Skip to main content

Real Saints

Image by Copilot Designer


I am a member of a quirky WhatsApp group named ‘The Real Saints.’ With only 15 members, the group is unusually vibrant with one post or another popping up every now and then. Everything under the sun is grist to this group’s carnivalesque mill whose members belong to diverse professions: banker, lawyer, businessman, jeweller, entrepreneur, teacher, and – believe it or not – a Catholic priest.

All of us had studied together for two years in the mid-1970s in Kochi. That was probably the only thing that united us. Otherwise, we were all as different from each other as oil and vinegar. But there is a streak of eccentricity in all of us, I think. Probably, it is that eccentricity that keeps us together. One is a staunch Modi supporter and one (that’s me) is an equally staunch Modi-basher. There are hardcore Congressmen and equally hardcore Marxists. But we have never had a fight at any time anywhere – neither in real physical plains nor in the digital realms.

A couple of months back eleven of us came together at the palatial residence of one of the members. The America-returned host had kept a couple of bottles of exquisite brandy ready. A few members brought along with them whisky, including a Johnnie Walker Blue Label. Drink as much as you wish. Another member had sponsored the food. We spent hours together drinking, sharing experiences, telling jokes and stories, even questioning some views. But, all that intoxication notwithstanding, there never was any raucous moment. It remained a gentlemen’s affair till the end, except that we laughed a bit louder than usual occasionally. We were all happy, contented. With our unique friendships. In spite of the glaring differences in our views and attitudes.

Why I chose to write about this is only to show how people can believe in whatever they like, be entirely different from others, and yet share an unparalleled spirit of camaraderie. Why on earth will a country of 1.4 billion people aim for ONE RELIGION, ONE LANGUAGE, ONE WHATEVER? Impossible to understand. More impossible to make it practical. I would like to present our group, which one member ingeniously named THE REAL SAINTS, to our Prime Minister as a model for building up his nation.

Ours is not a new group. This has been in existence for over ten years. We met many times earlier too in different places. This time, when someone mentioned to add more members who wished to join, a few others objected like the Renaissance Freemasons. Not everyone can imbibe the spirit of THE REAL SAINTS. ‘Saintliness’ is not a frivolous matter. When the name of a particular person who wished to join was mentioned, I threatened to walk out of the group if he was admitted. So, we are exclusive too in spite of our cosmic large-heartedness.

I’ll tell you why. There are certain people who will ruin an entire group and its spirit with their meanness which they perceive as spirituality. Just imagine this aspirant – let’s call him Jim – attending a meeting (party, really) of ours. Jim is a confirmed (or confounded, as Shaw would say) teetotaller. Anything that is spoken against Christianity is satanic blasphemy for him. Jim is likely to die of a massive stroke after spending five minutes with us, THE REAL SAINTS.

We move between irreverence and solemnity, seriousness and levity, philosophy and plebeianism, bourgeoisies and proletariats, heaven and hell, all with the grace of a ballerina. We have internalised that art. That is why we are ‘saints.’

Well, not one of us in the group actually thinks of ourselves as greater than any other person out there. But we know that we are comfortable to be together, without others, occasionally, and that we can do that ballet just for the fun of it. We know that life is ultimately as absurd as that meaningless ballet, but as graceful too.  

Comments

  1. AnonymousAugust 29, 2025 at 10:43 AM

    A beautiful article except for the confusion over Jim

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 29, 2025 at 11:08 AM

      "We move between irreverence and solemnity, seriousness and levity, philosophy and plebeianism, bourgeoisies and proletariats, heaven and hell..." That's why Jims can't ever fit in groups like this. They are too bigoted to absorb any of that diversity in views.

      Delete
  2. Jose D. MaliekalAugust 29, 2025 at 12:24 PM

    The great thing about the great piece is the mode and mood of the camaraderie, the mode of Ballet and the imagery of the bellarina. And of course grace and cosmopolitanism, albeit the acknowlwdgement of the streak the self-enclosed monadism.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 29, 2025 at 3:49 PM

      Certain boundaries have to be clearcut for the quality to remain steady.

      Delete
  3. Yamini MacLeanAugust 29, 2025 at 2:10 PM

    Hari Om
    The ability to remain on the intellectual plane while discussing opposing views is a charm indeed and to be applauded. To then not extend that mental largesse to another, to let them learn from the example... makes of the group precisely what you decry of government. It is elitism in micro. To be truly diverse, to permit another to air their views, and then 15 against one show how things are in your 'community', which the incomer can adjust to or opt to leave for other places, might have shown you in a better light. YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 29, 2025 at 3:51 PM

      Without that elitism, the group won't survive at all as it is. With more members, not of the same caliber, the group will become just another quotidian mishmash.

      Delete
  4. Pradeep NairAugust 30, 2025 at 10:04 PM

    There are so many WhatsApp groups one member expresses radical views, totally unsolicited; and there are half a dozen people jumping in to either support or oppose those views. And then mostly it's a virutal free for all.
    Live and let live, is easier said that done!
    (My latest post: Fiction, non-fiction: Why I read what I read)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 1, 2025 at 7:06 AM

      The most interesting thing about this particular group I mentioned is that it's free for all without any rancour, rather there is an exceptional level of mutual acceptance.

      Delete
  5. Liz A.August 31, 2025 at 1:31 AM

    It's nice you've got a group that you can just be with. Yeah, there are some people who would ruin that vibe, and you wouldn't realize it until it was too late to save it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 1, 2025 at 7:06 AM

      We consciously keep such people out that can ruin the vibe.

      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

Don Bosco

Don Bosco (16 Aug 1815 - 31 Jan 1888) In Catholic parlance, which flows through my veins in spite of myself, today is the Feast of Don Bosco. My life was both made and unmade by Don Bosco institutions. Any great person can make or break people because of his followers. Religious institutions are the best examples. I’m presenting below an extract from my forthcoming book titled Autumn Shadows to celebrate the Feast of Don Bosco in my own way which is obviously very different from how it is celebrated in his institutions today. Do I feel nostalgic about the Feast? Not at all. I feel relieved. That’s why this celebration. The extract follows. Don Bosco, as Saint John Bosco was popularly known, had a remarkably good system for the education of youth.   He called it ‘preventive system’.   The educators should be ever vigilant so that wrong actions are prevented before they can be committed.   Reason, religion and loving kindness are the three pillars of that syste...
2 comments
Read more

Relatives and Antidepressants

One of the scenes that remain indelibly etched in my memory is from a novel of Malayalam writer O V Vijayan. Father and little son are on a walk. Father tells son, “Walk carefully, son, otherwise you may fall down.” Son: “What will happen if I fall?” Father: "Relatives will laugh.” I seldom feel comfortable with my relatives. In fact, I don’t feel comfortable in any society, but relatives make it more uneasy. The reason, as I’ve understood, is that your relatives are the last people to see any goodness in you. On the other hand, they are the first ones to discover all your faults. Whenever certain relatives visit, my knees buckle and the blood pressure shoots up. I behave quite awkwardly. They often describe my behaviour as arising from my ego, which used to be a oversized in yesteryear. I had a few such visitors the other day. The problem was particularly compounded by their informing me that they would be arriving by about 3.30 pm and actually reaching at about 7.30 pm. ...
16 comments
Read more

Coffee can be bitter

The dawns of my childhood were redolent of filtered black coffee. We were woken up before the birds started singing in the lush green village landscape outside home. The sun would split the darkness of the eastern sky with its splinter of white radiance much after we children had our filtered coffee with a small lump of jaggery. Take a bite of the jaggery and then a sip of the coffee. Coffee was a ritual in our home back then. Perhaps our parents believed it would jolt our neurons awake and help us absorb our lessons before we set out on the 4-kilometre walk to school after all the morning rituals at home. After high school, when I left home for further studies at a distant place, the ritual of the morning coffee stopped. It resumed a whole decade later when I completed my graduation and took up a teaching job in Shillong. But I had lost my taste for filtered coffee by then; tea took its place. Plain tea without milk – what is known as red tea in most parts of India. Coffee ret...
18 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