Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Fiction Devika's dreams were filled with flying reptiles.  Crocodiles and serpents soared heavenward on diaphanous wings.  They disturbed her sleep night after night.   "She wants the best of both worlds."  That was her father's interpretation of her dreams.  Seeing her swollen eyes in the morning, mother asked her what disturbed her sleep.  She told mother about the crocodiles and serpents with diaphanous wings that visited her night after night. Mother dutifully reported the matter to father.   "Both worlds?"  Mother did not understand.   "The reptiles belong to the earth.  Too much to the earth.  The wings belong to the heavens.  And diaphanous wings!"  He paused.  "Hmm... They belong to angels, I suppose."   Devika was reading a poem by Sara Teasdale when mother was trying to decode the link between the terrestrial reptiles and the celestial angels.   Stephen kissed me in the spring,   Robin in the fall,   But Colin onl

One of the persons encountered by Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s peripatetic Little Prince is the King of a tiny asteroid.  The King teaches Little Prince that “Accepted authority rests first on reason.  If you ordered your people to go and throw themselves into the sea, they would rise up in revolution.”  The King claims that he has the right to require obedience because his orders are reasonable.   Read the book here From whom will the King demand obedience, however?  Little Prince had noticed that the only inhabitant of the asteroid was the King.  He asks the King, “Over what do you rule?”   “Over everything,” the King answers promptly and makes a majestic gesture which sweeps everything including the stars and the planets.   “And the stars obey you?”  Little Prince is dismayed.   “Certainly they do,” tells the King.  “They do instantly and I do not permit insubordination.”   Little Prince makes a request.  He being very fond of sunsets would like to see one

There are days when you don’t want to write anything.  Today is one such day for me.  I would normally have followed the instinct blindly and written nothing.  But I realise I have to write something today because I promised that to a friend: that I would participate in the WriteTribe’s weeklong Festival of Words challenge .  My last two posts were submitted at the site with due compliance and loyalty.  The fact is neither of them was written for WriteTribe or any other specific purpose.  The naked truth is that I don’t write these days with any purpose.  Writing just comes.  Whatever I write is born of the thoughts that spring in my mind irrepressibly.  Nothing was coming today. Nothing irrepressible, I mean.  But I wish to keep the promise.  Some friends are valuable. That’s how I realised that I still value some friends. That’s also how I realised that I don’t have any motive for writing.  I breathe.  I eat.  I write. I’m not trying to influence anyone in any wa

Imaginary Paradises and Real Hells Fiction Aziz raised the machine gun and pumped a million bullets into the heart of his frustrations.             Firoz lay dead in a pool of warm blood which exuded a smell that strangely reminded Aziz of the chemistry lab in his college.  Soon he would be lying in a similar pool of blood, his own blood, Aziz knew.  He had killed one of the top leaders of the organisation and he would be a fool to hope that he could get away with it.             What would be the smell of my blood?  He asked himself.  Will it smell of the deodorant whose seductiveness is what first drew him to Miriam?             “Miriam will be a suicide bomber,” Firoz had decided.             Miriam was Maria.  Maria Joseph of St Antony’s College whose humid corridors carried various odours one of which was the seductive fragrance that wafted whenever Maria Joseph of B.Sc. (Bio) came along.  Aziz was a B.Sc. (Chem) student of the same batch.            

A year ago, the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague (ICCT) reported that about 4000 people from the West left their homes and countries to join the Islamic State (IS).  Many of them are women.  The reporters had made a special study of the women who joined the terrorist outfit and found that it was difficult to categorise which type of women were particularly drawn to IS. “While most of the girls are young, some as young as fifteen,” says the report,  “there are also mothers with young children who make the trip. Some of the girls have difficulties in school and are said to have an IQ below average,  but there are also women who are highly educated. It also appears that even though a relatively large portion of the girls had (or still have) a troubled childhood, there are some who come from families with no known problems with the authorities. Most of the girls come from religiously moderate Muslim families,  yet some converted to Islam at a later age. While som

If I had the power to do so, I would a dedicate a day to logical thinking.  And make it mandatory for everyone to sit and think logically and coherently. Instructors will be provided for those who need. Simple steps of logical thinking like the Aristotelean syllogisms will be taught. People will be asked to do certain logical exercises. Their logical thinking skills be assessed and rewarded as they deserve. If people begin to think logically, there will be no terrorists killing innocent people for nonexistent celestial creatures. The heroes of the world won't be the natural descendants of Gulliver's Yahoos whose greatest delight lay in amassing some stones which they absurdly believed to be very precious. Expediency will not take the place of morality. Godmen and other frauds will vanish without a trace. The world will be what Jesus wished it to be: the kingdom of heaven. Rational thinking will teach people: the real cause-effect relationships, the difference between poe

Madhuri had reasons to be chagrined: her idol had deserted her.  She had deserted her family, defied her beloved father, to live with her idol, the famous novelist Amitabh Sinha.  Her devotion to the idol was such that she took all the necessary precaution to avoid getting pregnant.  Children would divert her devotion from her idol.  Five years of selfless worship.  Yet he deserted her.  What’s unbearable was that he took as his beloved the woman whom Madhuri hated the most.  Sheila the witch with her two kids one of whom was a moron.  Madhuri had first fallen in love with Amitabh’s novels.  The love grew into admiration and it spread like a contagious disease from the creation to the creator.  “Don’t trust writers and such people,” Madhuri was warned by her father.  “They can’t love anyone except themselves and their works.” Madhuri was sure that Amitabh would love her.  How can a god ignore his most ardent devotee? Such devotion brings devastation when it is spu