Skip to main content

Some Virtues


Purity
I used to be Snow White until I was bored
And drifted in quest of colours
And met holders of magic mirrors.
Colours come in at the cost of whiteness.

Generosity
My generosity with words overflowed
Until the words became flames
And she said she was ready to burn herself
Wasn’t she doing it from day one, she asked.

Truthfulness
So many holy books full of truths
for which people kill one another.
And I’m still seeking that truth
which doesn’t demand so much blood.

Forgiveness
Every time I joined my palms in rueful prayer
God said he had already forgiven me.
But I couldn’t forgive him
for making me a beggar again and again.

Modesty
I have a tail that’s nothing much to boast about,
It loves to get in the way sometimes just
to show off whatever colours and plumes it has;
The silly little thing is attached to me as I am to it.


Labels:

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 14, 2015 at 11:14 PM

    Such a soul-stirring verse expressed with sheer magnanimity! I am moved by your take on these vital virtues of life... :') Thanks for sharing such a thoughtful post.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Purba chakrabortyOctober 15, 2015 at 1:02 AM

    Wow! Beautiful and thought provoking verses :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sunshine-struckOctober 15, 2015 at 7:18 AM

    Truthfulness. That part. Very true. The stark truth of society, brought goosebumps in me. I just stared at the sentence.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 15, 2015 at 7:49 AM

      Most people are victims of the predator called religious truth.

      Delete
  4. Roohi BhatnagarOctober 15, 2015 at 11:56 AM

    "But I couldn’t forgive him
    for making me a beggar again and again."
    Thought provoking!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 15, 2015 at 4:06 PM

      Why can't an omnipotent god create beings who would naturally choose good over evil?

      Delete
  5. UnknownOctober 17, 2015 at 1:35 PM

    It was the forgiveness part that brought goose bumps in me.

    It reminded me of my first fight with the Almighty, when I threw a F- bomb, on him. Since then, he has been constantly playing with me. I really envy those people who proclaim themselves as an atheist or a theist. I mean how can one be cent percent sure in his life?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 17, 2015 at 2:06 PM

      Spirituality is a constant struggle between personal truths and the infinite mystery. Those who find certainties are lucky.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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
47 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
18 comments
Read more

Dopamine

Fiction Mathai went to the kitchen and picked up a glass. The TV was screening a program called Ask the Doctor . “Dopamine is a sort of hormone that gives us a feeling of happiness or pleasure,” the doc said. “But the problem with it is that it makes us want more of the same thing. You feel happy with one drink and you obviously want more of it. More drink means more happiness…” That’s when Mathai went to pick up his glass and the brandy bottle. It was only morning still. Annamma, his wife, had gone to school as usual to teach Gen Z, an intractable generation. Mathai had retired from a cooperative bank where he was manager in the last few years of his service. Now, as a retired man, he took to watching the TV. It will be more correct to say that he took to flicking channels. He wanted entertainment, but the films and serial programs failed to make sense to him, let alone entertain. The news channels were more entertaining. Our politicians are like the clowns in a circus, he thought...
11 comments
Read more

The Vegetarian

Book Review Title: The Vegetarian Author: Han Kang Translator: Deborah Smith [from Korean] Publisher: Granta, London, 2018 Pages: 183 Insanity can provide infinite opportunities to a novelist. The protagonist of Nobel laureate Han Kang’s Booker-winner novel, The Vegetarian , thinks of herself as a tree. One can argue with ample logic and conviction that trees are far better than humans. “Trees are like brothers and sisters,” Yeong-hye, the protagonist, says. She identifies herself with the trees and turns vegetarian one day. Worse, she gives up all food eventually. Of course, she ends up in a mental hospital. The Vegetarian tells Yeong-hye’s tragic story on the surface. Below that surface, it raises too many questions that leave us pondering deeply. What does it mean to be human? Must humanity always entail violence? Is madness a form of truth, a more profound truth than sanity’s wisdom? In the disturbing world of this novel, trees represent peace, stillness, and nonviol...
6 comments
Read more

The RSS does not exist

An organisation that has 80,000 branches in India does not exist legally in any document. This is the cover story of The Caravan this month. By the way, The Caravan is one of the very few publications that still continues to exist in spite of being overtly critical of Narendra Modi and his Sangh Parivar. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is not registered as an organisation under any of the usual Indian registration laws such as the Societies Registration Act or as a trust or company. It functions as an unregistered voluntary organisation, though it is arguably the largest public organisation in the country. This situation makes the organisation absolutely unaccountable to anyone, argues The Caravan . The RSS is not legally required to file annual returns to the Tax department or disclose its financial details publicly though it deals with thousands of crores of rupees every year especially after Modi became the Prime Minister of the country. The membership of the organisat...
12 comments
Read more