HUMPTY DUMPTY’S TEN HATS BY TOMICHAN MATHEIKAL
The cover image leaps out in all its vibrancy, even as the
reader tries to decipher the meaning of the unusual title – Humpty Dumpty’s Ten
Hats. The dedication by the author, Tomichan Matheikal, evinces a smile.
“Dedicated
to
All
the politicians in today’s India
who
convince me every day
that
fiction is truer than facts.”
The ten stories that follow are intriguing for different
reasons. The first story ‘A Ride with a Ghost’ ends with the interesting remark
by one of the characters named Varghese.
“Your
mind can create ghosts and gods and anything.”
The same idea is carried on
in ‘Death Road to Sounds of Eternity’ when the author decides to visit Kurseong,
the most haunted hill station in India, and traverse the beautiful yet eerie Dow
Hill, where “day or night, paranormal activities never cease here”. The story ends
with a shiver down the spine. Beyond that, my lips are sealed.
The author’s penchant for satire
comes out in ‘The Ghost of a Banyan Tree’ when he talks about a Hindu Brahmin who holds strong views on people from other religions. This vein is reiterated
in the next story titled ‘Phantoms on a Desert’, where two unlikely people encounter
each other, a Malayali man and an Afghani woman. Likewise, ‘Masculine Virility’
is a play on the theme of godmen who rise from rags to riches. One of the most
amusing stories is ‘Thief’ where “morality is comparative”, a lesson learnt
from “political leaders who always justified their beastly deeds by comparing
them with what someone else did in the past.” As a result, the beleaguered Sivaraman
had to undergo the pangs of lost love and ignominy. The author puts it aptly, “After
all he lived in a country where history repeatedly rose from its grave with
bloodlust like a restless vampire.”
Good writers can evoke memories
with a stroke of their pens. That is exactly what happens in the story ‘Save
Your Penis’ where past mistakes are repeated with impunity throwing the country
off balance, a story inspired from a real-life incident narrated by KS Komireddi
in his book ‘Malevolent Republic’. There are hard-hitting moments in some of
the stories like ‘Ishwar Allah Tero Naam’ where a priest berates a low-caste
woman whose nine-year-old daughter has been murdered in the cremation ground, and
lookers-on watch with indifference as through it were a scene in a drama.
One of the stories that is
chilling is titled ‘Child’ as the author weaves a web of events that have
engulfed our country in the present day. Right from love jihad and honour
killings to Covid-19 and the nationwide exodus of migrants, to the Galwan river
in Ladakh which “smelt of chicanery though no one was sure if the chicanery was
saffron or red in colour”, and the PM’s monthly homilies, the story slips
across all these issues seamlessly, ending in an agonising twist.
The book ends with the title
story ‘Humpty Dumpty’s Hats’ and reads almost like a fable where characters
from books come alive – a case of Alice wandering aimlessly in the Wonderland
and coming across a disconsolate Humpty Dumpty. The idea of orange and green
hats worn in a scenario when people talk through their hats while the common
man tries to find the right way makes this the perfect story to end the book.
Tomichan Matheikal’s book. ‘Humpty
Dumpty’s Ten Hats’ is one of the most downloaded books in the #BlogchatterEBook
Carnival. Having read his stories, it is not difficult to imagine why!
#BlogchatterEBook #BookReview #ShortStories #Irony
Do download Tomichan Matheikal's ebook here:
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