Skip to main content

Unpredictability and Life


It’s been a rough ride from my youth until this day when my hairs have greyed and smiles are warped.  Very few things went right.  And the wrongs have been exacting teachers.  They have taught me that most stories do not have fairy tale endings.  Very few poems rhyme or follow rhythm.  The most beautiful smiles may be sustained by terribly battered hearts. 

Unpredictability is the essence of life.  Which sperm out of the millions ejaculated gets to fertilise the egg?  What all genes do the chromosomes carry from each partner?  How do they configure their permutations and combinations?  There begins the story of life’s unpredictability.

Once you are pushed out into the world, unpredictability is the ruler.  From your parents to your boss(es), from the priest in the church to the politician on the throne, from the fellow next door to the colleague on the next seat, there’s a whole range of permutations and combinations impinging upon you every moment of your life.

Personally, I was an utter failure dealing with a lot of those kaleidoscopic punches and pinches.  The more you fail, the more the world loves to defeat you.  Finally you bow out and leave the stage to the more spectacular actors. 

Perhaps that bowing out was the most unpredictable moment in my life.  It happened a year and a half back, thanks to a godman and his women who usurped the stage on which I played my ineluctable drama.  It was not at all about the loss of a job.  It was about villainy masquerading as religious holiness.  It was about subhuman manipulations and nefarious gambits. 

It was about the nausea that Jean-Paul Sartre portrayed in the character of Antoine Roquentin.  Some experiences hurl you into a vacuum where you have to redefine yourself and start all over again.

No, I’m not blaming anyone.  I understand that that’s how the world is.  The drawback is mine.  So I drew back.  From the stage.  The only problem now is that the very mention of a godman makes me retch.



PS. This was provoked by Indispire Edition 142: Life is unpredictable !! Write about your unpredictable moment which changed your life !! #UnpredictableMoment
Indian Bloggers


Labels:

Comments

  1. BrajaNovember 6, 2016 at 9:57 PM

    Wow! It takes real courage for a man to write this. My salute to you. Sir, your English vocabulary is also too strong. It must have taken years of effort to develop your language skills. Appreciations!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 6, 2016 at 10:10 PM

      Thanks, friend, for the appreciation. I've been an English teacher for a long time :)

      Delete
  2. SaketNovember 7, 2016 at 7:45 PM

    I remember your post in the two lady teachers.

    I like 'Most stories do not end in fairy tales'

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 7, 2016 at 8:59 PM

      Those two ladies have left some indelible marks in my being. They can be proud of that :)

      Delete
  3. AnonymousNovember 7, 2016 at 8:14 PM

    You are a great writer sir. I became a fan of your writing the day when I read your post on narcissism. Thank you for sharing your experiences. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. sunaina sharmaNovember 9, 2016 at 4:33 AM

    Unpredictability is the name of life....but unpleasant unpredictability is what stirs one deeply....The mental torture you must have suffered has only made you stronger.....something the 'villains' of your life might find hard to digest....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 9, 2016 at 6:52 AM

      The villains have remarkable digestive systems. They swallow anything from gods to crap...

      Delete
  5. tyatinNovember 13, 2016 at 5:40 PM

    You are a great writer with strong opinions

    ReplyDelete
  6. UnknownNovember 28, 2016 at 5:25 PM

    नोटबंदी के बाद डिजिटल पेमेंट पर जोर, जानें क्या है डिजिटल पेमेंट
    Readmore Todaynews18.com https://goo.gl/BgzxC9

    ReplyDelete

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

Being Christian in BJP’s India

A moment of triumph for India’s women’s cricket team turned unexpectedly into a controversy about religious faith and expression, thanks to some right-wing footsloggers. After her stellar performance in the semi-final of the Wormen’s World Cup (2025), Jemimah Rodrigues thanked Jesus for her achievement. “Jesus fought for me,” she said quoting the Bible: “Stand still and God will fight for you” [1 Samuel 12:16]. Some BJP leaders and their mindless followers took strong exception to that and roiled the religious fervour of the bourgeoning right wing with acerbic remarks. If Ms Rodrigues were a Hindu, she would have thanked her deity: Ram or Hanuman or whoever. Since she is a Christian, she thanked Jesus. What’s wrong in that? If she was a nonbeliever like me, God wouldn’t have topped the list of her benefactors. Religion is a talisman for a lot of people. There’s nothing wrong in imagining that some god sitting in some heaven is taking care of you. In fact, it gives a lot of psychologic...
26 comments
Read more

Hollow Leaders

A century ago, T S Eliot wrote about the hollowness of his countrymen in a poem titled The Hollow Men . The World War I had led to a lot of disillusionment with the collapse of powerful empires and the savagery of the war itself which unleashed barbaric slaughter. The generation that survived was known as the “Lost Generation.” Before the war, Western civilisation was sustained by certain values and principles given by religion, the Enlightenment, and Victorian morality. The war showed that science and technology, which could improve life, had actually produced machine guns, gas warfare, and mass death. Religion became hollow. People became hollow. “We are the hollow men,” Eliot’s poem began. The civilisation looked sophisticated from outside, but it was empty inside. There is a lot of religion today in the world. My country has allegedly become so religious that it decides what you will eat, wear, which god you will pray to, and even the language for communication. The ultimat...
16 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...
19 comments
Read more

Why India Needs to Reclaim its Liberal Soul

Russia’s Putin announced the demise of liberalism, America’s Trump wrote its obituary, and India’s Modi wielded the death as a political forge that transmuted him into a demigod. We are, unfortunately, passing through an era of so-called “strong leaders” like Putin, Trump, and Modi. A 2024 report based on a 2023 Pew survey found that 67% Indians endorsed a governing system with a “strong leader” who can make decisions without interference from courts or parliament. This support for autocracy was the highest among all surveyed nations and has increased consistently after Modi became the PM. Shockingly, the same 2023 survey found that 72% of Indian respondents expressed a favourable view of military rule. Indians don’t want individual freedom, it seems. We are used to the many gods who incarnated at appropriate times and destroyed evil ( Sambhavami yuge yuge ). Modi is our present divine incarnation. It is the duty of these avatars to conquer evil; hence individual freedom doesn’t ...
12 comments
Read more