Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Fiction My husband was arrested tonight.  What was his crime?  He used a bicycle to travel from home to his office and back.  We live in Bhatti Mines, a wild side of Delhi where the jungle mingles with the spiritual.  Bhatti Mines is a reserved forest, strictly speaking.  But the forest has been encroached upon by people of all sorts.  They say that we are encroachers too though we lived here long before the land was declared reserved forest.  They tried to throw us out of here many, many years ago.  We refused to go.  So Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi’s infamous son, decided to leave this land to us.  Our ancestors called it Sanjay Colony in his honour.  Our ancestors were too illiterate to know what Sanjay Gandhi meant, let alone what his politics meant.  Today, long after Sanjay Gandhi and his sterilisations are dead, when the land has been declared reserved forest, there are all kinds of religious people who call themselves swamis and babas and gurus that build fences r

Fiction The very sight of his school’s name board, Jungle Global School, filled Raju Skunk with horror.  The school was a place of nightmares for Raju.  “Stinky Skunk,” his companions called him.  They tormented him because of his smell.  Raju had no friends and no one played with him ever.  Even the manager, principal and various deans in the school discriminated against him although discrimination of any sort was against the Constitution of the Jungle Republic. “Why do we stink like this?” Raju asked his mother.  “Can’t we get rid of this stupid stench and live with dignity?” “We are skunks,” his mother explained.  “We smell like skunks and it is our birthright to smell so.  It is our duty to smell so.” Right, yes, Raju could understand that.  He had seen animals fighting for all kinds of rights.  The tigers fought for the right to kill other animals when the Republic wanted to pass the Bill of Vegetarianism.  The foxes had fought for the right to declare sour all

  Fiction Mollusc (mollusk, in American English) Little Johnny went as usual to his grandma when he was bored of everything else.  Grandma would tell him interesting stories.  Johnny was carrying his mother’s latest pearl necklace that came free with the saris she had ordered online.  “Pearls,” said grandmother fondling the necklace.  “Shall I tell you the story of pearls today? Johnny was excited.  Do pearls have a story too? Yes, they do, said grandma.  A great story.  Do you want to hear it? Of course, Johnny was all ears.  Pearls are found inside the body of creatures living in the oceans, started grandma.   Shell fish.  Molluscs.  They are extremely tender creatures.  Like the soft boys and girls you may see at school.  Do you see such boys and girls? Yes, there are some.  Johnny agreed.  What happens to them?  Asked grandma. Boys bully them. Exactly, said grandma.  Bullying becomes an acute problem if you are very soft.  The molluscs

I loved the passage given for the reading comprehension this time by CBSE for class 12.  It’s about youth and values.  It begins thus: “Too many parents these days can’t say no.”  It goes on to argue why saying ‘no’ to children is important.  Giving in to all the demands of children is paving the way of their ruin.  It creates a generation of people who are never satisfied with anything they get, because they’ve been getting it all too easily. Easy availability is a dangerous thing.  It makes you feel that you deserve the best.  If you don’t get it, you will grab it by hook or by crook.  That’s the kind of generation we have created, says the passage. “Today’s parents aren’t equipped to deal with the problem,” goes on the passage.  “Many of them, raised in the 1960s and 70s” went through hard days.  They were whipped at school and at home.  They are the people, like me, whose parents went to the school and told the teachers, “Whip my child as much as you like.  Make him/h