Skip to main content

New Year


Neither the sun nor the earth has a calendar. Time is an eternal flow. A circular flow. We make calendars and mark days and years. The circle turns linear and we perceive progress, progressive motion.  Calendars make linear what is in fact circular.

In the linear world runs history replacing monarchs with democrats and savagery with civilisation. But the earth can only make circular motions. Are we caught in a vicious circle?

The calendar can straighten out the circle. That's why the new year day matters. It offers hopes. It throws challenges.

All creation is a stepping out from a circle.

This new year fills me with a craving: my country should step out of some worn out circles and move forward. Circular motions in history don't bring progress.

I hope, I dream.

Happy New Year. 

Comments

  1. UnknownJanuary 1, 2015 at 10:29 AM

    Found your post both lyrical and sad. Sad because of the Antiquity of Sadness, the ebb and flow of the grim tides of History. And lyrical because of the possibilities of Conscious Evolution. Of Man. Of Nations. Of India.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 1, 2015 at 12:36 PM

      True, Venkatesh, I had mixed feelings in the new year morning. Sadness and hope.

      Delete
  2. roopzJanuary 1, 2015 at 11:45 AM

    I too dream the same. Days where females can walk out freely...
    Do visit my blog once in a while as my resolution for the year 2015 is to update my blog regularly.

    Regards
    Village Girl

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 1, 2015 at 12:47 PM

      Nice to see you here, Roopa. May your dream come true.

      Delete
  3. KalpanaJanuary 1, 2015 at 5:14 PM

    Happy New Year Matheikal. I agree with you - the hope that things will change, for the better, is something we feel every New Year - despite everything. Shows how resilient human beings are.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 2, 2015 at 8:12 AM

      I reciprocate your new year greeting. Let's hope for better days.

      Delete
  4. UppalJanuary 1, 2015 at 5:52 PM

    Food for pondering! Best wishes for 2015!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownJanuary 1, 2015 at 6:23 PM

    Happy New Year, Sir :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. UnknownJanuary 1, 2015 at 6:26 PM


    The calendar can straighten out the circle. That's why the new year day matters. It offers hopes. - Amazing lines. Wish you a wonderful 2015

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 2, 2015 at 8:21 AM

      Sometimes I think progress is like the circular motion of mill bulls of bygone days. There is some output but no displacement. ... Wish you too a glorious year ahead

      Delete
  7. Roohi BhatnagarJanuary 1, 2015 at 6:30 PM

    Happy New Year, Matheikal.

    ReplyDelete
  8. RajeshJanuary 1, 2015 at 7:17 PM

    Wish you and your family Very Happy New year 2015.

    ReplyDelete
  9. D.NambiarJanuary 1, 2015 at 7:24 PM

    Happy New year to you too.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Amrita SabatJanuary 2, 2015 at 12:42 PM

    Such nice thoughts to ring in the new year! Even I hope our country goes ahead faster on path of progress...may our leaders, administrators, companies, institutions all work sincerely, effectively! Happy New Year to you too!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 2, 2015 at 10:09 PM

      I share your dreams and hopes, Amrita. And wish you a new year which will materialise your dreams as well as mine.

      Delete
  11. ekta khetanJanuary 2, 2015 at 12:42 PM

    Beautifully written post, Truly. Here's adding more power and force to our country to move ahead, breaking dull circles!

    Do participate in the Melbourne contest on my blog www.numerounity.com. Simple contest to win gift voucher! See ya there:)

    ReplyDelete
  12. AditiJanuary 2, 2015 at 5:24 PM

    Liked reading your post Matheikal. May your hopes and dream come true . :)

    ReplyDelete

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
9 comments
Read more

Machiavelli the Reverend

Let us go today , you and I, through certain miasmic streets. Nothing will be quite clear along our way because this journey is through some delusions and illusions. You will meet people wearing holy robes and talking about morality and virtues. Some of them will claim to be god’s men and some will make taller claims. Some of them are just amorphous. Invisible. But omnipotent. You can feel their power around you. On you. Oppressing you. Stifling you. Reverend Machiavelli is one such oppressive power. You will meet Franz Kafka somewhere along the way. Joseph K’s ghost will pass by. Remember Joseph K who was arrested one fine morning for a crime that nobody knew anything about? Neither Joseph nor the men who arrest him know why Joseph K is arrested. The power that keeps Joseph K under arrest is invisible. He cannot get answers to his valid questions from the visible agents of that power. He cannot explain himself to that power. Finally, he is taken to a quarry outside the town wher
19 comments
Read more

Levin the good shepherd

AI-generated image The lost sheep and its redeemer form a pet motif in Christianity. Jesus portrayed himself as a good shepherd many times. He said that the good shepherd will leave his 99 sheep in order to bring the lost sheep back to the fold. When he finds the lost sheep, the shepherd is happier about that one sheep than about the 99, Jesus claimed. He was speaking metaphorically. The lost sheep is the sinner in Jesus’ parable. Sin is a departure from the ‘right’ way. Angels raise a toast in heaven whenever a sinner returns to the ‘right’ path [Luke 15:10]. A lot of Catholic priests I know carry some sort of a Redeemer complex in their souls. They love the sinner so much that they cannot rest until they make the angels of God run for their cups of joy. I have also been fortunate to have one such priest-friend whom I shall call Levin in this post. He has befriended me right from the year 1976 when I was a blundering adolescent and he was just one year older than me. He possesse
8 comments
Read more

Kailasnath the Paradox

AI-generated illustration It wasn’t easy to discern whether he was a friend or merely an amused onlooker. He was my colleague at the college, though from another department. When my life had entered a slippery slope because of certain unresolved psychological problems, he didn’t choose to shun me as most others did. However, when he did condescend to join me in the college canteen sipping tea and smoking a cigarette, I wasn’t ever sure whether he was befriending me or mocking me. Kailasnath was a bundle of paradoxes. He appeared to be an alpha male, so self-assured and lord of all that he surveyed. Yet if you cared to observe deeply, you would find too many chinks in his armour. Beneath all those domineering words and gestures lay ample signs of frailty. The tall, elegantly slim and precisely erect stature would draw anyone’s attention quickly. Kailasnath was always attractively dressed though never unduly stylish. Everything about him exuded an air of chic confidence. But the wa
9 comments
Read more

Nakulan the Outcast

Nakulan was one of the many tenants of Hevendrea . A professor in the botany department of the North Eastern Hill University, he was a very lovable person. Some sense of inferiority complex that came from his caste status made him scoff the very idea of his lovability. He lived with his wife and three children in one of Heavendrea’s many cottages. When he wanted to have a drink, he would walk over to my hut. We sipped our whiskies and discussed Shillong’s intriguing politics or something of the sort while my cassette player crooned gently in the background. Nakulan was more than ten years my senior by age. He taught a subject which had never aroused my interest at any stage of my life. It made no difference to me whether a leaf was pinnately compound or palmately compound. You don’t need to know about anther and stigma in order to understand a flower. My friend Levin would have ascribed my lack of interest in Nakulan’s subject to my egomania. I always thought that Nakulan lived
16 comments
Read more