John P. Matthew
John Matthew redirects here. For those of a similar name, see John Mathew (disambiguation) or John Matthews (disambiguation)
John P. Matthew is an Indian English writer, short story writer, songwriter, poet and blogger. He was born in 1957 into a family of Tharakans, a title given to noble merchants in Kerala, India. However, instead of pursuing a career in merchandising, he took inspiration from a few uncles in his family, who were writers in Malayalam. Born in Kidangannoor, Kerala he was raised since the age of eight in the Chembur suburb of Bombay (now know as Mumbai), India. He studied in Adarsha Vidyalaya in Chembur, a suburb of Mumbai. During his childhood Bombay was a city of nearly a million people and had many open spaces which have since disappeared. To maintain contact with the city of his childhood he prefers to call it by its old name - Bombay.
Family
His great, great, great uncle George Mathan wrote the first book of Malayalam Grammar called Malayazhmayude Vyakaranam, his great uncle Puthencavu Mathan Tharakan was a writer and poet and his uncle K M Tharakan was a writer and critic. Though his uncles were writers in Malayalam he writes in his adopted language - English - as he was educated in it. He draws inspiration from expatriate Indian writers such as Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh and Indian resident writers viz. Arundhati Roy. Writers such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Ernest Hemingway, Donald Barthelme and poets viz. Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, Rudyard Kipling, Shel Silverstein, Allen Ginsberg, etc. have had a profound influence on him.
Work
Matthew’s writing centers on the urban ethos in which he was brought up. The multi-ethnic, multi-lingual ethos of Bombay made a deep impression on him and he has striven to express the angst of urban people through his short stories and blog posts. His reading of Malayalam literature also has distinctly influenced his writing, and his short stories are based on characters drawn from all different linguistic communities of India. He can read and speak four Indian languages in addition to English.
He has written and popularized the pidgin English spoken around Mumbai which is called “Mack English.” His poem “Mack English” published in his poetry blog is based on this hybrid form of English. An article "Mack English" has been published in the collaborative blog of the literary forum Caferati. This dialect of English has been used to portray the Mack-English-speaking community of Mumbai who mainly constitute Goans, Anglo-Indians, and East Indians (a community constituting Marathi-speaking Christians living in Mumbai).
He was editor of the magazine Ambit published by the Bombay Management Association . As editor of Ambit he wrote extensively on management and economic subjects.
His short story "Flirting in Short Messages" won a place among the top 28 short stories in a global short story contest organized by publisher Penguin India and sulekha.com, an online literary website.
His short story "PK Koshy's Daily Routine" has been selected for publication in the Grey Oaks Short Story Competition conducted by Grey Oaks, a publishing company based in Bangalore and has since been published.
An essay describing his experiences when he crossed boundary to work in the desert kingdom of Saudi Arabia Migrants Travails in the Desert Kingdom has been published by the literary journal Sugar Mule.
He read his poems at the Kritya International Poetry Festival held in Kerala, India. The festival was organized by Kritya Foundation and was attended by poets from around the world.
He is working on two books "Mr. Bandookwala, M.B.A., Harvard " a novel about a brilliant Harvard graduate and inventor of a social networking site - Facespook - who fails miserably as a manager in India. Coming back from the U.S. Bandookwala experiences a cultural disconnection with his countrymen. According to Matthew the novel is about the "probability of the improbable." Bandookwala experiences vastly improbable events in his life which disorients him and makes him suicidal: in bizarre incidents he is robbed and thrown out of a Bombay running train, meets with the king of the Bombay underworld, encounters an extremist in a five-star hotel's rest room. The other book is a travelogue to his native Indian state of Kerala, where he was born.
A prolific and early blogger since 2003 (He has logged more than 2000 blog articles). In 2013 he completed ten years of continuous blogging. He has separate blogs (web logs) dedicated to his short stories, book reviews, and poems. His main blog revolves around his thoughts, musings, social and political issues, and everyday happenings in his life.
Song Writing
Inspired by the poet duo of Suman Sridhar and Jeet Thayil of the group S/T he started writing songs and converting some of his poems into songs. His music has been inspired by country western songs and spirituals. Though this is in a very early stage he intends to take it forward and make stage appearances. He accompanies himself on the acoustic guitar.
He lives in New Bombay with his wife, a teacher, and son.