Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Book Review info@hoffen.in Identity quest is one of the classical themes in literature.  However, gender identity quest is relatively new.  It is also one of the most painful quests, perhaps, because not belonging to either of the most natural genders can be an excruciating experience psychologically.  The agony is aggravated by the attitudes of the ignorant and insensitive general society towards transgender people.  The authors of the book under review approach the theme in the simplest manner possible: by presenting a trans-woman and her problems.  Kusum was born a male who was very uncomfortable with that gender.  It’s only the body that is masculine.  The spirit is feminine.  The father is unable to accept that reality.  Hence the offspring is abandoned.  But (s)he is happy to get the support of a friend who eventually becomes a surgeon and will perform the sex-changing surgery.  The love between Kusum and her d...

Fiction He was the Corpse Man.  Savakkaran , they called him in his and their language.  Some refined it to Mortuary Man.  Those who knew him personally and did not want to equate him with his job called him Balan.  Balan kept corpses frozen in arrays of drawers.  Until somebody came to claim them.  Or until nobody claimed and order was given to dispose off the body in the nearby electric crematorium which was operated by his wife, Latika.  Death was their family business.  He, Balagangadharan, was the keeper of corpses and Latika, his wife, was the disposer of corpses.   Both the mortuary and the crematorium belonged to the government.  While the crematorium seldom experienced any discrimination between rich corpses and poor corpses, the mortuary often did.  Rich corpses preferred private mortuaries, those in the hospitals meant for the rich.  Government mortuaries received poor corpses.  Or corpses of crimina...

Source As soon as the power fails, the mosquitoes fly in from God-knows-where.  The mosquito repellent is the fortress which they cannot penetrate.  Blessed be the man who invented it.  Blessed is the man who does not suck others’ blood and prevents others from doing it. Mosquitoes are born to suck blood.  Even at the milk-swollen breasts, they will suck only blood.  The very purpose of their existence is to suck blood and to blast our eardrums with their buzz.  They think they are entertaining us with their music.  And they put up their daises where three or four creatures gather innocuously, for purchasing the provisions for the body or for their tête-à-tête with their god, food for the soul.  All around the dais they will erect monstrous loud speakers.  And the buzz will begin.  Ear-splitting buzz.  The buzz will lull us to sleep.  And then they suck our blood.  Giving our blood, we attain our orgasms. ...

Reviewing another person’s writing is not an easy job especially in a society that promotes the mutual back-scratching policy.  That’s perhaps the reason why the latest Indispire theme [#BlogReview] has not got any takers so far with a singular exception (until this post is being written). I wonder why the theme got the most votes if Indibloggers didn’t want to review blogs.  The answer may lie in the writer’s subconscious longing for adulation from others.  Every writer is a thoroughgoing egoist as George Orwell said.  I’m no exception. However, I have to write this since I’m the one who suggested the Indispire theme.  If I let down my own suggestion, I wouldn’t be egoistic enough to be a writer! Rajesh Prabhu’s blog carries the charm of India through delightful photographs .  What’s best about the blog is that it is diametrically opposed to mine: it is full of beauty and optimism, elegance and grace.  Rajesh helps me bounce back from the cyn...

When a fugitive said, “Let me go over,” the men of Gilead said to him, “Are you an Ephraimite?”  When he said, “No,” they said to him, “Say shibboleth.”  And he said, “Sibboleth,” for he could not pronounce it right.  Then they seized him and slew him at the fords of the Jordan. And there fell at that time 42,000 Ephraimites.  [The Bible, Judges 12: 5-6] When I read the above extract as the preface to an essay on the importance of right pronunciation, my first response was a laugh.  As a teacher of English language and literature, I was struck by the deep irony as well as dark humour in the Biblical episode.  Language became a tool for identifying the enemy.  And the word used for the identification test is “shibboleth” which means ‘a password, phrase, custom, or usage that reliably distinguishes the members of one group or class from another.’  The author of the Book of Judges revealed a profound sense of black humour by slitting 42,000 t...