Tomichan Matheikal's blog

  Book Review Title: She and Other Poems Author: Huma Masood Format: PDF E-book Carl Sandburg defined poetry as an echo asking a shadow to dance. Good poetry is a dance of words. No, not really words but images and metaphors. Take this haiku, for example:             A flower stung me             One bright, beautiful morning             Shocked, I hear a buzz. This is from Huma Masood’s collection under review. Most of her poems have that stunning effect on the reader. The effect comes largely from the images and metaphors that the poet employs dexterously. Huma has a scintillating imagination. While too many poets of our day rely on what Coleridge calls ‘fancy’, Huma is blessed with an imagination whose creative intensity can aesthetically shape and unify experiences. This is the secret of the power of her poetry. Let me give one more example. Here is another haiku titled ‘Unspoken Words’:        Louder than the noise        Graceful, intense, deafening    

  Prufrock is the poet persona in T S Eliot’s ‘ The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock ’ . Like most characters created by Eliot, Prufrock is a fragmented psyche.   He lives in a world where authentic personal commitments don’t seem quite possible. The “one-night cheap hotels” give you “restless nights”.   In more serious places you’ll meet women coming and going talking of Michelangelo. There are lonely men in shirt-sleeves leaning out of windows, not particularly curious about the meaning of the smoke that rises from their pipes. Prufrock has his own mask in place, ready to meet other masks. Prufrock wants to commit himself to something deeper than the restless nights, smoking pipes, and discussions that sound intellectual. But he is helpless. “Do I dare?” He asks himself many times. He doesn’t. He can’t. He is helpless. Imagine Prufrock in contemporary India’s half-deserted streets where dreams die by the second. There is the pandemic. And there is a government. Is there really?

  Book Review Title: Beyond Fairy Tales Authors: Deepika and Shalini Format: PDF E-book Fairies inhabit a world different from ours. In that world, they hold mirrors to us wherein we may see the images of our inner selves. Or sometimes we see the images we wish to see, as the authors say in this book: The women of the globe secretly call, To the mirror on their wall.   They see in themselves the beauty of Snow, To uplift their spirit that might be lying low, Not bothering about opinions of a friend or a foe, They help their unique grace and enchantment grow. Fairy tales were created at different times for different purposes. They entertain little children while teaching them certain lessons of life. They engage children creatively. Yet many of them don’t seem to be meant for children at all. This book presents us 26 fairy tales taken from various sources. The presentation is unique and that is what makes this a special book. We are given minute details about

Image from recoveryworkscanada C V Raman’s consciousness level is not Ramkrishna Yadav’s. We all have different consciousness levels. Criminals exist at very low levels of consciousness and are driven by hostile emotions. Psychologist and author, Dr David Hawkins, places shame-based emotions at the lowest level of consciousness. People who exist at the level of shame tend to be cruel, brutally cruel. A little higher on the hierarchy of consciousness is guilt. Apathy comes next. And so on, it goes. A vast majority of people, 85% of the entire population, live at these low levels and grapple with very serious psychological problems in life. Too many people are mentally unhealthy, in other words. Quite a few of them take shelter in drugs and alcohol. These addicts and potential addicts are probably better persons than the so-called ‘normal’ people because the search for a ‘high’ is an indication of a desire for a better existence while the ‘normal’ people are contended with low levels o

  Book Review Title: Random Thoughts on Random Words Author: Rajeev Moothedath Format: PDF E-book There are some books which make you want to meet the author as you read it. Rajeev Moothedath’s new book, Random Thoughts on Random Words , is one such book. Reading it is like sitting in a relaxed seminar room listening to a motivational speaker whose personality is as charming as the wisdom that descends like the purple glow and the linnet’s wings of Yeats’s Innisfree. Let’s not forget that the author is a motivational speaker and a corporate trainer. He has been successful in translating the mood of his training sessions into this book. There is nothing as charming as sophisticated simplicity. Imagine someone explaining the theory of relativity or the Euler’s identity in a language that a school child can grasp. Spice it up with a pinch of humour and a couple of anecdotes. Now add the grace of a self-effacing personality. That is what Rajeev’s writing is like. This boo

  From New York Times Weekend contemplation “Don’t be so humble; you’re not that great,” Golda Meir, former Prime Minister of Israel, once told somebody (whose humility was probably nothing more than obsequiousness which comes easily to politicians). Humility is not a common virtue. Really great people possess it because they are aware of their own limitations. One of the requisites of greatness is an acute sense of self-awareness. The oracle of Delphi was once asked whether anyone was wiser than Socrates. The oracle asserted that Socrates was the wisest. Socrates who was present at the scene refused to acknowledge it and went on to do some research and find out wiser people. He spoke to many wise people and learnt that they were not as wise as they pretended to be. Socrates’s greatness lay in the fact that he acknowledged his ignorance when he did not have the required knowledge while the others claimed to know more than they really knew. Socrates possessed humility. Socrates wa

  Courtesy Nala Ponnappa Praful Khoda Patel has made pimping an art. He knows how to sell India piece by piece to certain clients who have high connections. He sold Daman and Diu to CG Corp Global in 2018. Now he is selling Lakshadweep to other VIP clients. Thousands of indigenous people are displaced by him with impunity because he is acting on behalf of the central government which reportedly has “dreams for the people”. This Patel is a phenomenon. His father, Khodabhai Ranchhodbhai Patel (a mouthful of a name) was an RSS leader whom Narendra Modi regarded as a guru. Our man became an MLA in Gujarat in 2007 and took over the entire charges of Amit Shah when the latter went to jail for arranging the encounter killing of Sohrabuddin Sheik. Now you can understand the ‘greatness’ of this phenomenal Patel. No ordinary man can take the place of Amit Shah under Narendra Modi. The people of Gujarat failed to perceive that greatness, however, and Patel lost the 2012 election. But soon M