Tomichan Matheikal's blog

The novel that I started reading yesterday and keeps my attention riveted is Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Dream of the Celt (2012).   Llosa won the Nobel Prize for Literature two years ago.   The reason why I bought this novel of his is not that, however.   The novel is about Roger Casement, a controversial hero of Irish nationalism.   My reason for buying the novel was not that either.   I ordered for the book when I read in a review that the novel was about the barbarism perpetrated by the European colonists in the Congo.   Llosa’s protagonist was an Irishman who went to the Congo with the noble desire to “civilize” the people there.   A few pages into the novel, I am quite delighted to come across Joseph Conrad as a character.   Conrad was a sailor and he met Roger in the Congo.   In Llosa’s novel, Conrad tells Roger that the latter “should have appeared as co-author” of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness . In Heart of Darkness , a character named Marlow tells the story of Kurtz to

Insuring ourselves is one of the silliest things we can do in life, I think.   Life insurance means that a certain amount will be paid to my dependents after my death.   Fine, there’s nothing that can give me more happiness (after my death) than seeing my beloved ones(not dependents , but loved ones) living happily after my death. The latest issue of the Frontline [dated 2 Nov 2012] argues that insurance has been made just another business of the capitalists.   For example, it says that “countries where competition is rife in the insurance industry, such as the U.S. have been characterised by a large number of failures.”   India is opening up itself to that competition. Because Dr Manmohan Singh has to save his image in the Western press.   Just because the Western press called Dr Singh (our beloved PM) all kinds of names, he chose to give us a lot of FDI, hike in prices of cooking gas and other items precious to most of us (leaving aside the most people who have no access t

One of the many paradoxes of human life is that many people who are overtly religious may have the vilest evils lurking beneath their overt behaviour. Such evils may never become manifest in external behaviour since they remain successfully suppressed by the religiosity of the person.   The same is true of morality.   Conversely, many people who are not overtly religious or moralistic may be much better at heart than those who display virtues in their external behaviour. Ibsen’s play, A Doll’s House , depicts this paradox. Ibsen died in 1906.   The play was originally published in 1879.   It is classical enough to grip our imagination and exercise our minds even today. Helmer, the protagonist, is a morally upright person, a man of honour.   No one will accuse him of any fault.   Yet when his wife, Nora, leaves him in the end returning the wedding ring, he sinks into the chair crying “Empty!.”   It is his inner emptiness that he has to confront now, the exemplariness of his exte