Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Fiction I had warned him.   “Facebook is not a place for a person like you.”   That’s what I had told him.   Could I make it clearer than that?   Especially to the best mathematics teacher in the school?   Mathematics doesn’t teach you the equations of human affairs.   Facebook does.   Facebook can , at least, provided you know where to draw the line between trust and friendship.   Between genuineness and deceit. Stupid! You are too good for Facebook. Could I tell him that?   You tell me.   How do we deal with somebody who is a successful mathematics teacher with a loving wife and two loving children when he chooses to go active in Facebook when he cannot even get his water supply properly because he does not know how to communicate with the government officers in the Panchayat office who don’t know how to calculate hundred minus hundred though they know what a two hundred rupee bribe is? Some people fall on this earth by mistake.   He belongs to that category.  

Fiction “What are you thinking of so deeply?”  Anita asked her husband as they were walking up the narrow street leading to the school where they were going for a walk-in interview for teaching jobs.  The bus that took them from the suburban rail station had dropped them at the foot of the hillock that was majestically crowned by the school building. “I was thinking of our destiny,” answered Sridhar.  “I’ve just a few years left for retirement.  You have a few more years.  And here we are hunting for a job.” “What is in your destiny, no one can take away.  What is not in your destiny, no one can give you.”  She laughed glumly.  She was repeating exactly what Sridhar had told her the other day when she grieved the death of the school where they both had been working for years.   Their school was founded by an industrialist.  He now wanted an amusement park in its place.  The city needs relaxation, he argued.  People who were not very kind to him said that the school fa

“Put him in the same cell as that Baba’s Chela,” said the Inspector of Police when Michael was brought to the Royal Incarceration.  “The Chela should know how to deal with witches and their lovers.” Michael had been accused of practising witchcraft because some charge was needed for relegating him or anyone to the Royal Incarceration according to one of the many Orders promulgated by the new King. “Baba wanted to own the Taj Mahal,” said the Chela having introduced himself to Michael.  “Baba Sena tried to carry out the wish.”  His devotion had landed him in the Royal Incarceration. “Why does Baba want so much land?” wondered Michael.  He had seen enormous tracts of land encompassed by tall walls with the Baba’s signboards declaring proprietorship in many places during his extensive journeys over the last few months. Chela looked at Michael as if the latter were an imbecile.  “He wants the whole country,” explained Chela.  “Ownership is the only real power and power

Michael whispered something into his folded palm and then made a throwing gesture at the village.  He was leaving the village along with his family as the land had been acquired for development.  In fact, an adventure park was going to be constructed on the land.  The security guards at the gate stopped him.  A huge wall was erected around the village with security guards at the gate after the land was acquired under the Land Acquisition Order promulgated hurriedly as soon as the new King was enthroned.  One of the many mottoes of the King was: ‘Decisions are in; delays are out.’  Michael being lazy, his family was one of the last to be out of the village.  “Why did you curse?” asked one of the guards. Michael looked at him in dismay.  “I didn’t curse.” “But you made the gesture of a curse.” “That’s not a curse.  It’s exorcism.”  Michael explained that devils had started entering his soul from the time the guards and their bosses had taken over his village.  He

Fiction A few years ago, I was holidaying in Kerala.  One of the many journeys found me reaching the sleepy little town nearest to my home late in the night.  The last bus to the village had left three hours ago.  A couple of auto-rickshaws waited languidly for weary passengers.  I was not weary and I decided to walk.  The few drinks I had just had along with a light dinner roused up the romantic spirit in me.  I thought of the winding village road lined with a variety of trees on both the sides.  The sound of cicadas kept me company as soon as I left behind the lights of the town.  There were very few street lights.  Fireflies danced mirthfully teasing me.  The moon shone brightly in the sky and the beams filtered through the leaves of the trees casting weird patterns on the road.  Occasionally a dog barked from some veranda and then went to sleep again.  The village cemetery lay a few hundred metres from my home.  As I passed by the cemetery I saw a figure standing in t

Fiction It’s not only the gods but the devils too have specific religions, Maria realised when she saw the devil appearing on her husband’s face fifteen years after she had seen it the last time. Fifteen years ago, one nondescript autumn afternoon in Shillong, Philip came back from the school where he worked as a mathematics teacher and declared that he had resigned from his job.  Maria was stunned though she had known deep within her all the time that this was coming.  Reverend Father Joseph Potthukandathil, the Headmaster of Saint Joseph’s School where Philip taught, had been rubbing up Philip in the wrong way for a long time, years in fact, assuming that it was every Catholic priest’s canonical burden to bring the lost sheep back to the fold.  Philip not only refused to accept the priest’s gospel but also cocked a snook at it by guzzling peg after peg of brandy sitting in the Marbaniang Bar that stood just a hundred metres away from the church where the priest who dreamt o

When Ram and Lakshman sat down to play snakes and ladders, Manthara told them, “For every ladder you climb, remember there’s a snake waiting to swallow you.” Some snakes will swallow you even before you climb any ladder, Ram realised years later.  If you are a potential climber, snakes are more eager to swallow you because they know swallowing is difficult once you have actually climbed.  My ladders were removed even before I reached them, thought Rama.  First Kaikeyi, then Ravana, and then the very people of Ayodhya, they all took away the ladder just as I approached it.  I took revenge on Ravana, but did I regain my Sita?  So what use was it all?  I ascended the throne of Ayodhya.  For what?  To see Sita walk into the flames? You lacked the courage to stand up to people, said Lakshman.  You were more concerned with your image, the facade of the Maryada Purushottam.  Lakshman was chagrined when his role model and hero consigned his wife, the most chaste woman, to the f

What am I?  A thistledown that rises on the wings of the breeze only to be beaten down to the earth by the mildest drizzle?  You push me around too much.  I want to stick to something somewhere for good. My mother thought it fit to dump me in the forest after her dalliance with Vishwamitra was over.  My first longing for Ghar Vapsi rose amidst buzzing of bees and the tickling gurgles of the Malini.  I longed to be in the lap of my mother sucking love at her breasts, being looked on with fond admiration by my father.  But they both had their gods as convenient excuses.  Mother was performing a duty assigned to her by her gods.  I was a by-product that could be discarded.  Noboy understood my yearning for a Ghar Vapsi.  Vishwamitra, my dad, dumped me on grounds of asceticism.  What does asceticism mean shorn of love?  If a man can dump his own flesh and blood in the shape of an innocent little baby, what is the value of his asceticism?  The question made me long for another kind

Fiction Nostalgia is one of the many escape routes for boredom.   People in business know it particularly well because their job keeps them occupied from early morning puja to the god of wealth till late in the night puja to the same god.   “I’m bored,” said Kamakshi to her husband on a Sunday evening.  Mithun, the husband and businessman, had made sure that his business would not disturb him on Sundays.  But the god of business is no kinder than any other god.  The executives would call on Sundays too to enquire about how to deal with some consumer who complained about some defective product which was sold in one of the many outlets of the Mithun Chain of produces.  If the executives didn’t call up, Mithun would call them up to make sure that no consumer had any complaint.  “I’m bored,” declared Kamakshi during one such call on a Sunday evening. They were newlywed couples, Kamakshi and Mithun.  She had just turned eighteen and passed class 12 from a reputed public school