Tomichan Matheikal's blog

They are the opposite poles of the continuum that stretches from cheerful despair to sad optimism.   The cynic is a sad man who laughs away his blues with the soothing belief that life won’t be any better than this. The monk is a happy man who wearies himself with the longing to make life holier by staying away from its inevitable pollutions and then preaching cleanliness to the miserable wretches who are condemned to wallow in the filth. However, there is something common to both the cynic and the monk. Both reject the world. The cynic is afraid of the world and hence says No to it with masqueraded cheerfulness. His No is his shield held against the pains and dregs that life will inevitably bring if he dares to say Yes to it. The monk appears to say Yes to life but is in fact saying No to a lot of things. While dark humour is the natural tool of the cynic, rubrics are the monk’s knights in shining armours. While George Orwell’s donkey Benjamin is the cynic, the Biblical Moses

Until someone from my Delhi days called me yesterday evening, I was not aware that it was friendship day (1 st Sunday of August). I transferred the phone to Maggie as soon as he enquired after her. The call ended soon which was what I wanted. Friends – I’m scared of many them. My experience with friends has been such that friendship is a nightmare for me with the exception of a few souls who don’t wait for friendship day to call. When a Catholic priest who was my teacher for a brief period extended friendship on Facebook recently, I accepted the offer with considerable hesitation. When he wrote on my page yesterday that he prayed for me I became really terrified and wrote in response that attention from religious people had always spelt disaster in my life. I had my own perversions and idiosyncrasy which made me an outsider in any society. Most of those perversions were worked to their bizarre extremes by certain religious people who took it upon themselves to reform me. As

Mediocrity encroaches on everything. That is a natural law. Religions become mere trade of illusions and delusions under mediocre priests and other leaders. Politics becomes trade of power. Writing becomes a similar trade too. The true worth of each of these is brought down to the quagmire of pedestrianism by mediocre people who always rule the roost, thanks to the natural human craze for power and wealth. Blogging has not escaped this fate either. Much of what you get these days on blogs is just uninspired pettiness that masquerades as supernatural wisdom. Almost every blogger you meet these days is an expert on something like parenting, nutrition, or lifestyle. There are good writers among them, of course as there are good religious leaders and good politicians too. “Is it correct to always convert a passion into a profession?” That is the question raised by an eminent blogger, Arvind Passey , at Indiblogger , a blogger’s community. “Does this destroy the essence of blogg

Image from videohive Hope was the last item in Pandora’s Box. Pandora was the Greek predecessor of the biblical Eve. Like Eve, Pandora was the first woman of mankind and the sole purpose of her creation was to bring evils and misery into the world of men. She descended on mankind with a box that contained all the evils which were let loose as soon as she reached the earth. Hope was left behind in the box where it still remains like a mirage. Was hope left behind in the box because it was another evil, the ultimate evil? Hope can be a terrible evil if it gives you false aspirations and destinations. Imagine the common man on the street or the adivasi in the jungle who hopes that one day a Messiah will come to deliver them from the exploiting and mendacious politicians. Messianic hopes are quite asinine if you know the story of this donkey from the circus which was asked by a launderer’s donkey, “Why do you endure such painful and risky acts? Why don’t you run away and j

Devotees at Sabarimala Image from Indian Express Hartals are usually like festivals in Kerala. People prepare themselves well ahead of the holiday by stocking things needed for personal entertainments on the holiday. Students are happy to get a day off from schools and colleges. Government employees are happy to relax at home instead of in their offices. The political parties that call the hartal are generally magnanimous enough to exempt “essential services like hospitals, newspapers and milk supply” from the imposed strike. No one seems to complain. In spite of all that the hartal called today in the state by certain right wing groups such as Ram Sena, Hanuman Sena, Ayyappa Dharma Sena and Vishal Vishwakarma Aikya Vedi was a failure. Personally, I was not aware of the presence of these groups in the state. Given the turn of events in the country’s political sphere in the last few years, mushrooming of right wing organisations is not a surprise, however. These mushroo

“A whole society soon metamorphosed into my benefactors. They soon drove me to illicit liquor joints where I sat all alone at a slimy table and drank cheap brandy, peg after peg. The drinks drenched my soul in shame. I felt utterly worthless. I felt unworthy of life. I longed for death.” That is quoted from my forthcoming book, Autumn Shadows . I experienced a protracted period of depression that lasted a few years in my late thirties. Depression makes you feel totally worthless. Worse, the whole world appeared to exist for the singular purpose of decimating me. I refused to trust anyone. My experience is that a depressive does not want to talk to anyone. How can he talk when everyone is his perceived enemy? At best, like poet Shelley, he can cry to the wind in the air to lift him like a dead leaf and carry him away to the emptiness in the skies. “I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!” Shelley lamented to the West Wind. I used to sit on the parapet wall of a culvert

Preface According to Rajasthan BJP President Madan Lal Saini, Humayun was the father of Babur. "When Humayun was dying, he called Babur and told him - if you want to rule Hindustan, you must keep three things in mind: respect cows, Brahmins and women," said Mr Saini . What follows is a spoof of the history according to BJP. Humayun, Babur and other Emperors While Humayun was imparting his dying wisdom to his son Babur, Bal Narender rambled in with a platter of ladoos specially prepared by his father who was a royal chef brought to the Palace after Babur had enjoyed an exotic dinner at the Taj Hotel where Papa Narender was the chief chef. “I have graduated from the Jio Institute of Eminence,” said the ten year-old Bal Narender. Babur was particularly fond of Bal Narender and hence the boy was granted many liberties in the Palace.   Bal Narender was a child prodigy and what he heard as he came in caught his attention. “If you want to rule Hindustan, yo