Tomichan Matheikal's blog

There’s a part of me that stopped growing somewhere at adolescence.   That part emerged very strongly the other day when I visited a Park as part of the staff tour from school.   I found myself cycling round in the Park with the passion of a young boy. I was touching a cycle after a gap of some three decades.   When I was an undergrad student at St Albert’s College in Kochi in the early eighties, I was an ardent cyclist.   I went to college by cycle.   Whenever there was free time in between due to the absence of a lecturer, I cycled to the Ernakulam Public Library which was over a kilometre away from college .   When college was over, my cycling came to an end. Cycling has a unique gracefulness as I realised once again recently, decades after college.   The cycle needs very little space and you can manoeuvre it through almost anywhere.   It just swans along with an unassuming poise letting the breeze waft straight on your face.   It doesn’t pollute air with the exhaust

The Congress has asked the Election Commission to return to paper ballots since the EVMs have chosen to be Every Vote for Modi .   While the paper ballots may exorcise the spectre thrown up by the deus ex machina, will it help the Congress? The real tragedy of the country is that it offers no respectable alternative to the craftiness of the Modi-Shah combo.   Rahul Gandhi has grown up in the last couple of years but is still a dwarf beside the colossal images of the crafty combo.   All others of any significance are mere local patriarchs with no national appeal.   Moreover, instead of fighting the communal card played by the BJP and its allies, the Congress is also showing communal fangs when required.   It has always been an opportunistic party from the time of Indira Gandhi when it comes to religious sentiments.   It kept on appeasing certain sections of the country’s population merely for the sake of winning votes.   The appeasements really achieved nothing more than v

A view from the Watchtower at the place Nestled in the lap of nature, Mango Meadows at Kaduthuruthy in Kerala offers a unique experience with its glimpses into the traditional plants and agricultural practices of the state.   It is branded as “Agriculture theme park.”   Like most contemporary ads, it seeks to rope in children with the professed intention of making them familiar with varieties of plants that are on the verge of extinction.   It is a commercial venture, however.   Like all commercial ventures, it has to keep on modifying the professed goals and objectives if it has to be commercially viable, let alone successful.   The entrepreneur behind this venture must be a dreamer.   I’m glad he created the Garden of Eden too in the little available area.   He has brought as many species of fruit trees as possible in a little space.   They are all hybrid plants, however.   New Gen plants for the New Gen children.   But no children were found appreciating any of th

When I left Delhi for my village in Kerala three years ago, a friend remarked that I would not last more than a year in the village.   I quipped, “You’ve given me a whole year!   I’ve given myself only 6 months.” I never thought I would fit in my village.   The fact is I haven’t – not in the usual sense.   I live as solitary a life as possible in the village and the people are apparently happy to leave me alone.   My fear was precisely how much solitude would be granted me.   As I’m completing three years of my existence in this village, I’m more than pleased with the whole-hearted cooperation of people in leaving me to myself. The plain truth is that there are no villages in Kerala.   Villages have undergone much change with most people living alone in their big houses, some of which look palatial, travelling by their own private vehicles, and mostly avoiding meddling with other people’s affairs.   In addition to all that is the fairly large migrant population in the vill

Fiction “History is as shifty as the kiss-curl that moves so seductively across your cheek in the fan’s breeze,” He said running his finger gently on her cheek. Outside the hotel room, the Sarayu continued to flow listlessly. “Is your research coming to an end?” she asked. “Well, almost.   It’s not research really,” he paused. “I wanted to have a feel of this place.   For a novel that I’m writing.   Ayodhya of Rama and Sita finds an appearance.” “Is this the Ayodhya of Rama and Sita?” She asked that more to herself than to him. “For the novel’s purpose, yes.   Otherwise the Sarayu mentioned in the ancient scriptures could very well be the Hari-Rud flowing through Afghanistan, Iran and Turkmenistan.” “I knew you’d come out with something like that,” she said.   “You were always like that.   In the class too.” “The names of rivers mentioned in scriptures can be very deceptive,” he said ignoring her mention of the class.   “The Buddhist scripture, Samyut

“Words fail me, Clio.   How did you track me down, did I leave bloodstains in the snow?” Whenever someone tells me to leave the past and live in the present, I am reminded of the above-quoted opening lines of John Banville’s novella, The Newton Letter .   The past will track you down even if you don’t leave bloodstains on the granite pavements you plodded on. The past can be a vindictive ghost especially if you haven’t managed to achieve something which the world of mediocre people perceive as success.   Mediocrity has a peculiar knack for sniffing bloodstains in snow. The solution is not trying to live in the present.   The solution is not erasing the past.   The solution is keeping the mediocre as far away from you as possible. The world belongs to the mediocre.   There is no real escape from them.   But you can keep a safe distance. If you have political power, you can erase the past.   You can create new history.   Heroes become villains and vice versa.   Crimi

One of the new nicknames I’ve earned on social media is ‘Rice bag’.   The Sanghis use that name for any South Indian who questions the Sangh views and outlooks.   I think so.   But when it comes to Sanghis it is impossible to say what exactly they mean by anything.   The most fundamental characteristic of a Sanghi is utter lack of humour as well as imagination. If you laugh when a Sanghi tells you that Ganesha’s trunk was the first case of plastic surgery in the history of medical science, the Sanghi will call you a Rice bag.   You can’t laugh when he thinks he is serious.   If you express an opinion that goes against the tenets and creeds of the Modified Sangh, the Sanghi will call you a Rice bag.   You may wonder what rice or bag has got to do with all these?   Nothing. It is only the Sanghi way of telling you that they have no imagination to call you anything else other than by the place you belong to, or the food you eat, or the dress you wear.   I become a Rice b