Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Paraphrasing Stephen Fry, I must say that language is my best friend, my mistress, my girl-friend, my goddess.   How can a government decide my language? The Central government is keen on making every Indian learn Hindi.   My state government has ordered that Malayalam should compulsorily be taught in all schools in the state.   CBSE schools in Kerala are discovering ingenious ways circumventing the problem caused by the state’s order.   The latest is that they will teach Malayalam in grades 9 and 10 (to those students who have opted for another language) but will not include it in the assessment programme since CBSE has a two language curriculum. What I fail to understand is why any language should be imposed on anyone.   Don’t citizens have a right to choose the language they wish to fall in love with?   Yes, for me language is a love affair.   It is my means of expressing myself and giving shapes and colours to my dreams.   It is the river which washes away my sorrow

During my childhood summer vacation was a whole long tedious period of two full months.   More than a month would go burning in the anxiety about the annual exam results.   The system was not at all student-friendly in those days.   During the ten months at school the students would be made to memorise a whole lot of things and caned mercilessly if their memory failed.   The evaluation process of exams was as severe as the caning.   The teachers were more eager to find out the mistakes in the answer sheets unlike their counterparts today (which includes me too) who go out of their way to reward whatever happens to be right in answer sheets.   Passing exams was quite tough in those days.   It appeared that the only purpose of exams in those days was to make as many students as possible fail.   The only thing that made me forget the anxiety about the ‘result’ was the fairly long visit to all the maternal uncles some distance away.   I loved the bus journey in those days.   I

Fiction Anand Shankar was trolled mercilessly in social media when he posted his story ‘Ravana’ in his blog.   He was a little known blogger and hence the tremendous attention that his present story drew came as a rude shock as well as pleasant surprise at once. His story ended with Sita longing to return to Lanka because Rama suspected her chastity.   No, she didn’t return.   In fact, she didn’t even want to return.   A painful conflict arose in her consciousness.   This man, Rama, the Maryada Purushottam, the hero of a whole country, god incarnate, this man faltered when some silly gossip monger raised a question about my chastity , Sita reflects at the end of Anand’s tale.   Ravana emerges as a far better hero in her consciousness.   Ravana who stood before her in Ashok Vatika with love and admiration in his eyes.   And reverence that did not at all match his royal narcissism.   When he knew that his love for her could never surpass her love for Rama, he surrendered