Tomichan Matheikal's blog

I have set a diminutive reading target for the coming year for various reasons.   Just five novels.  If everything goes well (and I’m no optimist), the list may lengthen as the calendar turns.  Well! Umberto Eco Topping the list is Umberto Eco’s new novel, Numero Zero .  The only novel of the author that I have read is his very first one, the one that sold millions of copies in the 1980s,  Name of the Rose .  It was a thriller dexterously peppered with philosophy, theology, history and mystery.  Numero Zero will be released in India in a couple of days.  It traces a conspiracy linking a long line of events in Italian history, from the death of Mussolini to the 1978 kidnapping and assassination of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro by the Red Brigade.  The Piazza Fontana bombing, the sudden death of Pope John Paul I, the Vatican banking scandal, the P2 Masonic lodge, and the shooting of Pope John Paul II, all find their place in the plot.  Many reviewers have not been very kind

Here are three different handshakes given recently by Prime Minister Mr Modi. "I have the control, Baby." A few days back Mr Modi and Rahul Gandhi shook hands when they met during the birthday celebrations of Sharad Pawar.  The handshake shows clearly who the Boss is.  But the eye contacts are of equals. See the eye contact below.  Notice the handshake too. Mr Oommen Chandy, Kerala Chief Minister, welcomed the Prime Minister in Kochi yesterday.  The Prime Minister cannot look Mr Chandy in the eye because the latter was chucked out of a function attended by the Prime Minister.  The strong feeling in Kerala is that Mr Modi wanted Mr Chandy out. And one more handshake from Kerala.  With Archbishop George Alancheril. The typical politician's handshake.  " The glove handshake is sometimes called the politician’s handshake. The initiator tries to give the receiver the impression that he is trustworthy and honest, but when this technique is used on a

Fiction Susanna’s beauty disturbed the men’s sleep.   Both Shimon and Moshe were of an age that usually tempered the passions.  Moreover, they were responsible leaders of the community.  Shimon was a rabbi and Moshe was an exegete.  If bald head was the sign of one man’s wisdom, grey hairs proclaimed the sagacity of the other.   Susanna had never expected them to do this. Painting: Guido Reni “Mate with us,” they told her bluntly.  “Or else we will bring charges of adultery against you and get you stoned to death as per the law.” Susanna had just finished her bath in the pool.  She had sent away her maids as usual and ordered them to lock the gates.  She didn’t want even her maids to see her bathing.  Her body was her private property which even the maids should not see.  Only Joachim, her husband, had access to it.  That was how Yahweh had ordained it from the time of Adam who exclaimed upon seeing Eve, “The bone of my bones!  The flesh of my flesh!” People lik

Fiction Mukul was one of the many thousands of devotees of Radheshyam Baba.  What drew Mukul to the Baba’s ashram was curiosity rather than spirituality.  What kept him returning to the ashram was Gopika, one of the many women who managed the front offices of Radheshyam Baba.  The first thing that struck Mukul when he visited the ashram for the first time was the absence of men from the reception and other offices as well as counters.  Men managed the main gate and the security there.  Once you pass the security check, you are in a land of Gopikas.  Krishna’s Radhas.  Radheshyam Baba’s Babies. Mukul saw Gopika at the reception desk during his first visit to the ashram.  She smiled as he approached the desk on which was placed the sign ‘ENQUIRY.’  He had nothing to enquire about except the name of the charming young woman who stood behind the sign with an indeterminate smile which struck him as less plastic than the smiles of the other women he would see in the ashram ev

English philosopher, C E M Joad, defined civilisation as thinking new thoughts, making new things, and obeying the rules for the smooth functioning of the society.  Yet we don’t find such people in our history books.  Our history books are filled with people who killed others, conquered their lands, and imposed themselves on other people.  How many Indians have heard of Satyendranath Bose though there is a subatomic particle (Boson) named after him?  How many Indians are ready to recognise the name Ali Akbar Khan though he is known to the world as the Indian Johann Sebastian Bach?  Why does the genius of a Shakespeare get eclipsed by a Queen Elizabeth in history books though Shakespeare’s contribution to civilisation far outweighs that of the Queen?  These are some of the many thoughts that crossed my mind as I read the very long article by A. G. Noorani, ‘ India’s Sawdust Caesar ,’ in the latest issue of Frontline .  “A year and a half after he became Prime Minister of Ind

Book Review info@hoffen.in Identity quest is one of the classical themes in literature.  However, gender identity quest is relatively new.  It is also one of the most painful quests, perhaps, because not belonging to either of the most natural genders can be an excruciating experience psychologically.  The agony is aggravated by the attitudes of the ignorant and insensitive general society towards transgender people.  The authors of the book under review approach the theme in the simplest manner possible: by presenting a trans-woman and her problems.  Kusum was born a male who was very uncomfortable with that gender.  It’s only the body that is masculine.  The spirit is feminine.  The father is unable to accept that reality.  Hence the offspring is abandoned.  But (s)he is happy to get the support of a friend who eventually becomes a surgeon and will perform the sex-changing surgery.  The love between Kusum and her doctor-friend was not merely friendship.  The emotions

Fiction He was the Corpse Man.  Savakkaran , they called him in his and their language.  Some refined it to Mortuary Man.  Those who knew him personally and did not want to equate him with his job called him Balan.  Balan kept corpses frozen in arrays of drawers.  Until somebody came to claim them.  Or until nobody claimed and order was given to dispose off the body in the nearby electric crematorium which was operated by his wife, Latika.  Death was their family business.  He, Balagangadharan, was the keeper of corpses and Latika, his wife, was the disposer of corpses.   Both the mortuary and the crematorium belonged to the government.  While the crematorium seldom experienced any discrimination between rich corpses and poor corpses, the mortuary often did.  Rich corpses preferred private mortuaries, those in the hospitals meant for the rich.  Government mortuaries received poor corpses.  Or corpses of criminals.  Or anonymous corpses.  Abandoned corpses.  Who said dea