Skip to main content

Emptiness


Some days are like that: vacuous.  Nothing stirs in the consciousness.  Even the annual budget fails to rouse the spirit.  Nothing matters really.  “Earth to earth and dust to dust,” the cleric at the funeral service makes a ghostly apparition in the consciousness filling its foreground with what William James described as “a sense of surrender to the empty passing of  time.” 

Shadows walk about in the haze of moonlight that has turned marmoreal for no reason.  Reason becomes a spectre that has put on dark goggles and a mocking smirk and gallops through the dying embers in your consciousness. Clop-clop-clippety-clop.

Emptiness is unbearable.  Even if it is the DNA of life.

Fill it.  With whatever you like.  Words, for example.  As I’m doing.






Comments

  1. UnknownFebruary 2, 2017 at 9:26 PM

    Sir, there are people who have nothing to fill it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 2, 2017 at 9:37 PM

      That would be painful! I've seen most people filling it with money, some with power and a few with dreams.

      Delete
  2. RajashreeFebruary 3, 2017 at 11:52 AM

    Wonderfully articulated - the bitter fact of life struck at odd times!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 3, 2017 at 1:05 PM

      It's like you've gone empty all of a sudden though there are a lot of noises all around and even inside.

      Delete
  3. Durga Prasad DashFebruary 3, 2017 at 4:10 PM

    This is also a flavour of life.

    ReplyDelete
  4. sunaina sharmaFebruary 3, 2017 at 4:39 PM

    I feel that very often - and only words seem to bring some solace. But sometimes they fail too....I sometimes wish that the carefree nature of a child would be a constant as we grow up but alas ! that doesn't happen....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 3, 2017 at 7:53 PM

      The child continues to survive and that also creates a conflict! The child in the adult is incompatible with the society.

      Delete
  5. Renu VyasFebruary 3, 2017 at 5:26 PM

    I can so relate to what you say Sir. There are days when I react to the happenings around me for the sole reason that it is expected of me while inside I feel blank. Its like a vacuum. I function because it is something to be done. I guess it is a phase of life and even this shall pass as the famous saying goes :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 3, 2017 at 7:55 PM

      It will pass, no doubt. In the meanwhile, it's a consolation to know that there are many who experience similar situations.

      Delete
  6. Kokila guptaFebruary 3, 2017 at 10:50 PM

    I dread that feeling. It kills life, while the man lives on. even if temporarily.
    Just like Renu has said, I do things because they have to be done, without feeling anything but it happens with me only when I am hurt.. in a way that neither I am able to cope up nor am able to let it go.
    Otherwise, mercifully, emptiness inside me is a rare thing.. In fact, I am too full with matters ranging from cosmic to trivial! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 4, 2017 at 8:27 AM

      Good you have a range of things from cosmic to trivial to fill the void. I have to invent things.

      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 Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...
16 comments
Read more

The Ugly Duckling

Source: Acting Company A. A. Milne’s one-act play, The Ugly Duckling , acquired a classical status because of the hearty humour used to present a profound theme. The King and the Queen are worried because their daughter Camilla is too ugly to get a suitor. In spite of all the devious strategies employed by the King and his Chancellor, the princess remained unmarried. Camilla was blessed with a unique beauty by her two godmothers but no one could see any beauty in her physical appearance. She has an exquisitely beautiful character. What use is character? The King asks. The play is an answer to that question. Character plays the most crucial role in our moral science books and traditional rhetoric, religious scriptures and homilies. When it comes to practical life, we look for other things such as wealth, social rank, physical looks, and so on. As the King says in this play, “If a girl is beautiful, it is easy to assume that she has, tucked away inside her, an equally beauti...
31 comments
Read more

Taliban and India

Illustration by Copilot Designer Two things happened on 14 Oct 2025. One: India rolled out the red carpet for an Afghan delegation led by the Taliban Administration’s Foreign Minister. Two: a young man was forced to wash the feet of a Brahmin and drink that water. This happened in Madhya Pradesh, not too far from where the Taliban leaders were being given regal reception in tune with India’s philosophy of Atithi Devo Bhava (Guest is God). Afghanistan’s Taliban and India’s RSS (which shaped Modi’s thinking) have much in common. The former seeks to build a state based on its interpretation of Islamic law aiming for a society governed by strict religious codes. The RSS promotes Hindutva, the idea of India as primarily a Hindu nation, where Hindu values form the cultural and political foundation. Both fuse religious identity with national identity, marginalising those who don’t fit their vision of the nation. The man who was made to wash a Brahmin’s feet and drink that water in Madh...
22 comments
Read more

Helpless Gods

Illustration by Gemini Six decades ago, Kerala’s beloved poet Vayalar Ramavarma sang about gods that don’t open their eyes, don’t know joy or sorrow, but are mere clay idols. The movie that carried the song was a hit in Kerala in the late 1960s. I was only seven when the movie was released. The impact of the song, like many others composed by the same poet, sank into me a little later as I grew up. Our gods are quite useless; they are little more than narcissists who demand fresh and fragrant flowers only to fling them when they wither. Six decades after Kerala’s poet questioned the potency of gods, the Chief Justice of India had a shoe flung at him by a lawyer for the same thing: questioning the worth of gods. The lawyer was demanding the replacement of a damaged idol of god Vishnu and the Chief Justice wondered why gods couldn’t take care of themselves since they are omnipotent. The lawyer flung his shoe at the Chief Justice to prove his devotion to a god. From Vayalar of 196...
10 comments
Read more