Tomichan Matheikal's blog

I never imagined sports and games as “a crypto-fascist plan for repressing (my) sex-drive” [Julian Barnes’s phrase in The Sense of an Ending ] or any other particularly intriguing conspiracy. When I was a young boy, life was much simpler an affair because people didn’t play a fraction of the games they do today. At any rates, games and sports never caught my fancy. As a school student, I didn’t even care to step into the playground. I idled away the games period standing on the side line and watching my spirited friends run after an inflated piece of rubber as if their whole life depended on kicking it in some particular direction. The institution where I studied after school insisted on everyone playing one game or another. I remember standing with M in the corner of the football ground and chatting away while the others kicked the ball around frantically. M could drop names like Jean-Paul Sartre and Ludwig Wittgenstein which sounded game enough to me. If the ball ever reac

An innocuous ad by Surf Excel stirred up unsavoury controversy the other day. Tens of thousands of Indians protested against the ad and demanded a boycott of the detergent. The ad seeks to promote communal harmony and the blood of too many Indians boiled! Why has India become such a place, a place full of hatred? It is a sad outcome of the ruling party’s policies and vision (lack of that, rather). “[E]ntering the social media space in India has become like stepping into a mud-wrestling pit,” said Shashi Tharoor in his recent book, The Paradoxical Prime Minister . There are far too many Indians in the various social media who openly advocate violence against certain communities of people. The dominant political party in the country is spending millions of rupees to spew venom against certain people in these media portals.   By Amy Apollonian, a Facebook user There are also people who question such spreading of hatred. There are a lot of Indians who still retain their

“You are what your profession is. Your primary duty is what your profession demands.” Joseph was stunned. His principal, Rev Fr Lawrence D’Souza, bluntly refused to grant him leave from job for a couple of days. Okay, more than a couple by three days. Round off and fuck off. Five days. And a Sunday in between. He was entitled to that much by all the laws in the world. A week. A week, man, is gonna make no difference to anyone in the college or anywhere. Except to God. God can make a whole world in a week. “This is the examinations time and how does your conscience permit you to take leave now when you should be preparing your students in their final moments?” Rev Fr Lawrence was relentless, indomitable… Joseph wished he knew more adjectives. In spite of being a lecturer in English in the premier institute of higher education in the city .   Town , not city , man. He reminded himself. His wife’s pregnancy had gone into the eighth month and doctors suggested some res

My yard: a view Cashew boughs overhang my front yard screening the morning sun’s intense rays. Summer in Kerala is not what it used to be. It penetrates the marrow of your bones and saps you dry. Nature metamorphoses into something like an obscene speech from a querulous politician who is obsessed with menstrual blood or murderous patriotism. The cashew tree stands just outside the yard wall spreading its graceful foliage over the yard. The sight has a rare charm especially because some of the branches bend low, almost touching the ground, in unabashed humility; absolutely unlike our politicians. It has not been easy to create the natural charm around home though the cashew tree did not ever demand my attention as did most of the smaller plants. As I stood admiring the cashew tree this morning, I realised how much time I spend every day with my plants. They require tender care particularly in summer. They need regular supply of water and protection from pests of all so

Fiction “Hey, aren’t you Karia?” The question woke up Scaria from his reverie. He looked at the intruder for a while. “Hello, Jose.” They were meeting after many, many years. Scaria had left the village half a century ago when his family migrated to North Kerala. He was a migrant ever since. As soon as he completed his plumber-electrician course, he left home to take up a job in the Gulf where he lived most part of his life. He married Cecily who was a nurse in the hospital where he worked as the plumber-electrician for a while. In the autumn of their life, they returned to live in Kerala. Their only daughter was married and Cecily spent most of her time with a Charismatic prayer group which was eminently active in the village and nearby towns.  Scaria was very religious too. Religion helped fill the emptiness which he experienced time and again in life. But God alone could not fill the void. That’s why he decided to visit his old village, the place of his childhood memor

Dear Boy, The first time I saw you was in the Kabir House of SPS. I was on my usual evening tutor [counsellor] duty and the House Assistant pointed you out to me. You were sitting on one of those few chairs in the small office and weeping like a child. You wanted to meet your mother. You were new to the residential school system. I was quite surprised to see the tears flowing down your cheeks because you were quite a big boy. Physically too big for class 8. I understood soon from the little conversation which I had there that you had been pampered too much by your parents since you were their only child. You were their treasure. You took advantage of that and misbehaved so badly that your parents were forced to send you to a residential school. I noticed the book in your hand, however. Harry Potter . Your personal copy. Your precious personal possession. Your identity mark in a residential school where most students didn’t bother to read even the textbooks for completing

“Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads!” Rabindranath Tagore admonished the bhakts long ago. We seek god in wrong places. That’s what the poet implied. We look for him in some “lonely dark corner of a temple.” But God is “there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the path-maker is breaking stones.” The poet bluntly tells the bhakt to put off his “holy mantle”, “leave aside [his] flowers and incense” and meet god in the “toil and sweat of [his] brow.” God is not an abstract entity waiting somewhere beyond galaxies to allot fortunes to us after measuring the flattery we send to him in the form of prayers and rituals. God is the sweat of your brows, the blood in your veins, the love in your heart. God is the work you do, work which adds to the beauty and goodness in the world around you. God is the soil beneath your feet and the air you breathe. God is the person next to you. God is you. As long as you don’t rise to that level of religion