Tomichan Matheikal's blog

When a fugitive said, “Let me go over,” the men of Gilead said to him, “Are you an Ephraimite?”  When he said, “No,” they said to him, “Say shibboleth.”  And he said, “Sibboleth,” for he could not pronounce it right.  Then they seized him and slew him at the fords of the Jordan. And there fell at that time 42,000 Ephraimites.  [The Bible, Judges 12: 5-6] When I read the above extract as the preface to an essay on the importance of right pronunciation, my first response was a laugh.  As a teacher of English language and literature, I was struck by the deep irony as well as dark humour in the Biblical episode.  Language became a tool for identifying the enemy.  And the word used for the identification test is “shibboleth” which means ‘a password, phrase, custom, or usage that reliably distinguishes the members of one group or class from another.’  The author of the Book of Judges revealed a profound sense of black humour by slitting 42,000 throats with the word ‘shibboleth.’  The

I went to bed and woke in the middle of the night thinking I heard someone cry. Thinking I myself was weeping, I felt my face and it was dry. Ray Bradbury’s words came to me as the rain battered my window last night.  I had taken the picture of the clouds in the evening while I waited at the bus stop for someone to arrive.  Rain is nothing new in Kerala where I have found my current shelter.  From the time I came here four months ago, it has been raining almost every day for some time at least.  There was a time when the rain was romantic for me.  The rain has a music that enters your very being and pervades it like an exquisite flavour.  While in Delhi, I used to long for the rain. To drench the desert of Delhi with heavenly flavours.  To quench the thirst that runs through Delhi’s veins like a paranoid monster.  To soften the fossilised souls of the deities that grab Delhi square foot by square foot.  To wash clean the insensate idols that encroach upon the rights of

Historical Fiction I have to go, Appai said to Isabel.  In Malayalam.  That was the only language Appai knew.  Isabel knew only Portuguese.  But their hearts had been entwined with a language that only hearts knew.  Isabel was one of the many thousands of the Portuguese people who crowded in the Port of Lisbon to see Ana, the little elephant, that was shipped from Kerala.  Vasco da Gama had inflicted all the brutality of civilisation on the coasts of Kappad and around in Kerala for almost two decades.  The Zamorin of Kozhikode was not incapable of comprehending the brutality.  It was not only greed that motivated people like Vasco da Gama to push their ships into stormy seas.  It was not even merely love of adventure.  Conquest was the motive.  Brutality added intoxication to conquests.  Every ruler knew that.  The Zamorin was no exception.  But how could the Zamorin forgive this man who massacred the Haj pilgrims from his country to the holy city of Mecca?  Eyewitness