Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Darkness is a pervasive theme in Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth .  The play opens with three witches one of whom says ominously, “Fair is foul, and foul is fair.” The protagonists are Macbeth and his wife Lady Macbeth both of whom are described as ‘children of darkness’ by the Shakespearean scholar A. C. Bradley.  It is worth quoting Bradley in some detail. “These two characters are fired by one and the same passion of ambition ; and to a considerable extent they are alike.  The disposition of each is high, proud, and commanding .  They are born to rule, if not to reign.  They are peremptory or contemptuous to their inferiors .  They are not children of light, like Brutus and Hamlet; they are of the world.  We observe in them no love of country, and no interest in the welfare of anyone outside their family .  Their habitual thoughts and aims are ... all of station and power.” Ambition in itself is a good thing.  But when ambition is coupled with the characteristics highl

Today (July 28) is the centenary of World War I (WWI).  The War started as a family affair and then spread to the whole world because of more family affairs.  Wars are, more often than not, family affairs even today.  We, the human beings, are still as clannish as we were when our forefathers descended from the tree and started feeling ashamed of the groins that gave birth to families.  Shame breeds wars.  Shame is the other side of honour.   What triggered WWI was the murder of the Austrian archduke Francis Ferdinand.  The year was 1914.  France was already a republic and England was a constitutional monarchy.  The rest of Europe remained conservative monarchies.  But the monarchies were already feeling the fire beneath their bottoms because of what had happened in France and England.  The common man was beginning to assert himself. It was a common man who shot the archduke Francis Ferdinand.  A common man’s crime could not have triggered a world war.  Francis Ferdin

An eagle I saw in Orcha a few months back I fly, I fly high, I fly very high, Heights are in my genes, My eyrie is on the cliff With no egg waiting to hatch. Eagle’s eggs are eaten by scavenging crows. They descend, the crows descend, And feed on the maggots that breed on the garbage Thrown by you people all over what you call civilisation – In the backyard of the plaza or the foreground of Gaza. The carrion of your civilisation nauseates me.                     I cannot lay eggs anymore. My bones shrink at the sight of your city. I’ll be the missing link between man and humanity. I’ll die in my eyrie one day Without any egg to hatch, Without offspring, Without grief. My unlaid egg is waiting for the Darwinian mutation in my eyrie where scavenging crows strive to ascend.

 fiction The end of a party leaves you with a feeling of emptiness.  The people leave after the singing, dancing and eating.  The noise subsides.  The balloons burst in the heat.  What remains are the plates and utensils to be washed up. “Put Raman to bed while I do the dishes,” says the exhausted wife to the husband. The husband is very understanding.  He knows that his wife is even more exhausted than he is.  They are a working couple.  The corporate bosses suck both their blood in equal measures from the waking time of 5 am to the bedtime of 12 midnight.  The time at home is also dedicated to answering emails of their respective bosses and transferring the profits to the bank balances of the bosses or the bosses’ relatives or the relatives’ relatives.  The son’s birthday party was just over.  The children of the neighbouring flats were invited.  The least they could do for their only son who had just turned five.  “Tell me a story, dad,” said Raman as soon

“Anybody who’s ever mattered, anybody who’s ever been happy, anybody who’s given any gift into the world has been a divinely selfish soul, living for his own best interest.  No exceptions.” Einstein didn’t discover the theories and formulas of relativity with the intention of serving humanity.  It was his interest, his passion, to dwell on such matters.  Otherwise he wouldn’t have been Einstein.  His mind was such that it couldn’t be satisfied with anything less than those ethereal concepts. There are hundreds of artists, writers, scientists, who defied well-established and domineering (even ominously threatening) authorities in order to express the truths they had discovered.  Galileo, for example.  Even Salman Rushdie, why not? Most of us are not Einsteins and Galileos.  We are ordinary mortals who would like to do our ordinary jobs to the best of our abilities and earn our living which will help us live happily with our families or engaging in our hobbies or other me

In George Eliot’s novel, Silas Marner , the eponymous hero is a man who felt deceived by both god and man.  His close friend deceived him by implicating him in a theft committed by the former.  Since Marner was known for his honesty and goodness, the matter was taken to God.  The lot drawn before God after the ritual of a prayer incriminated Marner again.  The worst stab in the innocent heart of Marner was when his fianceé abandoned him to marry the man who had done the terrible injustice to him. Marner leaves the place heartbroken and settles down in Raveloe as a solitary weaver who does not socialise at all.  He cannot bring himself to join any human company.  He has lost faith in mankind.  He has lost faith in God too.  However, when he sees Sally Oates suffering from the same disease which his mother had suffered from, the natural goodness in Marner well up.  He prepares a concoction for Sally and it heals her.  Marner becomes famous in Raveloe as a man with occult powers

When all is told We cannot beg for pardon. [Louis MacNiece, ‘The Sunlight on the Garden’] You cannot hide everything behind the façade of lies, however beautiful the façade is. What will pain you the most and appal those who had stood in awe will be the horror of the grin that the mask had concealed hitherto. Trade in dreams cannot go on forever, false promises will breed barren fever, the phantoms crafted in the past won’t be quelled with rituals of exorcism, confessions and angst will accompany. When all is revealed you won’t have the right to seek pardon.