Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Fiction “The good people are utterly boring, aren’t they?” Joshua asked me as I was driving him to Vagamon, a popular tourist destination that is about 50 km from my home. Joshua was in Kerala on a short vacation from Mumbai where he did business. I laughed looking at the winding road ahead. I was going to negotiate yet another hairpin bend. What makes driving an intoxication is the road. Straight and smooth roads like the national highways don’t fascinate me. Roads must have bends and slopes. And views on the sides. When it comes to people too, I guess the charm lies in their being not so good. “Do you remember Peter?” Joshua asked as I manoeuvred my car against a truck that was crawling down the hairpin bend. “The good-boy Peter, our classmate in high school?” “Yup. Peter the pet of the teachers.” Peter was good. Good at studies, good in behaviour, and good in every way as far as teachers and the society were concerned. Everybody liked him. No wonder he went on to become ...

Death was the reward that Greece presented to Socrates for thinking freely and teaching others to do the same. Those who teach people faster than they can learn are doomed. And people don’t really learn much. Socrates was not understood by the ordinary folk of Greece. So they wanted him to die. Socrates could have got a longer life had he apologised. Apologise to whom? The ordinary people whom he had always held in contempt. No, he would never do that. “Give me the hemlock,” he demanded. They put in him prison till the hour of his death. His influential friends visited him in prison and told him that he could still escape; they had bribed all the officials who stood between him and liberty. Socrates was 70. He knew he didn’t have much time left anyway. Why not die honourably then? “Give me the hemlock.” The jailer brought the poison and apologised. He did not wish to kill “the noblest and gentlest and best of all who ever came to this place.” But he had to obey orders. Socrates a...

Have you noticed how flimsy our memories are? What we remember is not what really happened. Our memories twist the reality according to our psychological needs. We apply soothing balms on painful memories. We exaggerate the sweet memories. As times passes, the reality and its memory may become totally different. My yesterdays are largely a continuum of pain of different tinctures and decibels. A childhood of horrors conjured up by the adults in my life and an adulthood haunted by the ghosts of my childhood. Is it all nothing more than my memory? Is my memory a true chronicle of what actually happened? One of my favourite Malayalam poets, O N V Kurup, composed a touching song about memories and nostalgia. The poet persona longs to return to the courtyard of his childhood where sweet memories amble. He would love to sway the gooseberry tree there once again. The berry’s bitterness and sourness and eventual sweetness effervesce in his memories. He longs to sit on the bank of the old...

The height of xenophobia - remember this face? Last month, Scotland elected 37-year-old Humza Haroon Yousaf of Pakistani origin as the head of their government. A few months before that, the United Kingdom elected Rishi Sunak as their Prime Minister. Sunak’s parents are Indians – Punjabis, to be precise. Kamala Harris, vice president of the USA, has Indian roots too. Can someone like that – a person of Italian origin, say – become India’s Prime Minister? Is it hypocrisy or xenophobia that prevents India from being more open towards diverse cultures and races? Both, I guess. Our hypocrisy is phenomenal. We pretend to be everything that we are not. The leader will be preaching tolerance and love for all people while his followers are attacking places of worship belonging to other religions. The same leader will be preaching about morality in politics while his mentor is engaged in buying MLAs and MPs belonging to other parties. This post is not about our hypocrisy, I remember. ...

Romeo and Juliet [ PNGwing ] In Shakespeare’s notable romantic tragedy, Juliet hurls the question: “Wherefore art thou Romeo?” The meaning is ‘Why are you Romeo?’ Those who are familiar with the play will understand what Juliet meant. If Romeo’s name was different, their love would have met with no resistance. Romeo was the son and heir of the Montague family while Juliet was a Capulet. There is a violent feud going on between the two families and hence the love between Romeo and Juliet is not welcome. Juliet’s question, in fact, is: ‘Why are you a Montague?’ ‘What’s in a name?’ A few moments later in the play, Juliet who has not turned 14 yet, will ask. That little girl who is yet to understand that there is much to a name will end up stabbing herself in the heart for the sake of love. Wherefore art thou, Juliet? I am left thinking. I turned 63 the other day. [Hitler and I share the same birthday!] Half a century older than Juliet, I ask myself: Wherefore art thou, Tomichan? ...