Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Beauty is young - always! One of my favourite writers, Franz Kafka, said that the young people are happy because they have the ability to see beauty. “Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old,” he added. I was always an admirer of beauty. The only problem was that some self-appointed custodians of morality, during my youth, thought that my concept of beauty was too gynocentric and hence sinful. Like most members of their species, these custodians were very religious people. Moreover, in my case, they happened to be all Christians. Woman is a perversion, according to Christian theology. She was the cause of mankind’s eviction from the biblical Paradise. Even centuries could not wash away her guilt and so Saint Paul would advise Timothy (2:12) never to let a woman teach or have authority over a man. “She must be silent.” Nothing less. My admiration of feminine beauty was associated with my own perversions by the moralists in my life. I don’t deny th

Pillar in Vellore Fort commemorating the Revolt Image from Wikipedia Today is the anniversary of the Vellore Mutiny which took place on 10 July 1806 when the Indian soldiers ( sepoys ) revolted against the East India Company for imposing certain rules that the Hindus as well as Muslims did not like. The Hindus were prohibited from wearing religious marks on their foreheads and Muslims were required to shave their beards and trim their moustaches. The turban was replaced with a hat which the soldiers identified with Christianity. The soldiers would certainly have looked smart and trim with the changes, which indeed was the purpose. But religion, like popular condoms, is extra-sensitive, and tickles too many tissues and issues. Half a century later, a bigger revolt of the same nature would be triggered by very similar reasons in Meerut. Mindless violence followed the revolt in Vellore. The rebels killed 14 of their own officers and 115 men of their regiment. The revolt

Glimpses of my garden “The earth laughs in flowers,” as Emerson said, and I’m in love with those laughs. I love the colours and fragrances of flowers. I spend some time every day to add more of those beauties to the little space outside my home.    These are days of monsoon in Kerala, however. The monsoon rains are not friends of flowers. In fact, nothing but grass grows in the season. My garden is covered with lush green grass now. Even the potted plants don’t bloom in the rains. By the time my weeding reaches the end of the garden, it’s time to begin all over again because the weeds thrive in the rains. Like Mr Lamb in Susan Hill’s story, I call it my weed garden now. When the rains subside colours will descend in my garden once again.    I love rains too. They have their own romance. I imagine the rain as the mating of the heaven with the earth. Yesterday I rode my scooter for about ten kilometres in a heavy downpour without wearing my raincoat. The helmet shielded

Book Review Tina Sequeira’s debut collection of short stories is, as the Dedication proclaims, “an ode to the spirit of womanhood”.   Being a woman particularly in India is no easy job. The Indian culture idealises and idolises womanhood as pativrata , the devoted wife. India boasts about its goddesses who are mighty to the extent of being the invincible Durga. The country’s ancient, classical texts like the Kamasutra celebrate sexuality giving equality to the female half of the process. Even lesbian relationships find their dignified place in some of our temple sculptures.    The reality has always been a far cry, however. Who were the target readers of the Kamasutra , for instance? Who were privileged enough to enter temple complexes like the Khajuraho? Were the majority of women in India ruled by more inhuman rubrics and rituals like the Sati system and female infanticide? The Yajur Veda clearly viewed the girl child as a burden and recommended rejection of the girl c

Abhimanyu: a futile death Pic courtesy Indian Express The murder of 20 year-old Abhimanyu due to campus politics in Maharaja’s College, Ernakulam, Kerala should make the student community as well as politicians think seriously about the relevance of campus politics. It is quite absurd to expect politicians to think of it, I know. Everything from gods to grass is grist to the political mill. Politicians in Kerala, irrespective of parties, have always made use of students to reap various political dividends.    I remember my college days in Ernakulam. I was a student of St Albert’s college which is situated a little over a kilometre from Maharaja’s. During the five years I studied there, I witnessed a helluva lot of political activity on the campus. That was in the late 70s and early 80s. Kerala Student’s Union (KSU) of the Congress and Students Federation of India (SFI) of the CPI(M) vied with each other to boycott classes and shout inane slogans for causes that most stude

Don’t watch the news anymore, my son, It’s better to live in the darkness of ignorance. Why should you pollute your mind with all those rapes and frauds, assaults and lynching, lies and deceit? Remember when you were a little boy you insisted on joining me for the morning walk and I warned you of the dangers that lurked behind the morning’s grey light? You insisted on joining me and you were shocked by the sight of the bare body of an assaulted girl that lay on the roadside. I quoted Akkitham* to you: “Light is sorrow, son, Darkness is solace.” We are a nation of killers and rapists, son, Our leaders are vampires who suck our blood In the name of gods and totems, Our priests are fake, my son, The godmen are devil’s men, Our bishops are windbags, We are a nation of frauds. Our gods died long ago Laughing at the tragicomedy We enact in their name. Light is sorrow, my son. * Akkitham is a Malayalam poet and the l

Like it or not, we can’t live a normal life without society. We depend on a lot of people for a lot of things. My food comes from other people, my dress does, most of the things that I cannot do without come from other people. Yes, other people are ineluctable.    “Hell is other people!” One of Jean-Paul Sartre’s characters exclaimed when he realised that the hell he had arrived in had no torture chambers or fire and brimstone as he had been taught in catechism classes. “There’s no need for red-hot pokers,” he says because we are the hells.    Each one of us is a consciousness that has to accommodate itself with other minds. Shame is the original feeling in that accommodation, Sartre says. I begin to see myself as others would see me. I become an object of their gazes. I am an object of their perception and assessment.    I experienced that shame for years when I was young. There was a period in my life when I was like the clown in a circus. My own follies and