Skip to main content

And Jesus Died



“Why did these bastards bring you to me” asked Pontius Pilate.

“Because Herod wants to fuck his brother’s wife,” said Jesus.

“You are questioning the authority,; Herod is my man though he is a Jew,” said Pilate.

“The only authority is the one that comes from the author, the conscience,” said Jesus.

“Conscience!” exclaimed Pilate.  “I can buy it from Caesar.   And the price is as cheap as that dirty beard of yours.”

“What’s your problem?” asked Jesus.  “Is it my beard or is it my truth?”

“What is truth?” asked Pilate.

Jesus said, “Condemn me to the cross.”


Comments

  1. ManiparnaJanuary 10, 2014 at 11:06 PM

    So precise !

    ReplyDelete
  2. Preethi VenugopalaJanuary 10, 2014 at 11:41 PM

    Reminded me of Francis Bacon's Essay 'Of Truth'...:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 11, 2014 at 8:00 AM

      In Bacon's essay as well as in the Bible Jesus' answer to the question 'What is truth?' was silence.

      Good people will choose to die in this world because truth is being killed every moment by those who have power.

      Delete
  3. AmitAagJanuary 11, 2014 at 12:12 PM

    A splendid piece indeed!

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownJanuary 12, 2014 at 12:36 AM

    If I talk about "Truth"...I guess I am not overstating when I say that it is quite out of reach of philosophers, scientists, mathematics, astrologers and off course politicians. Because 'truth' in term has a circular definition... perhaps we could narrow the "gap" to some extent...that's perhaps the closest we can get! Sigh!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 12, 2014 at 10:12 AM

      Truth is 'being-ness.' But people perceive the being-ness differently. Jesus' truth was allergic to vested interests. Could Jesus have got bored of human beings and hence chose the cross?

      Delete
  5. Anupam KarnJanuary 12, 2014 at 4:29 PM

    Conscience! It reminds me the bong novel: 'Chitralekha - with the opening; what's right & what's wrong'

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ankur AnandJanuary 12, 2014 at 6:51 PM

    so precisely written .. !

    ReplyDelete
  7. UnknownJanuary 16, 2014 at 6:48 PM

    Apart from the universal truth, what is truth? Everything is relative and grey, isn't it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 17, 2014 at 7:57 PM

      Yes, there is no black or white truth when we move away from universal truths.

      Delete
  8. UnknownJanuary 21, 2014 at 12:42 PM

    No one can give satisfactory answer....what is truth

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 23, 2014 at 9:24 AM

      That's because truth is also a personal matter sometimes. Or more times than otherwise.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Machiavelli the Reverend

Let us go today , you and I, through certain miasmic streets. Nothing will be quite clear along our way because this journey is through some delusions and illusions. You will meet people wearing holy robes and talking about morality and virtues. Some of them will claim to be god’s men and some will make taller claims. Some of them are just amorphous. Invisible. But omnipotent. You can feel their power around you. On you. Oppressing you. Stifling you. Reverend Machiavelli is one such oppressive power. You will meet Franz Kafka somewhere along the way. Joseph K’s ghost will pass by. Remember Joseph K who was arrested one fine morning for a crime that nobody knew anything about? Neither Joseph nor the men who arrest him know why Joseph K is arrested. The power that keeps Joseph K under arrest is invisible. He cannot get answers to his valid questions from the visible agents of that power. He cannot explain himself to that power. Finally, he is taken to a quarry outside the town wher
19 comments
Read more

Levin the good shepherd

AI-generated image The lost sheep and its redeemer form a pet motif in Christianity. Jesus portrayed himself as a good shepherd many times. He said that the good shepherd will leave his 99 sheep in order to bring the lost sheep back to the fold. When he finds the lost sheep, the shepherd is happier about that one sheep than about the 99, Jesus claimed. He was speaking metaphorically. The lost sheep is the sinner in Jesus’ parable. Sin is a departure from the ‘right’ way. Angels raise a toast in heaven whenever a sinner returns to the ‘right’ path [Luke 15:10]. A lot of Catholic priests I know carry some sort of a Redeemer complex in their souls. They love the sinner so much that they cannot rest until they make the angels of God run for their cups of joy. I have also been fortunate to have one such priest-friend whom I shall call Levin in this post. He has befriended me right from the year 1976 when I was a blundering adolescent and he was just one year older than me. He possesse
8 comments
Read more

Kailasnath the Paradox

AI-generated illustration It wasn’t easy to discern whether he was a friend or merely an amused onlooker. He was my colleague at the college, though from another department. When my life had entered a slippery slope because of certain unresolved psychological problems, he didn’t choose to shun me as most others did. However, when he did condescend to join me in the college canteen sipping tea and smoking a cigarette, I wasn’t ever sure whether he was befriending me or mocking me. Kailasnath was a bundle of paradoxes. He appeared to be an alpha male, so self-assured and lord of all that he surveyed. Yet if you cared to observe deeply, you would find too many chinks in his armour. Beneath all those domineering words and gestures lay ample signs of frailty. The tall, elegantly slim and precisely erect stature would draw anyone’s attention quickly. Kailasnath was always attractively dressed though never unduly stylish. Everything about him exuded an air of chic confidence. But the wa
9 comments
Read more

Pranita a perverted genius

Bulldozer begins its work at Sawan Pranita was a perverted genius. She had Machiavelli’s brain, Octavian’s relentlessness, and Levin’s intellectual calibre. She could have worked wonders if she wanted. She could have created a beautiful world around her. She had the potential. Yet she chose to be a ruthless exterminator. She came to Sawan Public School just to kill it. A religious cult called Radha Soami Satsang Beas [RSSB] had taken over the school from its owner who had never visited the school for over 20 years. This owner, a prominent entrepreneur with a gargantuan ego, had come to the conclusion that the morality of the school’s staff was deviating from the wavelengths determined by him. Moreover, his one foot was inching towards the grave. I was also told that there were some domestic noises which were grating against his patriarchal sensibilities. One holy solution for all these was to hand over the school and its enormous campus (nearly 20 acres of land on the outskirts
7 comments
Read more

Nakulan the Outcast

Nakulan was one of the many tenants of Hevendrea . A professor in the botany department of the North Eastern Hill University, he was a very lovable person. Some sense of inferiority complex that came from his caste status made him scoff the very idea of his lovability. He lived with his wife and three children in one of Heavendrea’s many cottages. When he wanted to have a drink, he would walk over to my hut. We sipped our whiskies and discussed Shillong’s intriguing politics or something of the sort while my cassette player crooned gently in the background. Nakulan was more than ten years my senior by age. He taught a subject which had never aroused my interest at any stage of my life. It made no difference to me whether a leaf was pinnately compound or palmately compound. You don’t need to know about anther and stigma in order to understand a flower. My friend Levin would have ascribed my lack of interest in Nakulan’s subject to my egomania. I always thought that Nakulan lived
16 comments
Read more