Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Fiction “You sell dreams, don’t you?” I asked.  The lottery man looked at me rather bewildered. I knew him for many years.  He used to sell Kerala government’s lottery tickets in the small town a few kilometres from my village.  Whenever he met me in the town he would come to me with a lottery ticket which I normally purchased in order not to disappoint him.  I never won any prize. The lottery man smiled at me having overcome his bewilderment.  “What will life be without dreams?” he asked. “Has anyone who bought tickets from you ever won a prize?” I was curious. He hesitated a moment.  “Yes, up to ₹5000.”  The chance of winning a bigger prize would be something like 0.000001.  I looked at the ticket he had handed me.  Its number was a six digit figure.  There would be 5 or 6 series of such 6-digit numbers.  No wonder the lottery man could not produce even a single winner of a sizeable prize though he was in the profession for over many years. “Even winning

It’s so easy to hurt you Words are knives Sometimes silence cuts deeper I wonder whether my gaze hurts too That’s why I suggest the safety of distance in spite of its terror whether we’ll miss each other or forget each other The consolation shall be mine that I’m not the one who extracts bleeding lines from your heart

I willed my being into an extension And the cosmos was born in a Bang: Every birth is a terror and a joy, Every creation an extension of a core. I live, move, and have my being In all that is, and that shall be, Much as in the core that sits here. Hypothesis is what the creation was When I let myself go in a bang: An overflow of love infinite. Experiment is what the creation is When I add patterns in the mosaic: A sporting game of love unremitting. Abel was I, much as Cain was. I am the turbulence of the rolling waters, The rage of blasting bombs and fleeting bullets, The hunger in the eyes of widows and babies, The roar of the clouds, and the grace of the rainbow. And the nailed wail on the crucifix. Evolution is what the creation is, of The hell and the heaven that I am. PS. I wrote this poem about 20 years ago. Bringing it back for Indispire Edition 191 :  #Poem

When the BJP government took over governance in 2014, India stood at rank 55 in the Global Hunger Index.  The country slipped down to rank 80 the very next year, to 97 last year, and stands at disgraceful 100 this year.   Times Now says that “India ranks lower than all its neighbouring countries – Nepal (72), Myanmar (77), Bangladesh (88), Sri Lanka (84) and China (29) - except Pakistan, which has been placed at 106th in the global hunger list.” The gap between BJP’s promises in its election manifesto as well as the Prime Minister’s endless rhetoric and the actual reality is starkly glaring.  It’s no wonder the Prime Minister is being elevated to the stature of a god.  Temples are being constructed with Mr Narendra Modi as the presiding deity.  Only a god can be as heartless as Mr Modi. Mr Modi has successfully manipulated religious and nationalist sentiments in order to achieve the divine stature that is being attributed to him in the cow belt of the country.  Both rel

They can destroy me, my boy, but not defeat me. The surge of pride in my veins is what keeps me alive. They mocked me when I returned from the sea day after day without fish. Unlucky fisherman. Santiago the doomed. Santiago the accursed. Santiago the beaten. No, Manolin, no, I could embrace bad luck I could swallow damnation. But defeat? No, Manolin, no. I am Santiago, masterful fisherman. I am Santiago, more man than I am. Old man who wakes up early in order to have one longer day. Beaten I cannot be; destroyed yes if need be. Mine is the turtle’s heart, boy, It beats for hours after it has been cut up. The marlin I hooked had such a heart too. We were brothers, the marlin and I, each one with a heart whose beats matched each other’s. The marlin was my friend and foe at once, my strength and my weakness, my pride and my humility, my master and my victim. I love you, Marlin, That’s why I have to kill you. Else

The only quote that graced my study table for years was from Fritz Perls: “I do my thing and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, And you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful. If not, it can't be helped.” I picked up those lines in my early twenties when I was no more social or sociable than I am today.  I typed it out neatly on a piece of paper which remained on my study table for years.  One guy who befriended me for years and tried his best to make me both social and sociable was quite upset when I refused to dump that inscription.  Not that I didn’t oblige him by making sincere efforts to become more human by joining certain social circles.  But I was a failure.  Rather I made a fool of myself in any group I chose to join.  The realisation that I couldn’t be part of a social group without making a fool of myself prompted me to embrace

A Song [I don't know the tune] A thousand times did my mind scream Throw me out Throw me out, man Throw me out I don’t belong to you Where do I belong? Who do I belong to? Not to you, never to you. Never to your lies. Dinna I try to belong? Dinna I try my best? And what you did? You screwed me Screwed me all over. Where do I belong? Who do I belong to? Not to you, never to you. Never to your lies. Bloodsucking vampire is what you are Preaching sucking politics religion Sucked ma trust Ma trust Ma trust Where do I belong? Who do I belong to? Not to you, never to you. Never to your lies.