Tomichan Matheikal's blog

She died a few days back and I got the news today.  She was a nobody in the village.  For me she was a symbol of fortitude. From the time I can remember anything about my life she was an integral part of our household.  I remember her carrying things from our house to sell in the market four kilometres away and bringing things back we needed at home.  I remember her bathing my little sisters when they were infants.  I used to watch her bathing the infant.  In the leaf of an arecanut tree.  I remember being astounded by her dexterity.  The infant would laugh at her touch.  Even when she poured cold water on the body, my little sister would laugh.  I used to be fascinated by the sight.  My mother couldn’t extract that kind of laughter from her children. My mother cannot be blamed.  She had too many children to look after.  Too many servants too.  Workers of the fields were numerous and I can’t recall the names of any one of them.  Mother had to prepare food for them in a kitc

The primary objective of power, particularly political power, has seldom been social service.  A peep into the history of political powers of various types will convince us of that without any doubt.  Political power is an intoxicant: as good as a drug is to the addict.  People don’t capture power by spending billions of dollars or crores of rupees on image building and propaganda in order to render service to anyone.  People ascend the rungs of political power because the heights intoxicate.  Putting it in a more acceptable way, success gratifies or gives one a sense of fulfilment. The Hindu Self-actualisation is the highest goal for any individual, according to psychologist Abraham Maslow’s theory. Alexander the Great had as much right to make his conquests as Diogenes had to sneer at those conquests.  Albert Einstein would have been as out of place on a Prime Minister’s chair as a Prime Minister would be in Einstein’s shoes. So, let each person gratify himself.  But let

Book Review The Cellist of Sarajevo Author: Steven Galloway Publisher: Atlantic Books, London, 2008 Pages: 227 War is madness.  It takes human civilisation back to savagery.  It dehumanises people and makes of them cowards that hide themselves in holes like rats or ravenous beasts that ferret out the quivering rats from their holes.  It strips people of their dignity as human beings.  Food and water become scarce commodities.  Famine and diseases replace the zest for living.  Friends become foes.  Hatred spreads like a plague. Steven Galloway’s novel, The Cellist of Sarajevo , explores the theme of war through the eyes of four persons: Dragan, Kenan, Arrow and a cellist who is taken from the history of the civil war that rocked Sarajevo in the first half of the 1990s.  The disintegration of the former USSR in 1991 led to a brutal civil war that caused almost a quarter of a million deaths, the worst violence in Europe since World War II.     “At four o’clock

If there is one starving person in your country, your country is not independent. That old man called Gandhi said it.  May he rest in peace.  I live in a country of beggars.  The helpless beg, the slightly less helpless steal, and a few are billionaires.  Quite many others are our leaders in the Assembly Houses and the Parliament Houses.  And a few others are religious beggars, a very fascinating lot they are: they provide us with our daily sustenance of fun. Five individuals in my country possess assets worth Rs 5,23,897 crore rupees.  Mukesh Ambani's wealth amounts to Rs 1,49,474 crore rupees.  But he will sell our petroleum abroad and not give it to us.  That's called "the Gujarat model of development".  For more about India's wealth and beggary, read the report by Wealth-X . "Don't be a spoilsport," says M.  "Let us celebrate our Independence." OK.  I don't want to burst the balloons on Rajpath.  Quite a few crore rupees of

Source: The Hindu Patriotism has reasons to surge in me. I live in a country whose supreme leader requires even more security than the supreme leader of the world’s superpower.  My country has a leader who matters.  Matters so much that no citizen can approach him within a radius of 3 km.  “Anyone who enters within 3 kilometre of the cordoned-off area around Lal Quila will be shot.”  On the Independence Day of my country. My leader is not just a Very Important Person, he is beyond scales of importance.  I have now reasons to be a proud citizen of my country.    The other day, another important leader of my country drew a parallel that also surged the patriotism in me.  He compared my country to Germany where all citizens are Germans and America where all citizens are Americans.  Similarly, he argued, all citizens of India should be “Hindus”.  Why not Indians?  Because, in his terminology India is Hindustan.  Never mind that the Constitution of India does not recognise

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka’s [1883-1924] novel, The Castle , tells the story of a man called K who is on a futile quest.  K arrives as a land surveyor in the village which is under the jurisdiction of the Castle.  But his summoning is caused by a bureaucratic mistake committed in the Castle; a land surveyor is not required in the village now.  K meets Frieda in the inn meant exclusively for the Castle’s bureaucrats though others are allowed to buy food from there.  Frieda becomes K’s fiancée, leaving her job as a barmaid in the inn as well as her enviable position as the mistress of Klamm, the Chief of the Castle.  Nobody in the village can enter the Castle though everybody’s life is controlled by the Castle.  K wants to meet Klamm but never succeeds.  Finally Frieda leaves him and goes back to her former job in the inn and also accepts one of the two assistants of K as her new man. The Castle towers above the village as a symbol of both spiritual and temporal powers.  It

O what nags you, dude with a smart phone, Alone and palely loitering? Like the sigh of a little dream That had no birds singing. O what nags you, dude with a smart phone, So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel’s granary is full, Though harvest will never be done. I see a dying lily on your brow, With anguish moist and fever-dew, And on your cheeks a fading flower Much in need of a beauty parlour. I met a lady in the mela, Full wise – a Deva’s chela, Her words sweet, her smile drugged, And her eyes were wild. I bought her lollipop, And cotton candy, and Chocó dandy; She looked at me as she did love, And made sweet moan. She took me to her chamber cool, And there she taught and fought full throat, And there I shut my wild wild eyes With dreams in mind and doodles on smart phone.   And I dreamt and dreamt Until the heavens berserk went, And woke up to see an empty ground But for people going round and round. I