Tomichan Matheikal's blog

If you stop a moment to observe, you get characters for stories.   Every moment is a story.  Every person is a story.  Life is a story. I was in a shop in Delhi.  A buyer’s bill came to Rs 115.  He gave a five-hundred rupee note.  No change, says the shopkeeper.  So the client fished out a hundred-rupee note and a ten-rupee coin and a five-rupee coin.  Both the coins were golden.  A moment passed.  I was busy (in my own clumsy, lazily observing way) picking my items.  That man came back.  “Where’s the coconut I bought?” he asked. “Sorry,” said the shopkeeper who picked out the coconut from under his outdated weighing balance.  “But I have not charged for this…” “I know,” said the client.  “How much?” “Rs 25.” The client gave a Rs50 note.  The shopkeeper gave back Rs25 which included the same golden coins that he had given earlier. “A lucky sign,” said the client.  “You believe in luck?” said the shopkeeper pretending to be nonchalant. “Not at all. 

To be able to live a whole century and relish that life to the fullest is a rare blessing.  Khushwant Singh (2 Feb 1915 – 20 March 2014) is one of those blessed souls.  It would be preposterous to wish his soul eternal rest since he had no such beliefs.  Agnostic Khushwant: There is no God! is the title of one of his many books. He was a prolific writer.  A popular writer, I should say.  I don’t consider him a great writer although he could have been one, as evidenced by his novel, A Train to Pakistan . He was also a very knowledgeable person as revealed by some of his books on Sikhism particularly.  But he chose to write for the masses.  Probably, his acute awareness of the absurdity of human existence prompted him to do that. What appeals to me about Khushwant Singh is his sheer forthrightness.  With malice towards one and all , as the title of one of his newspaper columns proclaimed tongue-in-cheek.  It was not malice at all, however; it was plain honesty, utter lack

Page 87 of The Prayer of the Frog - Volume I by Anthony de Mello Published by Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1988

Who made the grammar?  Was it the Pundit who had a vested interest in the days of the caste system?  Wasn’t it the aristocrat who ensured that there must be a way of controlling the people? Who made the grammar of behaviour?  Was it the Vedas, the Bible, the Quran?  Or was it the 5 star hotel, when you made enough money to visit that? Who made the grammar of economics?  Was it the zamindari system?  The caste system?  The Western way of invasions?  Or more recently the Ambanis with their own ways of invading and the Modis with their politics? Who taught you to speak your language?  Did any grammar do it? Did you learn to speak your mother tongue by leaning any grammar? Who made the grammar of love?  Kamasutra?  Dotted condoms?  Or revolutions in universities like JNU? Who made the grammar of education?  CCE?  IIT?  Entrance tests?  Or the coaching centres in Kota? I’m looking for answers. I consider myself fortunate that I can still afford to l

Paul Cezanne “How do I judge art?”  Paul asked the man who had introduced himself as Ambroise Vollard.  “When I complete a painting, I take it and place it near a God-made thing, a tree or a flower; if it clashes, it’s not art.” Paul Cezanne had failed every time he submitted his works to the Paris Salon for exhibition.  The true artist cannot change his art in order to please the gallery.  Art is not a commercial product.  You paint according to your artistic taste and sensibility.  If people can appreciate them, it’s good.  Otherwise, it is still good.  Follow your soul’s diktats.  Paul did just that.  From 1864, when he was 25 years old, he submitted his paintings to the Salon for nearly two decades.  Rejections did not cloud his soul.  After all, his father, Louis-Auguste Cézanne was a successful banker and had left him enough money to live on.  “I was lucky,” Paul explained to Vallard, “selling my paintings was not important to me.  But the irony is that the Salo

Book Review The Lowland Author: Jhumpa Lahiri Publisher: Random House India, 2013 Pages: 340       Price: Rs499 [Hardbound] There are two brothers.  They differ in age by just over a year and resemble each other physically.  But psychologically they are poles apart.  One becomes a Naxalite and the other goes to the USA where he completes his higher studies and settles down.  The Naxalite is eventually killed and his brother marries the widowed young wife who is pregnant.  She gives birth to a daughter in America and soon deserts the family.  She goes to a faraway place and works as a professor of philosophy and writes books, cutting herself off totally from her second husband as well as her daughter.  The daughter grows up and inherits some of her biological father’s revolutionary spirit.  She gives birth to a fatherless child and lives with her adoptive father doing odd jobs related to conservation of the environment.  The adoptive father decides to marry a friend

Vasavadatta lay dying.  Upagupta came to teach her the lesson she had never learnt in her life. Vasavadatta was beautiful.  She had admirers.  The admirers came with gifts and laurels.  She realised too late that men were making use of her.  Making use.  Making her a commodity.  Making her body a commodity.  They admired her lips.  They admired her breasts.  They admired her thighs.  They fucked her.  In short. They showered gifts upon her.  She became rich.  She became a capitalist.  There was also the religion to support her.  God was behind her.  She thought that God was with her. It was by pure chance that Vasavadatta met Upagupta, a Buddhist monk.  Tall and lanky, seeing but not leering, looking and also seeing, Upagupta was different from all the men that Vasavadatta had seen so far.  So different from all the men who had seen only her body. Upagupta did not fuck her.  But Vasavadatta wanted to be fucked.  For the first time in her life Vasavadatta