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Happy Onam

“Guro,” called out Maveli.  Maveli is the asura hypocorism for the deva name Mahabali.  Kerala is advertised by the Tourism Department as “God’s Own Country.”  But the people of Kerala love asura hypocorisms.  You can’t blame the people, really.  Like their favourite King, Maveli, quite many of them have been expatriated.  Those who are not expatriated geographically (or literally, if you wish) adopt expatriation by intoxication.  And expatriates love nostalgic hypocorisms. Kerala is the land of expatriates.  Pravasi is the most favourite word in the state.  Every pravasi is supposed to be living in bliss.   If there is any Malayali pravasi who is not living in such blissful condition, Benyamin or Mukundan will write Aadujeevitham or Pravasam in honour of the hapless pravasi’s nostalgia for God’s Own Country which is actually Maveli’s Own Country.  And Maveli was an asura, a demon. “ Prabho , My Lord,” came Maveli’s Guru, Sukracharya hearing Maveli’s call. 

Lazarus and Jesus

Introductory Note : According to the Bible, Jesus raised Lazarus from death.  What follows is mere fiction inspired by a friend’s questioning me on love.  Fiction “You’ve taken away my death, you’ve appropriated it,” Lazarus tried hard to suppress his anger. “I gave you life,” said Jesus calmly, “new life.” “You had no right to do it,” Lazarus was almost contemptuous.  “Look at me, Jesus, look into my eyes.  You had no right to bring me back from death.  Do you realise the gravity of what you’ve done?  You’ve destroyed the peace that I had found in death.  I can forgive you for that.  But you’ve upset the whole world of my sisters.  They were getting used to my death.  They were learning to accept it as an inevitable fact of life.  Do you know how absurd it is for anyone to live with someone who has come back from death?  What am I now to them?  A ghost?  They want to ask me what it is like there – beyond death.  They don’t ask because they are sensitive enough. 

A Teacher and the Hangman’s Noose

  Fiction “You’re under arrest,” said the visitor who was in the police uniform. The sun had just risen above the horizon far, far away, beyond the concrete jungle of the city.  Sunita was ready to go to her school where she was a teacher in the upper primary section.  The school would begin at 7.30 and she had to start from home at 6 am from home.  If she was late by a minute the attendance register would automatically mark her absent.   That was just one of the many miracles which the computer technology could perform in her school. “Arrest!?”  Sunita was both amused and surprised.  What crime had she committed?  She had slapped a boy on his back yesterday because he had fallen asleep in the class while an interesting activity was going on.  “Interesting”, according to the lesson plan given to her by the textbook prescribed by the school and produced by experts.   Physical punishment is an offence which can send a teacher to the jail.  But she had only patted the boy

The Road called Life

Historical Fiction I will soon be thrown into the mass grave along with the naked corpses of the other soldiers.  I am Colonel Chabert, not just an ordinary soldier, Colonel Chabert who led a whole regiment of soldiers to many a victory for none other than Napoleon himself.  I have been famous when the blood still ran in my veins reddening my cheeks with the zest for conquests.  But now I am no more than a body going to be thrown into a mass grave with very ordinary bodies.  The Battle of Eylau Death makes you a mere body.  All bodies are equal and ordinary.  What makes you different is life, your life.  My last battle was the toughest.  The Battle of Eylau.  Our brave French soldiers met the equally brave Russian soldiers in the most inclement of weathers in Arctic conditions.  The fatal wound I received runs from the nape of my neck to just above my right eye.  You can still see it.  My blood stopped running through my veins.  There was little blood left for the vei

Strings Attached

"Acting wholeheartedly with wisdom means appreciating the relationships and interactions between ourselves and others," say Joseph O'Connor and John Seymour in their book on NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming).  (The above illustration is taken from that book.)  You can't really conquer peaks of success all alone simply because everything around you is linked to you.  With an invisible string.   When you think you are conquering the peak alone, with no rival beneath you because the sole rival in sight is about to fall off, remember that his fall may mean your fall too.   Why do people actually want to push others down to the bottom?   Helplessness, I think.  Inability to manage others.  Sheer inability.   Weakness makes us aggressive? But is it only weakness?  Can aggression be fun? I was watching a young boy playing a race game on computer.  Whenever he came across a rival in the game he would do something like hit the rival on his

Teacher’s Day Gift

Riding around in Delhi on a rickety scooter is one of my few hobbies.  It gives me a feel of earthiness, a feeling that I am a nobody amidst the costly cars that fly by me.  It makes me feel humble, arrogant as I am.  It helps me to check my dreams.  It roots me in reality, the harsh reality that I like to confront honestly. A traffic policeman stopped me today.  I took off my helmet with a smile that comes rather artificially to me these days. “I’ve broken the law, you can punish me,” I said.  I think the smile had not vanished from my cheeks.   I had jumped a red light.  I had not intended it.  My scooter got stuck on the gravel and the lights turned red before I could cross the range.  This was the first time that I was ever caught in my 12 years of hobbying in Delhi by the omnipresent traffic police of Delhi.  “License?” asked the policeman. I handed him my licence. “... school ...,” he read it aloud for the benefit of his senior officer who was standin

Barrel Life

Historical Fiction “I’m going to die,” declared Diogenes.  He was 96.  By the time you reach the age of 96 you will have acquired the wisdom to know when to die.  You can have such wisdom even earlier.  Depends on what life taught you.  Rather what you cared to learn from life. Diogenes was on a street in Corinth.  Dying.  The street was his home.  When the weather was too good outside he chose to get into a barrel.  Somebody had gifted him that barrel.  Why somebody?  Greece was mad enough to understand the madness of Diogenes and appreciate it.  But Greece was not so mad that Diogenes was prompted to declare with the certainty that comes only to godmen that “Most men are within a finger’s breadth of being mad.” “It takes a wise man to discover a wise man,” declared Diogenes with the same godman-certainty when Xeniades of Corinth bought him from the slave dump.  He had been sold as a slave by one of the administrators of Greece who wished to get rid of his ravi