Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Illustration by Copilot Designer The weekend carried me far. I travelled by Kerala’s state-run buses to a place 250 kilometres from home on Saturday and back home on Sunday. I was going to attend the wedding of the daughter of an old friend. A few other friends were coming too. It was going to be an old pals’ meet in a way. We, the pals, lived under the same roof from 1975 to 1978. We were teenage students then. Now we are all in our mid-sixties. How much has life changed us? I was curious to know that. Life had transformed me in ways I wouldn’t have imagined back then. What about them? The bus journey became quite bumpy and rough as I crossed Trissur and moved towards Kozhikode. The highway was being broadened. A lot of work was going on all along and the dust rushed into the bus prompting me to cover my nostrils with my handkerchief which became a mask. I closed my eyes too. The bus moved on and my mind moved inward. I have already reached the last stage of personal developme...

Book Review Title: Survival at Stake Author: Poorva Joshipura Publisher: HarperCollins India, 2023 Pages: 317 (including over 100 pages of Notes) E verything on planet earth is interconnected. The survival of one depends on the survival of another. That is the fundamental message of Poorva Joshipura’s book, Survival at Stake . An example from the book for that interconnectedness: “Phytoplankton are eaten by small zooplankton, who are consumed by larger zooplankton, who are consumed by fish, who are consumed by sharks – you get the picture.” The phytoplankton, in turn, requires the whales for oxygen supply. The relative pronoun ‘who’ is used by the author for the animals intentionally. She believes that humans are just another species of animals and the undue importance given to this species has been immensely detrimental to the other species as well as the planet. We, humans, have misused the animals in many ways: for food, sports (hunting as well as games like cockfigh...

Image created by Copilot Designer Each New Year of mine was invariably overshadowed by the preceding Christmas. My entire childhood was lived out in a remote and nondescript village of central Kerala where electricity arrived when I was in high school. New Year meant nothing more to the villagers than the replacement of the old wall calendar with a new one. Just like the earth which went on revolving around the sun without ever knowing the human markers of time, the villagers continued their routine life on the first of January too in their farms. The Christmas hangover would linger, however. The crib was still there waiting to be removed. The star made of bamboo strips and mist-resistant paper was already brought down in all probability. Most people couldn’t afford to maintain, beyond a week, the oil lamps or the paraffin wax candles which were lit inside those stars with much care and caution. The crepe paper decorations in the crib would have begun to sag. There was no plastic i...

According to the data presented in the Rajya Sabha by the government of India’s ministry of external affairs, more than 200,000 Indians are giving up their citizenship every year. The number is increasing rapidly year after year even when the prime minister keeps telling us that we are going to be a $5-trillion economy. Well, Indians have stopped taking their prime minister seriously, it seems. When we realise that Indians are choosing to be Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Nepalis, and Burmese, we may think the news is fake. But the information is given by our own government and it is true. Too many Indians are leaving India. “For rich Indians, home is no longer where the heart is,” writes Prabhu Chawla in the Sunday Standard , pointing out that 4300 millionaires including stars like Virat Kohli and family have abandoned India in 2024. Last year, the figure of such millionaires was 5100. In other words, it is not only the ambitious middle class that chooses to quit India. They are no...

Illustration by Copilot Designer 1.      Anachronism Ekalavya is eager to learn Unlike his contemporaries Who are buried in digital graves.   ‘What’s anachronism?’ He queries. ‘Anachronism is,’ says Bharadvaja, He pauses, muses, and pronounces: ‘Sita Devi’s chastity was questioned By a barber named Al Ansari bin Laden, According to the latest grave-digging Of Archaeological Survey of India.’     2.      Exorcist   History textbooks are haunted by the ghosts Of Akbar and Babur and Gandhi and Nehru. So the Prime Minister decides to become The Exorcist of the nation In order to save Ekalavyas From graves that refuse to be Closed by sward shroud.     3.      Redemption   Ekalavya opens his new history textbook. Words look like petrifying ghosts That want blood, Ekalavya’s blood. So he chooses to leave his country And settle down in Tr...