Tomichan Matheikal's blog

  I’m entering the last quarter of Ken Follett’s massive novel, The Evening and the Morning which is set in the cusp of the tenth and eleventh centuries: a whole millennium back. The novel is a prequel to the author’s popular and equally bulky novel, The Pillars of the Earth [which I read 12 years ago with unflagging interest]. Follet can bring alive the medieval period like no one else. We get clear glimpses into the way of life of those times, dark times. The Church and the State together wielded tremendous powers over people and exploited the people ruthlessly. Many of Follett’s novels clearly show the venality that lies at the very core of people in power, whether in politics or in religion. I have often been repulsed by our contemporary leaders – both in politics and religion – who are absolutely uncouth and subhuman. Beneath the elegant attires they wear, whatever the colours be, they are sheer savages who feed on the carrion of human ignorance, vulnerability, folly, and h

The Gayatri Mantra is a highly revered prayer in the Rig Veda. It has the potential to inspire one profoundly. But it can also acquire sinister meanings or connotations depending on how and where it is used. That is true of most religious symbols. The Gayatri Mantra appears like a motif in Arundhati Roy’s novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness , three times. Anjum, the protagonist who is a hijra as well as a Muslim (doubly unwanted), finds the child Zainab orphaned during the 2002 Gujarat riots and takes her to a barber, gets her hair cut off like a boy’s, dresses her like a boy, and teaches her the Gayatri Mantra as a talisman against future communal assault “in case Gujarat comes to Delhi”. Delhi is where Anjum takes Zainab to. Anjum has made her home in a cemetery in Delhi. After all, cemetery is where the Muslims in Modi’s India are supposed to belong. Pakistan ya kabristan is a slogan shouted again and again in the novel in which Gujarat does come to Delhi. The next time w

  Samuel Beckett by Javad Alizadeh Literature is meant to show what life is as understood by the writer. Life is a complex affair which has no intrinsic meaning. Meaning is created by each one of us. The meaning each one of us gives to it depends on our psychological and intellectual make-up, our experiences, inclinations, attitudes – a whole range of things. Writers too have their own unique individualities consisting of this range of things which prompt them to see life in certain ways rather than others. The meaning seen by Shakespeare is not the meaning seen by Samuel Beckett. Yet both Shakespeare and Beckett continue to find fans even today. Both inspire people to perceive the meaning of life in their own particular ways. Joseph Conrad’s novels show us that society is as corrupting as it is necessary. Society inevitably gives us material interests which in turn corrupt our very souls. But solitude is not the solution; it results in destruction of the self. Idealism is not a so

  At Bhoothathankettu Dam - the kind of beauty that stands out I am a member of a unique WhatsApp group of just 15 members. We were all companions for a couple of years or so in the latter half of the 1970s. Teenagers then, now we are all in the twilight of our lives: senior citizens. people with very strong views and convictions which are as diverse as women’s attires. There is an atheist and a Catholic priest in the group. There are NRI businessmen and simple village folk. There are Congies and Commies. There are devout religious believers and ruthless blasphemers. All the diversity possible in a group of 15 men (yeah, it’s an exclusively male bastion) can be found in this group. Most of these men are very articulate too. Views and opinions are expressed clearly and without any fear of being rebuffed or assaulted. You are respected for what you are. Of course, every member maintains respectability even when dissenting strongly. This is a rare group because the kind of responsible f

  Book Review Title: Azadi: Freedom, Fascism, Fiction Author: Arundhati Roy Publisher: Penguin, 2020 Pages: 243, Price: Rs499   Arundhati Roy is a personification of intellectual acumen coupled with moral indignation. She belongs to the realm of rebellious angels. Her writings show us clearly the truth as she sees (and she sees more clearly than most ordinary people) and also make us feel what she feels provided we are on the side of ugly truths. Her writings can also create more enemies of whom she has already gathered too many around her. Azadi is a collection of nine essays most of which were originally lectures delivered to diverse foreign audiences in the period of 2018-2020. The themes of these essays are indicated in the subtitle of the book: freedom, fascism, fiction . Roy deals with the particular variety of fascism that is being practised in Modi’s India which gives too much freedom to one section of citizens and denies even the freedom to exist to others. Fictio

  Some people add value to life, their own as well as others’. Some people do just the opposite: suck and drain. There are also quite many who just watch indifferently, may be helplessly. Some are busy living while others are busy dying, in other words. There is always enough pain and sadness around. You don’t need to go to the slums in the big cities to see the wretchedness of life. You see it everywhere, especially these days when a pandemic has been holding us hostage for long. As Albert Camus says in his classical novel, “What’s natural is the microbe. All the rest – health, integrity, purity – is a product of the human will, of a vigilance that must never falter.” The microbe is natural. The virus is an ineluctable part of the nature. It nibbles away at the core of human vitality. Its very function – raison d'être – is to suck and drain. It is our duty, human duty, to keep the virus under control. With constant vigilance. “The good man,” to return to Camus again, “the

  ‘I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is,” said Rebecca West, well-known British writer and thinker. She went on to say that people called her a feminist whenever she expressed “sentiments that differentiated (her) from a doormat or prostitute.” The very concept called ‘feminism’ underwent much evolution from the time it made its presence felt in the 19 th century. A leading feminist, Elaine Showalter, identifies three phases in that evolution. First, there is what she calls the “feminine” phase [1840-1880] during which women writers imitated the dominant tradition. The feminists of this time did not dare to stand up against the men but showed that they were no less than the domineering men as far as capabilities are concerned. In the second phase which Showalter calls the “feminist” phase [1880-1920], the feminists asserted their rights and protested vehemently against oppressions by men. It was followed by the “female” phase [1920 onwards] which