Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Illusions are necessary ingredients of healthy relationships. If we see the other person transparently as he/she is, it won’t be easy for us to love that person. A few months back, one of my sisters told Maggie (my wife) that I was a terror for my relatives when I was young. I was. Only, I didn’t know that. I used to think I was quite a hero in those days. That was my illusion about myself. Eventually I lost that illusion and grappled with my own terrifying reality. I became a terror to myself during that period of self-discovery. I realised how jejune I had been. I vowed to improve myself. I did improve too because my efforts were genuine and concerted. But this self-improvement distanced me from people. I chose the distance myself. I didn’t want to hurt others anymore. I didn’t want to be hurt either. I became a quasi-recluse. Why did my sister have to remind me about that bad past through my wife? Both Maggie and I pondered that question for a while. Probably my image as a ter...

“What is an illusion?” asked Rahul when he caught up with me during my stroll on the campus after dinner.  I was used to a lot of such questions from Rahul, one of my favourite students. “Look at the sky,” I said.  A few stars were visible notwithstanding Delhi’s polluted skies.  “Do you think all those are real stars?” “Aren’t they?”   Rahul was confused.  “We are seeing them.” “Yes, we are seeing them.  Do you know how many years it takes for the light of a star to reach us here on the earth?” “The light from the nearest star takes more than 4 light years,” said Rahul. “Good,” I said.  “It takes many more years for the light from the other stars to reach us.  Many of the stars die by the time their light is seen by us here on the earth.  So how many of those stars are real?” “Sir,” Rahul appeared slightly confused. “Are you suggesting that what is not real is an illusion.” “Well, almost,” said I.  “...

Yuval Noah Harari’s book, Sapiens: a brief history of humankind , was a best seller when it was originally published in Hebrew in Israel.  The English version is released in hardbound form.  I’m waiting for the paperback edition and will definitely get hold of one as soon as it is available.  Why?  Harari’s ideas are revolutionary, radical and tickling.  Let me focus on one of the main themes. How did man come to dominate the earth though there were many other more powerful animals on the earth?  As I gather from an article which introduced me to Harari’s book, man created stories which in turn created an immense sense of cooperation among people.  Let us understand that better.  The other animals don’t create stories.  Man creates stories about many things like gods, nations, money, human rights, etc.  These are all imaginary entities given reality to by man’s stories.  What does the thousand rupee note actually mea...

My blindness will cost you more than the sight of the other guides, said the eyeless man to Ibn Battuta, me. I started this journey as a pilgrimage, the Hajj that ensures the soul the bliss of Paradise. But Paradise is here, on the earth, I learnt as I travelled through Dar al-Islam. Mountains and valleys, rivers and deserts, The birds that fly and the snakes that crawl, The infinite variety of hypnotic women Whose men are grappling with fate In the torrid ruggedness of their life. Sight is a curse, said my blind guide, in the desert where a wind can shift a mountain. The sand dune you see now is a valley after a storm. Trust not your eyes in the land of illusions. Trust not your ears in the land whose air echoes the songs of spirits and calls of phantoms. Trust not your senses in the land of Ostriches that bury their sight in sand. Trust me, I’m the blind man of the desert whose heart beats with insights; I’m the blind man who sees...

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka’s [1883-1924] novel, The Castle , tells the story of a man called K who is on a futile quest.  K arrives as a land surveyor in the village which is under the jurisdiction of the Castle.  But his summoning is caused by a bureaucratic mistake committed in the Castle; a land surveyor is not required in the village now.  K meets Frieda in the inn meant exclusively for the Castle’s bureaucrats though others are allowed to buy food from there.  Frieda becomes K’s fiancée, leaving her job as a barmaid in the inn as well as her enviable position as the mistress of Klamm, the Chief of the Castle.  Nobody in the village can enter the Castle though everybody’s life is controlled by the Castle.  K wants to meet Klamm but never succeeds.  Finally Frieda leaves him and goes back to her former job in the inn and also accepts one of the two assistants of K as her new man. The Castle towers above the village as a symbol of both s...

Fiction Her face made my heart skip a beat.  Was it really her?  I had not met Maya for over thirty years.  But the perfect symmetry of her thin but mysteriously seductive lips could not have escaped me.  I was walking up towards the Hanuman Temple on the Jakhoo Hill in Shimla when the perfect symmetry on a wrinkled face beneath a silver shock of fluttering hair hit my heart like a perverse Kamadeva’s arrow.   She was wearing a saffron robe.  A rosary of fairly huge rudraksh beads lay on her breast.  The fire in her eyes had not burned out yet though melancholy was threatening to overpower it.  She had entered a narrow trail from the main road.  “Maya,” I called. She halted but did not turn back.  I called the name again.  This time she did turn back to look at the person who had uttered a sound that she did not apparently want to hear.  I walked closer to her.  She stared at me.  I smiled....

Fiction Ravinder was a fighter.  But that was once upon a time.  When youth boils in the blood like a witches’ brew, it’s easy to be a fighter.  Time, however, puts out the fire beneath the brew eventually.  Experience, rather than time.  You keep fighting with monsters for years, monsters some of whom are real, some illusions and some others are like Quixote’s windmills.  Real monsters have varying motives.  Some want to capture positions of power, some want to swindle money out of the system, and some others want to appear great by belittling others.  Motives abound in the world of monsters.  Monsters are the most motivated creatures, mused Ravinder. And you keep fighting them all through life.  Fight for your dignity, for your principles, or sometimes even for your survival.  And then comes a time when you give up fighting.  You get used to the arrows.  Your skin becomes thick enough to be a shield. Wh...