Tomichan Matheikal's blog

One of the 30 principles suggested by Dale Carnegie to win friends and influence people reads: “The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.” I used to be a terrorist at arguments because I could never accept defeat.   Eventually, however, I learnt that winning an argument was one of the most stupid things to do.   Argument itself is stupid.   It brings no benefit to anyone. Inflated ego is what makes us want to win arguments.   I must have made a fool of myself umpteen times with my inflated ego.   That was in my youth.   As I grew older I realised the futility of arguments and the ludicrousness of inflated ego.   I stopped arguing.   In fact, I stopped conversations as far as possible.   I limited my encounters with people to basic essentials.   That was part of my attempt at gaining mastery over myself. Now I can laugh at myself.   Earlier people laughed at me, albeit behind my back.   Now what pe...

When your love wafts through the air that I breathe like a breeze which caresses the leaves on the trees in the yard, I become a rustling poet.   Have you ever seen a guitar whose strings become taut sensing the presence of a musician?   I am a guitar with taut strings waiting for the right plectrum. Yet you complain that I ignore you.   My listlessness worries you.   You think I’m moving out of the highway into a dark lane which leads nowhere.   In your discourse, I am the eternal wanderer in search of darkness wearied by the lights of the world. The gap between you and me is the illusion of a communication that longs to take the shape you want it to have.   My communication is a breeze that touches the leaves intangibly.   My breath is a love poem. The silence of the guitar is not indifference.  

I live in worlds created with words.   Sometimes the world is a compact cleft in a gargantuan rock which shields me from the wind that blows out there spreading dust over my footprints so that my hurts won’t be traced. Sometimes the world is a shallow river that flows between towering mountains with luxuriant foliage that rustles with the ripples my giggles create in the gently fondling water. Once in a while the world is a little oasis in a large desert, a patch of cool, green, moist sensuousness in the midst of benumbing sandy aridness.   I love the worlds created with words.

Father Zossimov, a character of Dostoevsky in The Karamazov Brothers , defines hell as “the suffering of being unable to love.”   Zossimov is a monk who thinks that everyone is everyone’s responsibility.   That responsibility is love.   When my fellow being commits an error, it is my error too.   Such is the responsibility of love. These days I come across a lot of people who cite religious texts and scriptures to stake their claim to truth.   Most of these people who are ready to lay down their very lives for the sake of their gods and religions are incapable of simple human love.   In fact, a good many of them are driven by hatred.   Consequently they create hells for others. The Bible or the Quran or the Gita is the ultimate source of truth for them.   People can choose to believe anything.   They have every right to believe that “Adam ate the apple. / Eve ate Adam. / The serpent ate Eve. / This is the dark intestine.” [Ted Hugh...

India is a rich country with too many poor people.   It is primarily because the wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals.   According to the World Inequality Report 2018, India is the second most unequal region in the world.   The Middle East takes the cake with the top 10% of the population owning 61% of the national income.   10% of the super-rich Indians hold 55% of the country’s wealth.   I was sitting in a friend’s car yesterday when he refuelled the car with petrol at the rate of ₹76 per litre.   I wondered aloud why people didn’t protest against such blatant exploitation as whimsical pricing of petrol and diesel in the country.   I belong to a state whose recent BJP nominee to the Rajya Sabha, Alphons Kannanthanam, told the highly literate Malayalis that the income from the mounting petrol prices is being used to construct toilets in North India.   Malayalis have more than enough toilets in their homes.   In...