Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Devotees at Sabarimala Image from Indian Express Hartals are usually like festivals in Kerala. People prepare themselves well ahead of the holiday by stocking things needed for personal entertainments on the holiday. Students are happy to get a day off from schools and colleges. Government employees are happy to relax at home instead of in their offices. The political parties that call the hartal are generally magnanimous enough to exempt “essential services like hospitals, newspapers and milk supply” from the imposed strike. No one seems to complain. In spite of all that the hartal called today in the state by certain right wing groups such as Ram Sena, Hanuman Sena, Ayyappa Dharma Sena and Vishal Vishwakarma Aikya Vedi was a failure. Personally, I was not aware of the presence of these groups in the state. Given the turn of events in the country’s political sphere in the last few years, mushrooming of right wing organisations is not a surprise, however. These mushroo...

“A whole society soon metamorphosed into my benefactors. They soon drove me to illicit liquor joints where I sat all alone at a slimy table and drank cheap brandy, peg after peg. The drinks drenched my soul in shame. I felt utterly worthless. I felt unworthy of life. I longed for death.” That is quoted from my forthcoming book, Autumn Shadows . I experienced a protracted period of depression that lasted a few years in my late thirties. Depression makes you feel totally worthless. Worse, the whole world appeared to exist for the singular purpose of decimating me. I refused to trust anyone. My experience is that a depressive does not want to talk to anyone. How can he talk when everyone is his perceived enemy? At best, like poet Shelley, he can cry to the wind in the air to lift him like a dead leaf and carry him away to the emptiness in the skies. “I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!” Shelley lamented to the West Wind. I used to sit on the parapet wall of a culvert ...

Preface According to Rajasthan BJP President Madan Lal Saini, Humayun was the father of Babur. "When Humayun was dying, he called Babur and told him - if you want to rule Hindustan, you must keep three things in mind: respect cows, Brahmins and women," said Mr Saini . What follows is a spoof of the history according to BJP. Humayun, Babur and other Emperors While Humayun was imparting his dying wisdom to his son Babur, Bal Narender rambled in with a platter of ladoos specially prepared by his father who was a royal chef brought to the Palace after Babur had enjoyed an exotic dinner at the Taj Hotel where Papa Narender was the chief chef. “I have graduated from the Jio Institute of Eminence,” said the ten year-old Bal Narender. Babur was particularly fond of Bal Narender and hence the boy was granted many liberties in the Palace.   Bal Narender was a child prodigy and what he heard as he came in caught his attention. “If you want to rule Hindustan, yo...

Whenever I think of travel, Tennyson’s Ulysses will spring to my mind. “Much have I seen and know – cities of men / And manners, climates, councils, governments,” says Ulysses. That’s just what travel does: make us see and know cities, manners, climates, etc. I loved travels. My years in Delhi were filled with much travel. I accompanied students on the annual educational tours and treks and during holidays my wife and I visited quite a few places like Darjeelinng, Gangtok and Shimla. I enjoyed both kinds of travels: with students and with my wife. Travel broadens our perspectives by opening our eyes and souls to new realities. Though I was very much aware of the Gorkhaland struggle in Darjeeling even before I visited the place, the visit filled me with sympathy for the Gorkhas. I listened to their views and watched their hardships. I wondered why political leaders failed to understand their people’s woes and find relevant solutions. Why should the genuine aspirations of th...

Kittu  Sardines were hardly my choice at any time in my life. When Maggie suggested yesterday to buy sardines, I was a little taken aback. “The price has gone up to Rs200 a kg,” she said. “That’s a record price for sardines,” I said with genuine surprise. Sardines were considered the poor man’s fish because they were the cheapest in the market usually. Prices of anything hitting the ceiling is not news in contemporary India. Except human beings, everything seems to have become very dear. This is the achhe din promised by our Prime Minister who asked us to eat pakodas as Marie-Antoinette asked the French people to eat cake when they cried that they had no bread. Pakodas are okay for snacks. You can’t eat them all the time even if you can afford to have the best chefs from the Taj Group to cook for you like our Prime Minister has when he goes abroad . So I decided to play along and make my wife happy. When sardines cost as much as what you used to pay for pomfret...

Fiction The day Elizabeth retired from job she placed a demand: “Let’s go on a pilgrimage.” “Why not?” said Paulo, her husband, who had retired half a decade earlier. When he retired as a banker, Liz wanted to retire too. “Anyway, my job doesn’t pay much,” she said. She was a teacher in a CBSE school. “It’s not the pay, darling,” he told her. “It’s about how we spend the time. Life will be terribly boring without work to do.” So she continued to work till the ripe age of 60. The two of them were alone at home. Their son had chosen to settle down in Canada with a Pakistani wife, after completing his graduation in mechanical engineering. Their daughter married one Sharma who lived in Fiji after falling in love with him on Facebook. “When children grow up and become adults, they should be granted the liberty to choose their destiny,” Paulo told his wife as their son and then daughter moved out of their life almost entirely. “We’ll go to Ponmala for our pilgrimag...

Retaining respect for people is a tough job, especially in the age of Facebook and Whatsapp. Just a few minutes back I came across two Facebook status updates from two of my acquaintances and I found it impossible to suppress contempt. One was from a Christian who maintained that there was no truth other than what his religion taught. The other was from a Hindu who asserted that whatever the Judiciary might decide, no woman from his family between the age of 10 and 50 would ever visit the Sabarimala temple. While arrogation of truth to itself is one of Christianity’s congenital diseases, the Sabarimala issue came up now because the Supreme Court recently defended all women’s right to pray in that temple which has hitherto prohibited entry to menstruating women. Both my acquaintances are ‘true’ believers in their respective religion. Their faith is staunch. It is blind. Such blindness is becoming a serious problem in today’s India. There are millions of Indians who have sudd...