Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Arikuzha is a relatively small village in Kerala.   It is the village in which I was born and brought up.   The lush green that undulates in the rolling landscape is not unique to this village.   Kerala is blessed with the bounty of nature in many ways.   Hills and valleys, rivers and backwaters, and the whole coastal area on the west make the state a palette of variegated offering. Here are a few pictures from Arikuzha.   Road through the village River through the village Temple on the river bank Yesterday while I was walking along the village road I met an elderly person (74 years) who asked me whether I had any problem in my leg.   I was limping slightly due to the fracture I had suffered in my foot three months back.   I explained the matter to him.   In the afternoon he came to my home with a herbal medicine he prepared himself.   He advised me how to apply it on the foot and assured me that in 5 days time or even before that my limping would van

I'm continuing with more pictures from my home where much of the food is prepared in the backyard plots. It's all organic food; no artificial fertilisers or insecticides used. Yam Tapioca Tapioca was the staple food of Keralites in the bygone days, the era before McDonald, KFC, etc. Cattle feed Rain Kerala depends much on the monsoon for its water supply and even electricity supply.  The monsoon seems to have marked its beginning this year. May the showers bring a lot of blessings to the plants, animals, people... Let there be joy all around.

Some pictures from my home in Kerala where I'm on a month-long vacation... My Home Some innocent friends More friends So many more... More pictures and friends to follow...

Sreesanth has a lot of fans in his home state of Kerala.  Some of his fans took out a procession to show their support as well as to solicit others’ sympathy.  A few of them seem to think that the cricketer is innocent.  The thinking of quite many of them,however, may deserve a serious scrutiny. That thinking was reflected in a TV programme presented by the Malayalam channel, Asianet, yesterday.  The crux of the programme’s argument is: There is rampant corruption in India.  There are politicians as well as others who make crores of rupees through fraudulent means.  Why single out Sreesanth?   There’s a similar issue being discussed in Kerala these days.  A Malayalam actor, Kalabhavan Mani, was involved in a drunken brawl with some forest guards.  Mani beat up some of the guards and is now absconding.  Yesterday the ADGP of Kerala’s Intelligence Bureau, T P Senkumar, came out with an interesting argument.  He asked whether the police would have dealt in the same way with a

I introduced A C Grayling’s book, The God Argument , in two earlier posts.   This post presents the professor’s views on good life.   Grayling posits seven characteristics of a good life.   The first characteristic is that a good life is a meaningful one.   Meaning is “a set of values and their associated goals that give a life its shape and direction.”   Having children to look after or achieving success in one’s profession or any other very ordinary goal can make life meaningful.   But Grayling says quoting Oscar Wilde that everyone’s map of the world should have a Utopia on it.   That is, everyone should dream of a better world and strive to materialise that dream, if life is to be truly meaningful.   Ability to form relationships with other people is the second characteristic.   Intimacy with at least one other person is an important feature of a meaningful life.   “Good relationships make better people,” says Grayling.   Broken relationships are one’s own mak

It’s when I went to buy some dress for the month-long holiday I’m planning that I realised the stupidity of what’s called fashion.   I couldn’t get a single readymade pair of trousers which made me feel comfortable.   Fashion has got rid of pleats from trousers altogether.   Get into the showrooms of Pantaloons or Raymond or even my usual, humble Big Bazaar and you will realise how uncomfortable they want us to feel in the trousers they are offering.   I asked the Pantaloons boy whether they had any pair of trousers with pleats.   And which were fairly loose.  He looked at me as if I was some creature descended from another planet.   I explained to him that pleats were invented in order to make the wearer feel comfortable around the loins with a lot of air circulation.   Thank my stars, he didn’t ask me what my profession was.   Instead he asked me whether I had heard of anything called Payback cards.   He said he could offer me one which would entitle me to some reward poi

The Hindu editorial [May 17, 2013] invokes Hannah Arendt’s famous phrase, ‘the banality of evil,’ in order to underscore the corruption that has infiltrated Indian cricket, particularly the IPL.  In simple words what Arendt meant by the phrase was that monstrous evils are not usually perpetrated by fanatics or psychopaths but by ordinary people who fail to think deeply or seriously enough. Failure to think seriously enough is a very common trait of our contemporary civilisation.  Ours is a civilisation which has nearly killed philosophy and serious literature.  It is a civilisation built up on the single premise of materialism and propagated assiduously by the United States of America using institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank.  It is a civilisation which encourages consumerism and superficial pleasures of life.  It is a civilisation whose singular password is commerce. Trade greases the wheels of our civilisation.  And everything is a commodity which can