Tomichan Matheikal's blog

“My cat is dying, Swamiji,” Aravind says to Yogi. “Please perform a miracle and save him. I love him and cannot live without him.” The yogi is famous for his miracles. He heals the sick merely by a touch. Sometimes he materialises ashes from the air with a wave of his hand and the ashes heal those sick people who cannot come to the yogi’s presence personally. Of late, the yogi is thinking of joining politics where he can perform greater miracles like healing the whole country. Moreover, yogis becoming politicians has become the style of the day. The yogi-king, Plato would have approved. “Your problem will be solved, my son,” Yogi says to Aravind. “Go home in peace.” Aravind is happy. It is not easy to gain such personal access to the yogi. Only those who offer fat donations to the yogi’s ashram get such access. Aravind had given half of his property to the yogi’s ashram and the yogi was mighty pleased since the property lay just adjacent to the ashram complex. “Isn

The fountain pen became history for me long ago. It’s more correct to say that it has become prehistoric since I can’t even recall when I abandoned it and adopted the handy ballpoint pen. The fountain pen was a mess. You had to fill it with ink every morning before going to school, a task which required much patience and an equal dose of expertise too. You couldn’t be sure when the pen would catch a cold and start leaking and dye your fingers and shirt pocket in blue. The ball pen, as it was called, descended from heaven as a miracle some time when I was in high school. My first ball pen was one of the many sent from America by a friend of my father, a gift that came as a parcel. Though it was American by origin, it didn’t write quite smoothly; it had a rather too big tip, a rotating ball. The best ball pen I ever used in my student days was Red Leaf.   At Rs10, it was quite expensive in those days for a student. But its refills were available for Rs3. Today my students use

Whenever I tried to be humorous, I ended up like that yogi who claimed to have ascended the highest pedestal of wisdom. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know,” the yogi said to his chelas . A schoolboy took him seriously and asked, “What’s the orbital velocity of the moon?” “What?” The yogi asked indignantly and gave a stern look to the father of the boy. “Oh, you want something simpler?” The boy asked just as his father whisked him away. The latest edition of Indispire throws a similar challenge in my face. “Look at life around you and write a post that makes everyone laugh,” it demands. And the accompanying hashtag is #laughter .   When I averted my gaze from it, hoping like a vainglorious yogi that some chela would whisk away the challenge, it came back with a bang and last night it disturbed my sleep like a moronic nightmare. “Where is your fidelity to Indispire?” The spectre in the nightmare sneered at me. I expressed my helplessness, like anyone who expe

Obituary Father Thomas Augustine Some memories run in your veins like a soothing feeling. They are left by people who have touched your heart one way or another. A simple gesture, a timely help, or a kind word at the right moment: that’s enough to leave lasting impressions on the palimpsest of our memories. Today I’m destined to bid farewell to a person who left a few such memories in my being. An automobile accident has brought a tragic end to Father Thomas Augustine’s life. He was a priest in the congregation of the Salesians of Don Bosco. I was 15 when I met him first at a Salesian school in Tirupattur, Tamil Nadu, where I was a trainee for priesthood and he was a teacher. My memoir, Autumn Shadows , recalls how he made a place for himself in my memories. Let me quote the relevant passage: I cried when I was diagnosed with chicken pox as if it was the most grievous sin on my part not to have protected myself against the disease which had already contracted two oth

If you fight with monsters, you are likely to become a monster. If you gaze into an abyss, the abyss gazes back into you, as Nietzsche said. Stand in front of the mirror and see the beauty that stares back at you. If you don’t see beauty, discover it; wait in front of the mirror until it reveals the beauty to you, your beauty. If the mirror doesn’t reveal your beauty, you won’t ever discover it. I know people who travel miles and miles in search of their own beauty. They go on pilgrimages. They ascend mountains. They traverse deserts. They cross oceans. And return weather-beaten. If travel doesn’t make you younger, stand before your mirror and look at yourself again. Your god is not in any temple, church or mosque. Your god lies in that mirror. If that god doesn’t smile back at you, you are a gonner. No pilgrimage, no religion, no ritual will ever save you. Get back to the basics. Start from the scratch. It doesn’t matter how much you donate to temples, godmen, o

The tombs of Mumtaz and Shah Jahan inside the Taj “Mumtaz, my beloved, my heartthrob,” Shahjahan was in his usual romantic mood. “My most noble, magnificent, majestic, unique…” he went on until Mumtaz put her finger on his lips. “You silly,” she chided him mockingly, “they are the 99 names of Allah the Great. Even the burning passion of your romance…” She paused a moment to think whether it was burning passion of romance or romance of burning passion . Then she continued without correcting herself anyway, “… does not permit such blasphemy.” “Hahaha,” Shahjahan laughed merrily and said, “Four centuries. We have waited here in this cenotaph for four centuries hoping that Allah would take us from here to Jannatul Firdaus and nothing happened…” “Except that you crept from your tomb into mine,” Mumtaz laughed. “And we created our Firdaus here in our tombs. What greater blasphemy could we commit?” “We pour out our feelings, ya Allah; You only hear the words.” Mu

Illustration from the NCERT English textbook for class 12 Derry is a 14-year-old boy in Susan Hill’s short play, ‘On the face of it’. He has a terrible scar on side of his face caused by an acid burn. He hates himself because of that and that self-hatred makes him hate everyone else too. An elderly person, Mr Lamb, whom Derry meets by chance teaches him the most vital lessons of life. You have a scar, so what? Mr Lamb asks Derry. You have everything that a normal boy has: arms and legs, brain and heart, and so on. If you want you can be a success. Let other people say what they want about your scar. We can’t make other people shut their mouths, but we can choose to ignore what they say. “ Keep your ears shut ,” Mr Lamb says. Keep your ears shut when required and start looking at life squarely on the face . You can’t keep running away all the time. Life has to be faced. There was a man who kept running away from risks. He was afraid that he might slip on a banana peel a