Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Historical Fiction I will soon be thrown into the mass grave along with the naked corpses of the other soldiers.  I am Colonel Chabert, not just an ordinary soldier, Colonel Chabert who led a whole regiment of soldiers to many a victory for none other than Napoleon himself.  I have been famous when the blood still ran in my veins reddening my cheeks with the zest for conquests.  But now I am no more than a body going to be thrown into a mass grave with very ordinary bodies.  The Battle of Eylau Death makes you a mere body.  All bodies are equal and ordinary.  What makes you different is life, your life.  My last battle was the toughest.  The Battle of Eylau.  Our brave French soldiers met the equally brave Russian soldiers in the most inclement of weathers in Arctic conditions.  The fatal wound I received runs from the nape of my neck to just above my right eye.  You can still see it.  My blood stopped running through my veins.  There was little blood left for the vei

Fiction – Parable The monk was on his usual visit to the prison.   It was a part of his daily routine to spend an hour in the prison with the intention of making the prisoners understand that what really makes a prison are not the iron bars and concrete walls but the inmate’s attitudes.   It’s not the place you are in or the work you do that makes you happy or unhappy, he would say frequently.   It’s how you view the place and the work that makes the difference. Happiness lies in the mind, not anywhere outside.   That was his basic premise.   “What’s your daily routine?” asked one of the prisoners whom the monk was counselling individually.   The prisoner was a notorious murderer.   “We get up at 4 in the morning,” began the monk.   The prisoner was stunned.   He used to think that getting up at 6.30 as they used to do in the prison was a grave penance.   He wanted to sleep till 10 o’clock.   The monk went on to narrate his daily routine.   Four hours of meditati

Fiction - parable Vijay was familiar enough with soil and the stones it turns up to realise that he had struck something rare.   It was a tiny stone, a pitch black speck not larger than the tip of his little finger. It turned up from the intestine of the earth while Vijay was digging a pit for the biogas plant. Anand, the scientist from the village, got the stone analysed in his lab and assured, “It is a rare object.   A compound of carbonic acid and magnesium.” Anand and his fellow scientists believed that it must be a fragment of a meteoroid that hit the earth millions of years ago.   “Very rare indeed,” concluded the scientist. Now, it’s plain commonsense that something that’s very rare indeed must be very valuable too. All the more so if it came from the heavens. So Vijay got the village goldsmith to set it on a gold ring.   Vijay wore the ring proudly on his ring finger. Nobody, in the village, however bothered to pay any homage to Vijay’s ring.   They were

What seas what mountains what planets Or a honeymoon cottage on an exotic isle    with a bride on hire to suck the lust What car what villa what gadget Or a smorgasbord spread out in paradise Where does it end, this pursuit? How many millions or billions should the bank balance be How many villas and hectares will this body need How many parties bacchanalian and rumbustious Before I hear the music in the background? Note : This is the first poem I've written in years.  Maybe, when you sit idle with your foot caged in plaster of Paris poetry forces itself into your soul.  I have an excuse, however, for letting poetry make this forceful entry: I was reading something on philosopher Schopenhauer who thought that a man who has no mental life goes greedily from sensation to sensation in search of happiness and at last he/she is conquered by the nemesis of the idle rich or the reckless voluptuary - ennui.