Tomichan Matheikal's blog

People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and they pass themselves by without wondering. I came across these lines written by St Augustine in a book on neuro-linguistic programming.  Living in a world in which I witness the belittling of people through ingenious ways for varied motives by people occupying positions of immense responsibility, I’m left wondering when we will discover the wonder that every individual is.   

A couple of weeks back, my sister gave me a call from Kerala informing about the vacancies in a certain school in Bangalore.  “The principal’s post carries a monthly salary of Rs 1.5 lakhs,” she was reading from the Malayalam newspaper in which the ad appeared.  “What about the teacher’s posts?” I asked hoping for a proportionately good salary for teachers. “They haven’t mentioned the teachers’ salaries though there are many vacancies.” Nevertheless, I emailed my application for the post of English teacher.  Delhi kind of politics even in workplace has become utterly boring and I look forward to some change.  Even politics calls for variety in order to be entertaining enough.  I hoped that Bangalore might be able to provide that much needed change. The reply came today: a call letter for the post of principal.  I was disappointed.  Looking at my sullen face, a colleague asked what the matter was. “Why are you worried?” asked the colleague coolly after listening

Book Review Reading Yashodhara Lal’s novel, Sorting Out Sid , is like watching a Bollywood comedy, especially of Priyadarshan type.  There is lot of fun and frolic in the first half and then the plot becomes more lifelike, sorting out problems created by the fun and frolic.  One difference is that in Lal’s novel, the fun and frolic runs into two-thirds of the book.  That is a major flaw in an otherwise captivating novel.  There is something Wodehousean about the novel.  The protagonist, Sid [Siddharth], may remind the reader of Bertie Wooster.  He gets into all sorts of embarrassing situations because of his immaturity, superficiality and idiosyncrasies.   We meet him in the very first chapter walking into his friend Aditi’s house, later than he should have been, and wishing her “Happy Birthday” while it is actually her little son’s birthday.   We find Sid in many such comic, sometimes bordering on the farcical, situations.  The comedy drags on a bit too much into about 2