Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Short Story On the day Srijan joined the residential school, a 14-year old boy was arrested from his neighbourhood for raping a 6-year old girl.  Srijan’s parents decided to put him in a residential school when he reached class 9 so that he could devote his entire time to studying and thus prepare himself for the medical course that would in due course of time enable him to fulfil his ambition to become a cardiologist.  In a world where people were becoming increasingly heartless cardiologists would be in great demand, his parents thought. Srijan was not so clear about his life’s purpose and its relationship with the world’s hearts.  But he knew clearly that his parents wouldn’t do anything without clear purposes.  So he accepted New India Public School with his whole heart. A few days in the school made Srijan wonder whether his parents had made a mistake.  He was sitting on one of the steps leading down to the playgrounds pondering about what som...

Some gates thrust upon us an impression of desolation. They may be left open, but they don't invite; rather, they repulse.  It's not the Nature with her trees and plants or even its aridity that repulses; it's the gate in such a place; a gate that looks out of place; a gate that doesn't look like a gate! Take a look around and you realise that you are not alone.  There is another creature that looks forlorn too.  Its company is no consolation. Nor does it seem interested in your company.  Maybe, it's looking for something to eat.  A little water to drink.  A shelter from the heat of the summer sun in Delhi.  Is it wondering, like you, what we have done to the planet?  Why did we make such a hell out of it?  Why couldn't we get along together like the passengers on a train... knowing that the journey will end anyway? No, it's not interested in your company.  "Good bye." PS. All the pictures were taken this afternoon ...

I am not free to jump from the balcony of my residence.   If I jump, I may break one of my limbs. Because I stay on the first floor.   Freedom does not mean permission to do whatever I like.   “We are free only where we know,” said Will Durant [ The Story of Philosophy ].   Knowledge gives freedom.   Knowledge is freedom. Most of us make the mistake of thinking that doing what we like to do is freedom.   What we like is determined by our knowledge or awareness or consciousness level.   The rapist in Delhi whose number keeps rising by the day (in spite of the equally rising number of religious leaders) thinks he is free to rape a child. His knowledge or consciousness level is too low to understand why his act is based on an incomplete understanding of himself.   Passion is good and necessary for any human being.   Anyone without passion will be as good as a rock in the denuded Himalayas. Freedom is not freedom passions. ...

Book Review Author: Lois Banner Publisher: Bloomsbury, 2012 Pages: 515 Price: Rs499 “A lot of people like to think of me as innocent, so that’s the way I behave to them.  If they saw the demon in me, they would hate me… I’m more than one person, and I act differently each time.  Most of the time I’m not the person I’d like to be – certainly not a dumb blonde like they say I am; a sex freak with big boobs.”  Marilyn Monroe said this to British photographer Jack Cardiff in 1961, one year before she met her tragic end.  Marilyn lived a life she did not enjoy.  Yet that life was her choice.  Why did she choose that life if she didn’t want it?  Was it a psychological compulsion or helplessness or neurosis...?  Why did she allow so many men to walk through her life as if her life were a public park?  Did the Kennedy brothers who used her, as they did many other women, to sate their lust have anything to do with her untime...

"Each one reaches heaven by climbing his own particular stairway." I received this picture in 1979 on the occasion of the priestly ordination of a person who was dear to me. I don't know whether he still believes in the inscription... But I do!