Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Ashokan Pillai was reading the newspaper since there were no clients in the office. Prime Minister Modi’s claim that Mahatma Gandhi was not known to the world until Richard Attenborough made the movie amused Ashokan. Something far more amusing walked in just at that moment. A whole family consisting of father, mother and two children. What are these little children doing in an office of the civil supplies department? Ashokan wondered. His job was related to the issue of ration cards, rectification of errors in them, and other matters associated with ration cards. “We want a change in our ration card,” the man who introduced himself as Rajendran said. He looked smart in his stylish jeans and T-shirt. The woman was wearing a similar dress too and she was charmingly beautiful though she seemed to be in her forties. They wanted to remove Rajendran’s name from the card and issue a separate card in his name. “We are separating,” Rajendran said. “With mutual consent,” the lady sai...

What does religion mean? This is the fundamental question raised by Manu Joseph in his story (in Malayalam) titled Lizard in the Sanctuary . A lizard is driven out of a library in a cleaning drive initiated by the new librarian. It takes shelter in the nearby church. After all, churches are meant for everyone, aren’t they? The lizard sits in the sanctuary right behind the inscription of INRI on the main cross. It observes everything, listens to all the prayers and sermons, and even attends a few catechism classes after the Sunday Mass. The lizard is fascinated by such a wonderful religion which teaches the faithful to love even their enemies. The lizard finds the melodious prayers and hymns soothing and moving. The lessons preached in the sermons are all so noble. The lizard naturally wants to become a Christian. How to become a Christian? The lizard carefully observes all the Christians who attend the church service. There is Mathew who takes a seat near to the women’s side an...

The short story titled ‘Power’ written by well-known Rajasthani writer Vijaydan Detha is a metaphor on the nature of political power and the pragmatism of people who are subjects of that power. In this story there is magistrate who is the favourite of the King. The magistrate is so beloved of the King that he is more powerful than the King. The subjects are all scared of the magistrate. He has no children though he has seven wives. He blames the wives for his childlessness. Finally he adopts a dog named Koel. All the people of the country love Koel. Rather, they pretend to love Koel. They sing Koel’s praises. Koel’s life is cut short by a disease. The magistrate, rendered unable to bury or cremate the dead dog by his great love for it, gets the dog stuffed and embalmed. When he expresses his desire to have a golden cage built for Koel, the people instantly donate whatever jewels and ornaments they have. Soon miracles begin to take place because Koel has attained a divine status...

Draupadi wants to beget a daughter by Karna. Bilingual poet [Malayalam and English] K Sachidanandan has written a very short story in the latest edition of the Malayalam weekly, Mathrubhumi . Titled Draupadi’s Soliloquy , the story is an implicit lament on the current state of affairs in India. No woman can accept her fate with resignation when she has five valiant and virtuous husbands and yet has to stand disrobed in front of a couple of malevolent men who have usurped all powers through means more foul than fair. Of what value is Yudhishthira’s dharma? Draupadi laments. Arjuna’s famed valour is in vain now. Even the devotion of mighty Bheema serves no purpose. Nakula’s dutifulness and Sahadeva’s courtesy are all futile virtues in this royal court where villainous characters have put on the robes of heroes. What I want is Karna, Draupadi laments to herself. She has seen the flame that burns fiercely in the eyes of Karna. She has felt the ardour of the passion that fumes in Ka...

  Driving in Kerala is scary. Walking on the road is deadlier. Both can kill you sooner than any other cause. Look at statistics. Covid kept the accident numbers low in 2020. Lockdowns kept people at home. As soon as people were given liberty to drive around, they started driving people to their death. Nearly 55,000 accidents in 2023! That is 150 accidents a day!  Two-wheelers cause most accidents. Youngsters form the lion's share of the victims. Nearly two-thirds of the victims are in the age group of 18 to 45.  My house is situated on a road that is designated as state highway. Actually the road's construction was never completed due to the kind of politics Kerala usually had and hence the highway suddenly ends in the middle of nowhere. Hence the traffic isn't much. But youngsters come from God-knows-where on their roaring bikes which fly on the roads. The speed and the noise, both together can be murderous. A lot of people die  before reaching the age of 60 in thi...

  Diya Geomin is a grade 12 student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala, India. She wrote the following poem about a close friend of hers who is struggling with depression. Notice how the problems of the other person intertwine with those of the poet persona.   She hopes, I exist By Diya Geomin   She hopes to see the better world She hopes to know her true self That nobody, even herself, knows  She hopes to find a new fantasy  To escape some time alone.   She hopes to hide under the stairs To cry out her pain somewhere no one cares  She hopes to escape into her books. With the pennies she doesn't have.   She hopes to run away to an unknown place. Full of surprises, waiting to be startled. Waiting to be claimed, owned and used Be with every lover her books could offer.   Yet to her dismay, she finds none. It's only herself, all alone Hoping for some twisted ways to escape Hanging by a th...

I visited two unlikely places yesterday along with a friend whom I shall refer to as J. A cousin of J’s was an inmate of a sanatorium meant for men who were shifted from a mental hospital. This cousin had undergone treatment for years at the hospital. Now for the last few years, he is in the sanatorium and he looks perfectly normal. He talks like any other normal person too though years of psychiatric treatment has given him a conspicuous stoop. He seems to find it hard to look up into your eyes as he speaks due to the stoop. But he does smile a lot. There was an occasional laughter too, subdued though it was. “Have you retired?” He asked me. When I answered, his instant remark was, “Your grey hairs gave me the hint.” I had the same grey hairs when I met him two years ago along with J and I was teaching then. He had probably not noticed it that time. But he remembered me and also the fact that I was a teacher though the visit was very brief. “My hairs are grey too,” he added wi...

  My sleeps are generally haunted by nightmares. Amorphous creatures who pretend to be benign lead me on familiar paths and leave me in alien territories. I had a surprise last night, however. I was abandoned in some kind of a wonderland where everyone smiled like angels who were carrying some happy message to some Virgin Mary somewhere. Yet another virgin birth. The dream left me in a half-awake state. I knew I wasn’t dreaming. I knew I was fantasising. And I found it all quite amusing. Here are some of those delightful fantasies of semi-wokeness. One All the money in the world’s banks, all banks included, is distributed equally to all the adults in the world. Ambani, Adani, Advani, Kolani, Indrani, Malini, Shalini… everyone on earth now has equal wealth. And everyone is told by some mysterious angel that they will always have the same wealth as anyone else on earth as long as they don’t misuse it. If they misuse it – on drugs, for example – then the amount spent won’t be re...

Book Title: The Blue Scarf and other stories Author: Anu Singh Choudhary Translator: Kamayani Sharma Publisher: HarperCollins India, 2023 Pages: 188 There is no doubt that the Indian social system is overtly patriarchal and hence a lot of women endure restrictions of all sorts. There are exceptions like the matrilineal tribes of the Northeast. The 12 short stories in this volume by Anu Singh Choudhary focus on some women from the patriarchal societies of India, particularly North India. Originally written in Hindi, the stories have been translated quite effortlessly by Kamayani Sharma though the book does show a few signs of poor proofreading. The very first story, First Look , shows us the rising aspirations of a few women from a remote village and the futility of those aspirations in a world where even marriage is a business deal. “With this deal, we’re interested only in maximizing profits for both parties,” The boy’s father says. But the girl’s family can’t ever tou...

Terror Tourism 1 in short : Jacob Martin Pathros is a retired school teacher in Kerala. He has visited most countries and is now fascinated by an ad which promises terror tourism: meet the terrorists of Dantewada. Below is the second and last part of the story. Celina went mad on hearing her husband’s latest tour decision. “Meet terrorists? Touch them? Feel them?” She fretted and fumed. When did you touch me last ? She wanted to scream. Feel me, man , she wanted to plead. But her pride didn’t permit her. She was not a feminist or anything of the sort, but she had the pride of having been a teacher in an aided school for 30-odd years and was now drawing a pension which funded a part of their foreign trips. “I’m not coming with you on this trip,” Celina said vehemently. “You go and touch the terrorists and feel them yourself.” Celina was genuinely concerned about her husband’s security. Why did he want to go to such inhuman people as terrorists? Atlas Tours, the agency which b...

Jacob Martin Pathros was enthralled by the ad on terror tourism which promised to take the tourist to the terrorist-jungles of Chhattisgarh. Jacob Martin Pathros had already visited almost all countries, except the perverted South America, after retiring at the young age of 56 from an ‘aided’ school in Kerala. 56 is the retirement age in Kerala’s schools, aided as well as totally government-fed. Aided schools belong to the different religious groups in Kerala. They build up the infrastructure with the money extorted from the believers and then appoint as staff people who can pay hefty donations in the name of infrastructure. The state government will pay the salary of the staff. The private management will rake in millions by way of donations from job-seekers who are usually the third-class graduates from rich-class families. And there are no students to study in these schools because they are all Malayalam medium. Every Malayali wants to go to Europe or North America and hence Malay...

The last snap I took of Brownie That Brownie went away without giving me a hint is what makes her absence so painful. It’s nearly a month and I know now for certain that she won’t return. Worse, I know that she didn’t want to leave me. She couldn’t have. Brownie is the only creature who could make me do what she wanted. She had the liberty to walk into my bedroom at any time of the night and wake me up for a bite of her favourite food. She would sit below the bed and meow. If I didn’t get up and follow her, she would climb on the bed and meow to my face. She knew I would get up and follow her to the cupboard where bags of cat food were stored.  My Mistress in my study Brownie was not my only cat; there were three others. But none of the other three ever made the kind of demands that Brownie made. If any of them came to eat the food I served Brownie at odd hours of the night, Brownie would flatly refuse to eat with them in spite of the fact that it was she who had brought me out...