Tomichan Matheikal's blog

The seeker walked on Winter raged all around And inside Deep in the marrow of his bones Fog descended Making the night darker Darkness mounted all around And inside Lying down on the veranda Of some shop or whatever He longed for warmth For a touch He did not open his eyes When the touch came Another body Snuggled close to him Another seeker, he thought, Of light amidst thickening fogs Of warmth against mounting cold Another seeker, another absurdity. When the dawn broke The seeker woke And saw his night’s companion, a dog, Walk away indifferently having stretched himself. From Bhatti Mines, Delhi, where seekers gather galore

Book Review Title: The Bestseller She Wrote Author: Ravi Subramanian Publisher: Westland Ltd, 2015 Pages: 391 Price: Rs 295 Paraphrasing Francis Bacon, one may say that some books are potboilers, a few are the fire beneath the pot, and still few are the food inside the pot.  Ravi Subramanian’s latest novel, The Bestseller She Wrote , belongs to the first category.  It has all the ingredients of a successful Indian potboiler.  There is the hero who is a successful executive in a leading bank and also a famous writer, a heroine who is the quintessential Indian wife with all the virtues and no vices, and a villain who is ambitious, scheming, manipulative and above all a ravishing beauty who is happy to shed her clothes as required by the author (or the director of the movie).  The main plot revolves round a modern version of the ancient triangular love.  Aditya Kapoor is a happily married, successful banker and “a rock star author.”  Maya, his wife, is a parago

A church in Kerala Somewhere in the gloom God took flesh upon himself He washed its feet fed the spirit’s hunger and went to hang himself On a cross. Flesh haunts flesh As the cross haunts God To be nailed to each other: The eternal quest. I wrote this poem about 20 years ago.  In those 20 years I came across very many people who were affiliated to different religions.  Some of them tried much to infuse me with their fervour and verve.  Nothing has changed a bit.  Neither me nor them.  The quest of each is different.  And that's an eternal quest.  Even God is helpless.

One of the best poems about Christmas that I’ve read is T. S. Eliot’s Journey of the Magi .  My short story, The First Christmas , was largely inspired by this poem. “The world went on with its usual activities of finding food, conquering lands, vanquishing other people, mating and reproducing, killing and plundering, building and destroying.”  The narrator of the story, one of the three magi, says that.  Caspar, the narrator, was on a quest because he could find no meaning in a life that revolved around eating, conquering, mating, and so on.  “If human life is the progress from being a bold, free and above all creative child to cowardice, dependence and creativity that ends in procreation in a span of about 60 or 70 years and then succumbing to death as a child in the garb of an old creature, then, my beloved, I have nothing to be proud of being born a man.”  Thus says the narrator of a Malayalam novel ( Manushyanu Oru Amukham -  A Preface to Man ) which I read soon after

“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are,”   said Benjamin Franklin.  The release of the 20 year-old man who had perpetrated the most diabolic deeds on a woman against whom he had no reason to have any grudge highlights the helplessness of justice.  Asha Devi, mother of Jyoti Singh, being consoled by Shabana Azmi instead of by Justice The law is helpless since it is bound to follow the written codes.  The criminal was a juvenile when he attacked a 23 year-old paramedical student three years ago in a cold winter night in Delhi.  The juvenile satiated his lust.  Not contented with that, he went on to gratify the monster within him by inflicting the most inhuman atrocities on the hapless victim.   And tomorrow he will walk free.  Because the law is helpless!  The law has to follow the written code that a juvenile cannot be retained in the correction home more than three years.   What is the helplessness of the law doing

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