sanjay was one such person. He occupied some high places in Sawan school [see previous posts, especially P and Q ] merely because he knew how to play his cards more dexterously than ordinary politicians. Whoever came as principal, Sanjay would be there in the elite circle. He seemed to hold most people in contempt. His respect was reserved for the gentry. I belonged to the margins of Sawan society, in Sanjay’s assessment. So we hardly talked to each other. Looking back, I find it quite ludicrous to realise that Sanjay and I lived on the same campus 24x7 for a decade and a half without ever talking to each other except for official purposes.      Towards the end of our coexistence, Sawan had become a veritable hell. Power supply to the
12 comments
Read more