Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Book Review The author of this book, Durga Prasad Dash, loves India genuinely. His patriotism is rooted in deep awareness of the country’s history, culture and values. His latest book, My Village My Country: Glimpses into the Heart and Soul of Hindustan , wears the author’s patriotism on its jacket. Though the author states in the beginning that the book contains “articles about my village and the small town where I spent most of my childhood,” we are ushered to a whole smorgasbord of the diversity that characterises India. The author’s village is only a springboard. Get ready to dive into an expansive lake of exquisite historical, cultural and aesthetic delights. Since the author belongs to Odisha, we get more delicacies from that state. We begin our odyssey [or Odissi if you prefer] with the rituals of Bali Jatra and Boita Bandana and move on to a lot more like Danda Nacha and Pala Nacha. We get glimpses of the Konark temple, Raghurajpur’s palm-leaf paintings, and th

Book Review Very few people can make history interesting to read. Most of our history books are written in such dull and prosaic style that only academicians can endure them. As a school student, I detested my history books. After school, I never touched history books until I came across writers like William Dalrymple. Recently I read Wendy Doniger’s Alternative History of Hinduism and fell in love with her – her style, I mean. Sonia Dogra has chosen to present history in verse in her new book, Unlocked . She has clubbed poems on historical personalities together under the heading, ‘The Famous and the Infamous’, and the latter half of the book is titled ‘Epoch-Making Episodes’. People and events make up history. What makes Sonia’s book interesting is the fact that she has chosen some unusual aspect of history as the subject of each of these poems. The very first poem, for example, is about Hitler. We meet the 6-year-old Hitler, however. The abuses from his father had

Source: Dreamstime What makes Narendra Modi a hero is that he belongs, or claims to belong, to a particular culture or religion or history that a lot of other people too belong to or claim to belong to. People in general can be divided into two groups: the geniuses who belong to the stars and the commoners who belong to the soil. Albert Einstein and Salvador Dali would not have bothered themselves with Facebook or Instagram (let alone Tick Tock) and the absurdly noisy 8 pm debates on news channels. Geniuses do and silly mortals follow. Bhakti is the ordinary soul’s shakti. Bhakti makes you belong somewhere. You belong to a god or many gods. You belong to a political party. You belong somewhere. Life looks like a rainbow when you belong somewhere if you are commoner: very charming and nothing less than infinity. Our gods are infinite. And we belong to them. How nice! Creating your own space because you know you don’t belong is the job of the genius. Let the genius a

Book Review What makes any personal discourse enchanting is the authenticity it exudes. Darshana Suresh’s book, An Ode to the Self , is suffused with authenticity that delights and disarms the reader at once. As the title indicates, the book is a result of the author’s self-exploration. Self-exploration is a slippery slope for any writer, particularly one who is just entering the adult world from the much cosier student’s world. Darshana who describes herself as “a lover of dreams, rains and words” is a “computer science engineer in the making” who is “pretty close to entering the corporate world.” Her book carries more wisdom than one would normally expect of a writer of her age. She has learnt a lot from life. She has been open to the inevitable experiences that life hurls fortuitously before anyone. The first thing that strikes any observant reader is the spontaneity of her style. Words flow elegantly and naturally from her pen. No, from her heart. There is poetry b

Book Review Sitharaam Jayakumar This is a collection of short stories numbering to over thirty. They are divided into five categories: Horror/thriller; Sci-fi/humour; Sci-fi/public welfare; Sci-fi/miscellaneous; and General. Sitharaam Jayakumar, the author, is an accomplished storyteller who has published a couple of short novels. The first section in this collection is likely to remind the reader of Somerset Maugham with a hangman’s noose. The stories in this section reek of cynicism as they narrate stories of human wickedness. Betrayal and fraudulence are the themes of these stories. The wife is unfaithful to the husband or vice-versa and then one goes to the extent of murdering the other. In a few stories the ghost of the murdered person returns to take revenge. Jai (as the author is known among his friends) builds up the whole plot so adeptly that the conclusion lands on our face like an unexpected slap. He is also an expert at creating the apt environment. There is

The human world has never been quite pleasant. There is much misery in it, some of which is our own creation. Natural calamities and pandemics may be beyond our control. But what we create should be within our control. Our thinking should change first of all if our world is to change. That is why a title like Unconventional Thoughts catches our attention. The first thing I noticed about this book by fellow blogger Sreevas Munnoolam is its title: Ten Unconventional Pieces of Thoughts . This is a short book of just ten chapters and 30-odd pages. The ten topics are disparate with probably only one thing in common between them: the author’s intent to be unconventional. The first topic to be discussed is alchemy. Though a lot of genuine scientists and researchers devoted much time and energy to alchemy, nothing much came of it. Worse, charlatans used alchemy for swindling gullible people by promising to give them gold in place of baser metals. Sreevas takes a look at some of

Thousands of migrant labourers have been walking hundreds of kilometres to reach their homes from their workplaces for two months now in India. Outlook reports that the labourers have decided to vote NOTA [None of the Above] in the next election. No, dear friends, NOTA is not a wise option. NOTA is nobody. Even if that option gets the maximum votes, you will still get some real vampire as your MLA or MP according to the rules. The one who gets the highest votes after NOTA will get to suck your blood. You have another option, a wise and practical option. I will tell you in a moment. Why did you become migrant labourers in the first place? Think for a moment. One of your vampires has now declared that the states should get his permission to hire workers hereafter. “If any state wants manpower, the state government will have to guarantee social security and insurance of the workers. Without our permission they will not be able to take our people…because of the way th