Tomichan Matheikal's blog

I uninstalled from my phone the UMANG app which “allows you to access Indian Government services online through web and mobile (phone)”.   It was installed because I received a message that hereafter all notifications regarding my EPF would be sent only via this app.   But when I saw that the app was demanding too much from me, like access to my contact list, to the picture gallery in my phone, to my email contact list, to the files on my phone and so on, I put my foot down and said No.   I don’t trust my government so much, I’m sorry. Source: Here There are quite a few other apps that I use which also demand a few permissions which I have given.   But I’m willing to trust those service providers – willy-nilly, though – more than my government.   For example, I trust my bank whose app also demands quite a few peeps into my private affairs.   I trust Google which actually peeps too much.   Why don’t I trust my government? My government has never given me satisfactory se

“Happy Valentine’s Day, darling,” Socrates came home earlier than usual to greet his wife on love’s own day. Xanthippe frowned.   “What’s wrong with you?   First of all, you come home leaving your real Valentines behind, your beloved disciples, I mean, and then you forget that we’re now living in Hindu-satan where Valentine is a phoren demon.” “What’s in a name?” Socrates asked.   “Hindu-satan is just a counterpart of Paki-satan, names, just names.   My Plato will tell you that names are illusions thrice removed from the essence.” “Plato is your real Valentine, isn’t he?” Xanthippe threw a sidelong glance at her husband. “Plato was amused when they said that Valentine was a corruption of Valmiki,” Socrates said ignoring his wife’s insinuation about his relationship with Plato. What does she know about Platonic love? “Valmiki?” Xanthippe’s eyebrows rose to form two mighty arches on her broad forehead where the greying hairline had begun to recede. Source: M

Great Hornbill [Image courtesy here ] The Great Hornbill is the state bird of Kerala.   It is called vezhambal [ വേഴാമ്പൽ ] in Malayalam.   Vezhambal appeared copiously in Malayalam literature though the present generation’s aversion to nature and its wealth has alienated the bird from literature too.   In Malayalam literary tradition, Vezhambal cannot drink water directly; it has to wait for the rains.   So vezhambal is a bird of longing in Malayalam literature. The vezhambal longs for the rain.   People long for love. When vezhambal roamed freely in the Malayalam literary landscape, love was a forbidden fruit in the Eden of Kerala.   Youngsters were supposed to marry the partners discovered by parents in what was (and still is, to a large extent) known as ‘arranged marriages’.   ‘Love marriage’ was considered an abominable aberration. I grew up in the 60s and early 70s listening to the plaintive love songs written by Vayalar Ramavarma and composed by Devarajan, argua

I have always been attracted to broken things.   Not that I could ever mend them.   I am poor at that sort of jobs.   In fact, I’m bad at anything practical.   I can read books and at best teach them to impressionable young people.   Nothing more.   If there is a leaking tap at home, I have to depend on a plumber.   I won’t even be able to replace a punctured tyre of my car without somebody’s assistance. But broken things enchant me. When I was 18 years old a classmate of mine quoted the catchphrase of Fevikwik in a speech: “Fixes everything except broken hearts.” I was stuck to that phrase for years.   [I think it was Fevikwik, I’m not sure.] People came and went in my life breaking hearts. Not mine; I have no heart, they say.   They broke the hearts of each other.   I saw people sitting by the shore of a weeping river and gathering the fragments of their broken hearts.   I saw them piecing the fragments together.   I broke somebody’s heart recently.   With just a sta

The great writer Franz Kafka contributed the word Kafkaesque to English.   The worlds in Kafka’s novels are a veritable nightmare which is a metaphorical extension of our real life.   I suggest a new word to English: Modiesque.   My definition will be: “adjective: characteristic of a system that is at once oppressive and supportive, oppressive to the majority and supportive to a chosen group of people, and in which the majority of the oppressed perceive themselves as beneficiaries because of false propaganda.   Synonym: post-truth.” Renuka Chowdhury of Congress who dared to laugh at Modiesque India is an intelligent woman.   Like most intelligent Indians today, she is helpless in dealing with the Modiesque India.   So she chose to laugh.   Any intelligent Indian would love to laugh.   I think I am also intelligent though not as much as Arnab Gau-swami.   Renuka can afford to laugh because the Indians like me pay her salaries and perks.   Gau-swami can laugh - though he cho

One of the 30 principles suggested by Dale Carnegie to win friends and influence people reads: “The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.” I used to be a terrorist at arguments because I could never accept defeat.   Eventually, however, I learnt that winning an argument was one of the most stupid things to do.   Argument itself is stupid.   It brings no benefit to anyone. Inflated ego is what makes us want to win arguments.   I must have made a fool of myself umpteen times with my inflated ego.   That was in my youth.   As I grew older I realised the futility of arguments and the ludicrousness of inflated ego.   I stopped arguing.   In fact, I stopped conversations as far as possible.   I limited my encounters with people to basic essentials.   That was part of my attempt at gaining mastery over myself. Now I can laugh at myself.   Earlier people laughed at me, albeit behind my back.   Now what people say about me doesn’t matter to me.   I am my own maste

When your love wafts through the air that I breathe like a breeze which caresses the leaves on the trees in the yard, I become a rustling poet.   Have you ever seen a guitar whose strings become taut sensing the presence of a musician?   I am a guitar with taut strings waiting for the right plectrum. Yet you complain that I ignore you.   My listlessness worries you.   You think I’m moving out of the highway into a dark lane which leads nowhere.   In your discourse, I am the eternal wanderer in search of darkness wearied by the lights of the world. The gap between you and me is the illusion of a communication that longs to take the shape you want it to have.   My communication is a breeze that touches the leaves intangibly.   My breath is a love poem. The silence of the guitar is not indifference.