Tomichan Matheikal's blog

The political leaders in Delhi are driving the cars of their citizens underground.  Civic Centre on Minto Road is an imposing tower complex that overlooks both Old and New Delhi.  It houses the Municipal Corporations of Delhi, both Old and New.  If you are an ordinary citizen, even if you are driving the costliest car you can afford, you will be asked to park your precious vehicle underground.  All overground parking space is meant for the politicians and their cronies.  Even SUVs bearing an inscription somewhere on or near its number plate claiming allegiance to some politician will get access to the overground parking space.  All the rest will go snaking down to the pit below. In 1895, H G Wells wrote a novel titled The Time Machine in which the author imagined the future of the capitalist world as divided between the Eloi and the Morlocks, people overground and underground.  The Eloi were the capitalists whose vision was grant enough to send all industries and their worki

Fiction “Which topi did you buy?”  She asked while her fingers flew with supersonic speed on the virtual keypad of the smartphone commenting on the selfies posted by her countless friends on Facebook. “Your favourite brand,” he said indifferently.  He was busy with the selfie videos posted by his other girlfriends on Whatsapp.  He couldn’t remember which her favourite brand was.  It doesn’t matter, he knew.  She was not likely to notice it.  What does the brand name of an artificial skin matter when the bliss experienced by real skins explodes like a neural bomb in the brain making it oblivious to everything else?  He knew girls well enough to understand that their brand choices were only ways of inflating their already overblown egos.  “Hey, look here,” she said.  “Our PM has sent a selfie after casting his vote.” “He is our leader,” he said without looking at what she was playing with.  He was busy with his own selfie messages on Whatsapp.  But he added, “The leade

The burnt-out parts of crackers and fireworks Lay scattered in the yard and road and wherever the eye could reach. The festival is over. The intoxication lingered a while. And that died out too. Naturally. Leaving an aftertaste somewhere in the hollows within, Sweet and bitter, bitterness competing with sweetness. The sound and fury of the fireworks on the ground and in the heaven Repeated the same old tales, wise or idiotic – who knows?  Who cares? Dazzling lights strutted and fretted Their hour upon the stage Leaving distorted and gaping fragments behind. The fragments will be swept into the dustbins of Swachh Bharat Maybe the next time the Great Actor drives us to the broom store Or maybe they will be carried away by the winds of time That blow relentlessly And mercilessly Erasing the markings we make on dust.