App Trap

Some messages that come on WhatsApp make me cry. Because I’ll be reading them for the umpteenth time.

Why should my mornings begin with these?

WhatsApp is the only messaging app I have on my phone. Until a few days back there was FB Messenger too. I uninstalled Messenger the moment one particular friend snapped the friendship. Santosh used to write meaningful things and I loved reading them. It was only for him I installed Messenger. His writings were poetic, philosophical, funny, personal, bizarre, and just anything depending on his mood. I loved each one of them for the resplendent personality behind them. Then some well-wishers came between us. Well-wishers have been my nemesis for most part of my life. They ruined my happiness whenever they got an opportunity to do so.

Well-wishers rule the roost of messaging apps. I get at least a hundred messages from them every day. Clichéd rules of thumb, jokes that have gathered patina over time, muffled trumpet-blowing. I have stopped opening most of them. I need WhatsApp because sometimes my workplace issues important messages on it.

Some jokes are welcome :)

I would install as many messaging apps as you please provided there were more Santoshes in the world. I love writing that comes from one’s own heart. I don’t understand why people send to me things written by unknown others. What interests me is you, you as an individual. What do you have to say to me?

“Eeeee…” Santosh would write sometimes in response to my remark or comment. Even that Eeeee held a kaleidoscope of meaning for me. That sort of meaning is what I look for in any text; one’s own meaning, not borrowed ones. Borrowed meanings are as useless to me as religions. That’s why messaging apps and I don’t get along well.

Beauty queens from Saudi Arabia.
Sent via WhatsApp by a friend with a good sense of humour.
This was fantastic. I hope it won't gather patina with nauseating repetition.

Comments

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

Remedios the Beauty and Innocence

Remedios the Beauty is a character in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude . Like most members of her family, she too belongs to solitude. But unlike others, she is very innocent too. Physically she is the most beautiful woman ever seen in Macondo, the place where the story of her family unfolds. Is that beauty a reflection of her innocence? Well, Marquez doesn’t suggest that explicitly. But there is an implication to that effect. Innocence does make people look charming. What else is the charm of children? Remedios’s beauty is dangerous, however. She is warned by her great grandmother, who is losing her eyesight, not to appear before men. The girl’s beauty coupled with her innocence will have disastrous effects on men. But Remedios is unaware of “her irreparable fate as a disturbing woman.” She is too innocent to know such things though she is an adult physically. Every time she appears before outsiders she causes a panic of exasperation. To make...

The Covenant of Water

Book Review Title: The Covenant of Water Author: Abraham Verghese Publisher: Grove Press UK, 2023 Pages: 724 “What defines a family isn’t blood but the secrets they share.” This massive book explores the intricacies of human relationships with a plot that spans almost a century. The story begins in 1900 with 12-year-old Mariamma being wedded to a 40-year-old widower in whose family runs a curse: death by drowning. The story ends in 1977 with another Mariamma, the granddaughter of Mariamma the First who becomes Big Ammachi [grandmother]. A lot of things happen in the 700+ pages of the novel which has everything that one may expect from a popular novel: suspense, mystery, love, passion, power, vulnerability, and also some social and religious issues. The only setback, if it can be called that at all, is that too many people die in this novel. But then, when death by drowning is a curse in the family, we have to be prepared for many a burial. The Kerala of the pre-Independ...

The Death of Truth and a lot more

Susmesh Chandroth in his kitchen “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought,” Poet Shelley told us long ago. I was reading an interview with a prominent Malayalam writer, Susmesh Chandroth, this morning when Shelley returned to my memory. Chandroth says he left Kerala because the state had too much of affluence which is not conducive for the production of good art and literature. He chose to live in Kolkata where there is the agony of existence and hence also its ecstasies. He’s right about Kerala’s affluence. The state has eradicated poverty except in some small tribal pockets. Today almost every family in Kerala has at least one person working abroad and sending dollars home making the state’s economy far better than that of most of its counterparts. You will find palatial houses in Kerala with hardly anyone living in them. People who live in some distant foreign land get mansions constructed back home though they may never intend to come and live here. There are ...

Koorumala Viewpoint

Koorumala is at once reticent and coquettish. It is an emerging tourist spot in the Ernakulam district of Kerala. At an altitude of 169 metres from MSL, the viewpoint is about 40 km from Kochi. The final stretch of the road, about 2 km, is very narrow. It passes through lush green forest-looking topography. The drive itself is exhilarating. And finally you arrive at a 'Pay & Park' signboard on a rocky terrain. The land belongs to the CSI St Peter's Church. You park your vehicle there and walk up a concrete path which leads to a tiled walkway which in turn will take you the viewpoint. Below are some pictures of the place. From the parking lot to the viewpoint The tiled walkway A selfie from near the view tower A view from the tower Another view The tower and the rest mandap at the back Koorumala viewpoint is a recent addition to Kerala's tourist map. It's a 'cool' place for people of nearby areas to spend some leisure in splendid isolation from the hu...

Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Search This Blog