Tomichan Matheikal's blog

The movie [Jab Tak Hai Jaan] was a terrible disappointment.  Three hours wasted.  Add another hour for the formalities in the multiplex and the intermission.  At my age I shouldn’t expect anything great from Bollywood, I know.  But I wanted to enjoy my Diwali break with my wife who loves movies.  Even she felt bored.  May Yash Chopra Rest In Peace. It’s an ancient story told in the most boring way possible, except for the bikini shot of Anushka in the beginning, and the skimpy dress that both Katrina Kaif and Anushka are asked to wear in quite many places.  Add Anushka’s Delhi spirit, and you have the salt and pepper. Delhi spirit means superficiality at its best.  Confidence at its best too.  Yash ji was merciful enough to give some depth to Anushka’s character for the sake of the movie.  I think the movie would have been far better if the real Delhi spirit was explored.  But Bollywood is not interested in any spirit , except the commercial one.  What Anushka’s

Medha Patkar was in Kerala today.  She praised A K Antony, India’s present defence minister and Kerala’s former chief minister.  She said that Antony was trying to bring development to Kerala without harming the environment.  Antony is an honest politician.  No, I don’t mean any irony like the one spoken by Shakespeare’s Brutus about Mark Antony of the ancient Rome (Sonia Gandhi’s Italy). Yesterday A K Antony criticised the Congress government in Kerala for scuttling many of the progressive measures that the Central government could have done for Kerala.  He said clearly that he was able to do much more for Kerala when the Left govt was ruling in Kerala than now when the Congress govt is ruling.  He said he has no courage now, when the Congress govt is in power, to bring industries to Kerala.  He said that the Left govt had cooperated more with him.  He became emotional mentioning the Left leaders like V S Achuthanandan (former chief minister) and Elamaram Kareem (minist

Nobel Laureate Mario Vargas Llosa’s latest novel, The Dream of the Celt [Faber & Faber, 2012], delves into the history of the colonisation of the Congo and Amazonia as well as the biography of Roger Casement, an Irish nationalist. Llosa questions the very validity of history many times in the novel.  Most history, implies the novelist, is a “more or less idyllic fabrication, rational and coherent, about what had been in raw, harsh reality  a chaotic and arbitrary jumble of plans, accidents, intrigues, fortuitous events, coincidences, multiple interests that had provoked changes, upheavals, advances, and retreats, always unexpected and surprising with respect to what was anticipated or experienced by the protagonists” (109-110). A historical novel may be more accurate than documented history because the novelist looks at the events from a wider and deeper perspective than a historian.  For example, Sir Henry Stanley is portrayed in history as the heroic founder of the

Diwali gifts for me! This is the first time in my 52 years of existence that I received so many gifts in the name of Diwali.  In Kerala, where I was born and brought up, Diwali was not celebrated at all in those days, the days of my childhood.  Even now the festival is not celebrated in the villages of Kerala as I found out from my friends there.  It is celebrated in the cities (and some villages) where people from North Indian states live.  When I settled down in Delhi in 2001 Diwali was a shock to me.  I was sitting in the balcony of a relative of mine who resided in Sadiq Nagar.  I was amazed to see the fireworks that lit up the city sky and polluted the entire atmosphere in the city.  There was a medical store nearby from which I could buy Otrivin nasal drops to open up those little holes in my nose (which have been examined by many physicians and given up as, perhaps, a hopeless case) which were blocked because of the Diwali smoke.  The festivals of North India

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