Tomichan Matheikal's blog

  Book Review Title: The Himadripuram Adventure Author: Sitharaam Jayakumar Goodness should win in the end of all conflicts. That classical notion has been illustrated brilliantly and imaginatively once more in this rather short novel by a good friend of mine. Himadripuram is an imaginary kingdom that existed in a time when there was no electricity, no motor vehicles, and not even a postal system. That is a kind of romantic world. I mean the romance in the second of the meanings below.  There is a fairly good king in Himadripuram. But his tenure is coming to an end. His son will take charge soon. However, that son, Veer Narayan, is an immature teenager who is a “combination of stupidity, greed and ambition.” The King, Devdutt Narayan, tries his best to drive some sense into the head of the crown prince, but to no avail. The King has to deal with another challenge too: an emerging rebellion led by people who are deviously powerful. What if you have enemies within your family

Image from cleanpng.com The latest raid by India’s ED [Enforcement Directorate] on NewsClick and the arrest of its founder remind me strangely of Joseph Heller’s character named Orr in the novel Catch-22 . Orr and Yossarian are both in the US Air Force. Now Yossarian is in the hospital undergoing treatment. The war is going on and hence Yossarian, like most other soldiers, would love the treatment to go on endlessly. Yossarian’s pain in his liver refuses to become jaundice. “If it became jaundice they could treat it. If it didn’t become jaundice and went away they could discharge him.” Orr is Yossarian’s roommate. When Orr was a kid he used to walk around all day with crab apples in his cheeks, he says. Yossarian wants to know why. Orr says it’s because crab apples are better than horse chestnuts. Yossarian repeats his question. Why would anyone walk around all day with anything in his cheeks? “I didn’t,” Orr says, “walk around with anything in my cheeks. I walked around wit

Book Review Title: Soft Animal Author: Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan Publisher: Penguin Random House India, 2023 Pages: 261   Very many people – too many, in fact – live partial lives. That is, most people don’t explore the depths of anything: the meaning of their life, of their love, of their religion, whatever. There is no passion about anything. Consequently, life becomes dull, even painful. This novel is about the dull pain experienced by a woman in her mid-thirties. She is married to a rich man who was in a love-relationship with her for long enough before marriage. He is an IT professional and she is a homemaker. Mukund Chugh and Mallika Rao. A rich Punjabi boy and the not-so-rich “south Indian girl” (as her in-laws refer to her). Mukund is a good guy. Mallika, the first-person narrator tells us that “All my life I had wanted to be with someone like Mukund, someone so sure of themselves and their identity.” But disillusionment follows soon enough. Entering into married

The year 2020 was the bleakest in my life. The pandemic named Covid-19 had started killing people all over the world when I turned 60 in April. The Prime Minister of India, whose ambition was to become the world’s Guru, was still confident that the “twenty-first century belongs to India.” He imposed lockdowns one after another on the nation. More people died on the roads of North India while walking home from their workplaces – walking hundreds of kilometres just because their ruler decided that “no one will move from where they are from this midnight.” The Prime Minister said he was requesting the nation. But he was as imperial as ever. More ruthless than the pandemic. He assured us that India was going to be the best country in the world under his leadership. A special of package of INR 20 lakh crore was announced in May 2020 to make Atmanirbhar Bharat in Covid days. Cottage industry, home industry and MSME will benefit, the PM said. But only Gautam Adani seems to have benefited.

Point Nemo is the loneliest place on earth. It is a point in the Pacific Ocean, about 2,688 kilometres from the nearest land. If you can get a foothold in Point Nemo, what you see all around you will be water and nothing but water, leaving aside the sky above. Water, sky and you. What greater solitude can you ask for? Maybe Henry Miller would be happy there as he could ponder his ‘shame and his despair’ in seclusion. He wanted to do that, according to his Tropic of Cancer , in the vacant sunshine, without companions, without conversation, face to face with himself, with only the music of his heart for company. Maybe Virginia Wolf could be her own real self, sitting by herself “like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake.” Lord Byron can find his bliss there. Though it is not the “pathless woods” that he longed for. But the rapture he wanted so much on “the lonely shore” might come by. “There is society, where none intrudes, / By the deep sea, and music in its r

Book Review Title: The Ivory Throne Author: Manu S Pillai Publisher: HarperCollins India, 2015 Pages: 694 History can be more fascinating and gripping than literary fiction. It depends on who writes it. The most boring discourses I have read are in history books written by academic historians. So when I come across good history books, I am excited. Manu S Pillai’s history of Travancore in the first half of the 20 th century is an exquisite work of literature insofar as it blends history with incisive portrayal of certain characters that matter. Queen Sethu Lakshmi Bayi who reigned from 1924 to 1931 is the heroine of this book, so to say. She towers above everybody else though her period of reign was brief and she was only a Regent Queen. The king who succeeded her was not her son. Maharaja Chithira Tirunal (r. 1931-1949) was her cousin’s son. Her cousin, Sethu Parvathi Bayi, was quite a character, a stark contrast to the Queen. The two ladies come alive in this history b

There’s story of a 14-year-old boy named Derry, narrated by Susan Hill. Derry has a personal problem: a horrible scar on side of his face made by acid. He hates himself because of that scar and keeps running away from people. In fact, he is running away from himself. Until he comes across an old man, Mr Lamb. Lamb teaches Derry that he is not his scar. There is a scar on your face and it is far from attractive. But you are not your scar. You are Derry with all the potential that every normal boy has. What you are is your choice. If you look in the mirror and choose to see only your scar every time, you will be the scar. Why don’t you look at the numerous other things that are available? At the fruits in this orchard, for example. Lamb was sitting in his orchard when Derry jumped over the wall. If you help me, we can gather these crab apples and make jelly. We can make toffees with the honey. Or discover music in the buzzing of the honeybees. We can do a lot of things other than