Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Introductory Note:   The following short play was written by me for the Annual Day of my school.  It has been staged today, the Annual Day, whose theme was PARIVARTAN.  The Cast King Chatterjee - Minister Mrs Pandey - Minister Patel - Minister Sharma - Minister Patnaik - Leader of Opposition Nath - Opposition Member Mrs Nanda - Opposition Member Beggar Soldier 1 Soldier 2 A view from the play The King’s Palace.  There’s a throne in the centre.  Chairs on sides.  When the curtain rises all the ministers and opposition are standing on the stage talking among themselves softly. Drum beat.  Bugle call. Silence on the stage.  All stand at attention. Soldier 1: (from side) Attention, attention!  The Great King, the Champion of champions, the Warrior of warriors, the Conqueror of the world, the Eliminator of enemies, his Excellency, the Mighty Shatrughna Vikram Singh Bahadur is on his royal waaaaay. Royal music as the King arrives in royal ro

Those who live by the book will die by the book’s folly. “After all, as a book man, I should judge a book for its literary merit, irrespective of its subject matter.  Poppycock.” The above quote is from Vikram Kapur’s article in today’s [4 Nov] Hindu Literary Review .  I would have certainly expected more sense from The Hindu editors than this poppycock from Mr Kapur who claims to be “a book man” but depends more on Google than books. Mr Kapur’s article is poppycock par excellence.  He says Hilary Mantel did not deserve the Man Booker Prize for her first novel, Wolf Hall , merely for: 1.       Thomas Cromwell’s name had to be searched by Kapur on Google. 2.       Henry VIII married 6 times. 3.       Thomas Cromwell did not have the temerity to murder Henry VIII unlike Oliver Cromwell who did possess that temerity to kill his monarch and hence is familiar to Kapur. 4.       The theme of Wolf Hall is not relevant today since “there is no altercation between t

I am very wary of people who are religious by profession.  My experience is that they are more eager to receive than give.  They look for donations, offerings, and other means of accumulating wealth without doing any creative or productive work.  So it did not come as a surprise to me when a friend of mine narrated his experience. His school was taken over recently from a Trust by a religious cult.  One of the first things the cultists did was to curtail the rights and privileges of the staff.  Given below is an extract from a letter issued by them to some of the staff members, most of whom have been working in the institution for about ten years. Name of school and designation of staff blacked out The Trust which was running the school formerly was paying the staff according to recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission, though a few allowances were not given due to financial constraints.  Had it not been for the financial constraints, the Trust would have paid th