Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Jules David, ‘Don Quixote and Sancho Panza’, 1887.   Wikimedia Commons Quixote – or Don Quixote , to be precise – is too classical to need an introduction or summary. Having read too many farfetched stories about chivalrous knights, a middle-aged and rather loony Alonso Quixano decides that he is a knight, Don Quixote de La Mancha. He gets himself a miserable steed and a squire, Sancho Panza, imagines a peasant woman as his beautiful lady Dulcinea, and embarks on a protracted adventure to save the world from all sorts of evils and monsters. He will finally be brought home by friends and neighbours as a broken and exhausted soul and will wake up from a deep slumber to the plain reality of his sombre mediocre existence – too tired to live it, however. Quixote lives under a gargantuan delusion. He imagines himself as the saviour of the world. What he does, however, turns out to be either foolish or wicked. He can fight with windmills assuming that they are monsters or de

When the world today is struggling with the pandemic of Covid-19, Albert Camus’s novel The Plague can offer some stimulating lessons. When a plague breaks out in the city of Oran, initially the political authorities fail to deal with it as a serious problem. The ordinary people also don’t view it as an epidemic that requires public action rather than as individual annoyances. The people of Oran are obsessed with their personal sufferings and inconveniences. Finally the authorities are forced to put Oran in quarantine. Father Paneloux, a Jesuit priest, delivers a sermon declaring the epidemic as God’s punishment for Oran’s sins. Months of suffering make people rise above their selfish notions and obsessions and join anti-plague efforts being carried out by people like Dr Rieux. Dr Rieux is an atheist but committed to service of humanity. He questions Father Paneloux’s religious views when a small boy is killed by the epidemic. The priest delivers another sermon on the necess

Kill or be killed is one of the fundamental natural laws among animals. Life is tough in such a world and calls for certain qualities such as determination and endurance. Ernest Hemingway’s short novel, The Old Man and the Sea , is a tribute to determination and endurance. Santiago is an aged fisherman. Of late he is beset with misfortune. Eighty-four days have gone by since he caught his last fish. The people around him are now convinced that he is hopelessly down on his luck so much so that even the boy Manolin, Santiago’s apprentice, is asked to stay away from the old man. Manolin continues to do some chores for Santiago but stops accompanying him to the sea. On the 85 th day, Santiago sails beyond the charted waters and hooks a huge marlin in the deep sea. The fish is too huge for him to manage and so he lets it drag the boat initially. Both Santiago and the fish know that they have to kill or be killed. Who will kill whom is the only question that remains. On t

Hell is other people. This is one of the most quoted sentences of Jean-Paul Sartre, French novelist and philosopher. No Exit is one of his short plays which ends with that sighing realisation: Hell is other people. Three people arrive in hell after death: Garcin, Inez and Estelle. Garcin and Estelle pretend that they were condemned to perdition by mistake or unjustly. Inez is honest enough to admit that she was “a damned bitch” who had a homosexual affair with her cousin’s wife Florence. The cousin chose to kill himself under a tram and Florence turned on the gas killing herself and Inez. Garcin is forced to admit that he was not the hero he pretended to be. He was a deserter in the time of war. Moreover he had been treating his wife abominably. He reached home night after night “stinking of wine and women”. Estelle was from a poor family and hence accepted marriage with a man who was three times older than her but was rich. She had an affair with a young man with w

I'm breaking a rule I gave myself this month: that I will write blog posts only for the A2Z Challenge I took up. I'm breaking the rule for a creative cause: to write for my favourite blogger community, Indiblogger, whose current weekly theme is: Do you follow rules? How do you feel when you see people flouting guidelines/culture/traditions etc.? I have resisted the temptation thrown into my face by this topic for the last 5 days. I can't anymore.  I am with Jesus with my whole heart and soul (add whatever else you wish) when it comes to rules: break them if required for promoting love. Love is more important than rules, Jesus said too many times which irritated the primary guardians of rules in those days: the priests. "Which one of you will sit at home watching your favourite movie in absolute obedience to the Covid-rule about coming out if you're told that your pet dog has got into trouble on the road?" Jesus would ask that.  Love is a rathe

For most people life is quite a simple affair: acquire some education, find a job, marry, bring up children, grow old and die. There are the usual entertainments and challenges in the process: the society, colleagues, petty jealousies, workplace rivalry, children’s caprices, social networks, weekly religion, etc. Very few people are beset by a haunting passion that drives them toward the hazy moon beyond the usual horizon. Somerset Maugham’s novel, The Moon and Sixpence , tells the story of a man who gave up his career and family at the age of 40 for the sake of pursuing his moon. Charles Strickland gives up his stockbroker job in London at the age of 40 and leaves for Paris to pursue painting. He doesn’t even care to inform his wife why he is leaving. Nor has he left her any money. When the narrator meets him in a shoddy hotel in Paris on his wife’s request, Strickland says tersely, “I’ve got to paint.” He is not concerned about his family at all. He has looked after them

What dominates in human nature: good or evil? Is the human being a good creature with some dark shades or is he an evil creature capable of some goodness? Is the darkness that pervades the cosmos [85%, according to science] a symbol of the darkness within the human heart? William Golding would answer ‘yes’ to that. His novel, Lord of the Flies , tells the story of some children aged 6 to 12 to show that evil is intrinsic to human nature. The children are marooned on an uninhabited island because of a plane crash. The plane was evacuating some schoolchildren during the ongoing war and it was shot down. Some children escape miraculously. What do they do on the island where there are no adults to supervise them? Ralph emerges as a leader with civilised ideas on how to run a society. He tries to implement law and order among the children. Piggy, the intellectual, and Simon, the saint, are of great assistance in the process. But the human society does not belong to the philos