Tomichan Matheikal's blog

'What's prayer?' I asked in a class today. One of the students said rather hesitantly, 'A wish for the welfare of everyone.' I was not sure I heard her right. So I asked her to repeat the answer. She became more hesitant. So I rendered my assistance. "A wish for the welfare of …?' 'Everyone,' She completed it. 'Fantastic,' I said. 'What else is prayer but a wish for the welfare of everyone?'

Death is not the greatest tragedy, not even if it comes too early. The greatest tragedy is dying without having loved. Rather, the greatest tragedy is living without loving. The essence of life is love. All the rest is peripheral. Achievements and conquests can add colours to life. Nationalism and other isms can add intoxication to life. But unless you have love in your heart, none of those things matter really. What kind of patriotism is it that prompts people to hate certain sections of people in the country? What kind of religion is it that motivates people to take up arms in its name against whole sections of humanity? I have been surprised again and again by people who are intellectually gifted but emotionally sterile, people who write wonderful blogs but nurture hatred in their hearts. Some of these people even think that those who advocate love without borders are antinational! Why should my love have national borders? Why should my love have a religion? ...

Poetry is dead

Fiction Dr Pattabhiraman has had his usual overdose of his favourite Bacardi white rum. His weekend overdose begins on Friday evenings. Saturday and Sunday are days of leisureliness. Though the university is open on Saturdays, Dr Pattabhiraman has no classes on Saturdays. It is his day of research in the university library. His Saturday research usually ends in the manufacture of a thesis for some scholarly journal like The Indian Scholar and Asian Literary Review . On Friday evenings, however, he likes to take a long stroll into some deserted areas of the city. This evening he has reached Subhash Bose Botanical Garden. There is not a soul in sight. It is quite late in the night. Dr Pattabhiraman is haunted by Keats’s poetry and he recites a couple of lines from the Ode to a Nightingale . ‘ Now more than ever seems it rich to die ,’ the professor recites musically as he does in the lecture hall, ‘ To cease upon the midnight with no pain. ’ Just as he lifts the palm of h...

The mystic is dead. The mystic is mad. He roams the streets in broad daylight with a lamp, his own lamp. His lamp has patina in its heart, He thinks people’s brains have patina. The mystic is mad, people say. Why am I like this? Why am I? Why am? Why? The mystic is mad, people decided. Autumn leaves consoled the mystic. Winter followed in due time. No one saves us but ourselves. The mystic decided. And he embraced the cross. And then there was none. No more.