Outside the fold (courtsey: Gauri Viswanathan's book title)

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There was a time when everybody asked me, “What happened?” I mumbered: “nothing”. I was in a simple time of coma. Not biological, but something different. Then, I asked myself, ‘what happened to me?’ I too had no answer. I am a father. Am about 50, hardly remember my b’day. Neither have a memorable birthday, nor do I have an official record of proof for that. I am an illiterate, but practically boasting to be literate in life. People call me Mathai. You might think about the nasaranite taste of my name. Yes, am a nasarani, hail from central Travancore of Kerala. I go Church, every Sunday.

Am a farmer of 100 rubber trees. Academicians might call me middle-class bourgeois, benefiting from the global market fluctuations. I am not bothered about my identity. I know that I exist in this world. Heard that am very decisive in forthcoming elections. Democracy made me a capital for electioneering. Now the fear is about identity-communalism. Am not a person to care this ‘media-constructed’ hypes of controversies. I need daily bread and butter. You may call me escapist or opportunist. Yes, am. I am brought up like this, and myself and my life history is not radical in nature. I too had a dream: about my children, my family, my land, my grand-generation, and my simple legacy.

Dreams are nullified promises. Martin Luther King told me, in a dream, that American people discussed nearly half a century to give him due respect by electing a President to represent the black American aspirations. Time also told me the same about recognition. I am alive, a waste for the world. After my death, I will get a 6 feet tomb with marble inscriptions codifying my life in two line numbered letters.

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