Skip to main content

Moralists


One of the fifteen persons facing corruption charges related to coal mining in Jharkhand is a young man who displayed his nationalism and idealism by wearing the Indian national flag on his sleeves.  He took to the Supreme Court his right to display his patriotism by flying the national flag in places he thought appropriate. His patriotism won him a seat in the Parliament too. 

Good old humour
Superior to New Morality
His uncle is a great moralist apart from being an industrialist.  This great uncle recently handed over his school in Delhi to a godman because of reasons related to morality.  A few years earlier the biography of this great uncle was written by his daughter in which the uncle was quoted raising charges of immorality on the staff of the school in question.  The uncle is renowned for enforcing morality – his version of it, of course – using methods which are not often moral by conventional standards.

The school was eventually shut down by the godman.  Interestingly, the godman’s cult was in news for grabbing land belonging to the forest department.

The fifteen acres on which the school stood is today wasteland used as parking space for the VIPs who visit the godman who preaches morality to devotees. 


These are common things in India.  Nothing new.  But I’m amused by the morality of it all.   
Indian Bloggers


Labels:

Comments

  1. Amit AgarwalApril 30, 2016 at 12:05 PM

    The so called morality in India..the lesser said is better:(
    And look who are defining it:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 30, 2016 at 12:08 PM

      Power defines it, I think. Even religion today is about power. And there are so many moths that fly into the flame to kill themselves foolishly.

      Delete
  2. Bushra MuzaffarApril 30, 2016 at 2:50 PM

    The morality here seems is inversely proportion to profitability. Corruption is rampant as evident from the scams after scams that have been unearthed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 30, 2016 at 7:28 PM

      I put up Amul's cartoon of Chandraswami purposely to show that the godmen of India were corrupt from the time they were born. Read about Chandraswami here, for example:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandraswami

      There's something radically wrong with these godmen and other religious people. There's not even one RSS member who can be put in the history textbooks because they never fought for India's independence. Once the real war is over, like the wellfed Brahmins of Manu's days, they come claiming the booty. The only consolation is that a Shudra is doing the job of the Brahmin today :)

      Delete
  3. KalpanaApril 30, 2016 at 10:37 PM

    Glad you wrote this post Tomichan. People do evil things based on their greed and love of power but then to make matters worse they pretend to be holier than thou. Unbearable!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 1, 2016 at 6:19 AM

      I met quite a few holier-than-thou people in the last phase of my life in Delhi (when the school above was being killed). One of the godman's women was a delight for any novelist. She pretended to be the most moral person on the earth. She found fault with everyone, advised, scolded, punished, terminated people's services, brought in innovative ideas, revolutionised the academic system... and finally killed the school. Killed people's trust in systems, and in other people. She did the greatest disservice to the society and yet she is still one of the moral religious leader of the cult. Swindling other people.

      Delete
  4. EmilSincliarMay 1, 2016 at 11:52 AM

    Brilliant post! But sadly, if you look at the number of people who blindly follow and support these so called 'Godmen', you'll realize how we've miserably failed Darwin!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 1, 2016 at 8:47 PM

      Indeed. Evolution was one-sided as I wrote earlier in a post on Arthur Koestler. Only the brain evolved; the heart remains savage.

      http://matheikal.blogspot.in/2016/04/the-error-called-man.html

      Delete
  5. CifarMay 1, 2016 at 1:15 PM

    you won't believe but all moral people are in Indian politics, great nation great people

    ReplyDelete
  6. Murthy K v v sMay 1, 2016 at 1:37 PM

    Swami Vivekananda once said, now the Brahmins,Kshatriyas and Vyashyas are western people and we are only Shudras by nature.It seems correct to me sometimes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 1, 2016 at 8:50 PM

      There has been no progress in our thinking though we developed considerably in terms of economy, industry and literacy. We still think like our forefathers who taught us caste discriminations, oppression of certain sections, and so on.

      Delete
  7. UnknownMay 26, 2016 at 6:33 PM

    yes sir, therefore using your blog i would request all the people in your list to show the government and the ever hungry politicians what is real morality by joining me fight for justice and corruption free india as i love my india

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 26, 2016 at 10:33 PM

      You'll have to give the details of your fight and how people can support you. Otherwise how will the readers know what they can do?

      Delete
  8. UnknownMay 26, 2016 at 6:33 PM

    yes sir, therefore using your blog i would request all the people in your list to show the government and the ever hungry politicians what is real morality by joining me fight for justice and corruption free india as i love my india

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
37 comments
Read more

Sanjay and other loyalists

AI-generated illustration Some people, especially those in politics, behave as if they are too great to have any contact with the ordinary folk. And they can get on with whoever comes to power on top irrespective of their ideologies and principles. Sanjay was one such person. He occupied some high places in Sawan school [see previous posts, especially P and Q ] merely because he knew how to play his cards more dexterously than ordinary politicians. Whoever came as principal, Sanjay would be there in the elite circle. He seemed to hold most people in contempt. His respect was reserved for the gentry. I belonged to the margins of Sawan society, in Sanjay’s assessment. So we hardly talked to each other. Looking back, I find it quite ludicrous to realise that Sanjay and I lived on the same campus 24x7 for a decade and a half without ever talking to each other except for official purposes.      Towards the end of our coexistence, Sawan had become a veritable hell. Power supply to the
12 comments
Read more

Thomas the Saint

AI-generated image His full name was Thomas Augustine. He was a Catholic priest. I knew him for a rather short period of my life. When I lived one whole year in the same institution with him, I was just 15 years old. I was a trainee for priesthood and he was many years my senior. We both lived in Don Bosco school and seminary at a place called Tirupattur in Tamil Nadu. He was in charge of a group of boys like me. Thomas had little to do with me directly as I was under the care of another in-charge. But his self-effacing ways and angelic smile drew me to him. He was a living saint all the years I knew him later. When he became a priest and was in charge of a section of a Don Bosco institution in Kochi, I met him again and his ways hadn’t changed an iota. You’d think he was a reincarnation of Jesus if you met him personally. You won’t be able to meet him anymore. He passed away a few years ago. One of the persons whom I won’t ever forget, can’t forget as long as the neurons continu
16 comments
Read more

Uriel the gargoyle-maker

Uriel was a multifaceted personality. He could stab with words, sting like Mike Tyson, and distort reality charmingly with the precision of a gifted cartoonist. He was sedate now and passionate the next moment. He could don the mantle of a carpenter, a plumber, or a mechanic, as situation demanded. He ran a school in Shillong in those days when I was there. That’s how I landed in the magic circle of his friendship. He made me a gargoyle. Gradually. When the refined side of human civilisation shaped magnificent castles and cathedrals, the darker side of the same homo sapiens gave birth to gargoyles. These grotesque shapes were erected on those beautiful works of architecture as if to prove that there is no human genius without a dash of perversion. In many parts of India, some such repulsive shape is placed in a prominent place of great edifices with the intention of warding off evil or, more commonly, the evil eye. I was Uriel’s gargoyle for warding off the evil eye from his sc
11 comments
Read more

William and the autumn of life

William and I were together only for one year, but our friendship has grown stronger year after year. The duration of that friendship is going to hit half a century. In the meanwhile both he and I changed many places. William was in Kerala when I was in Shillong. He was in Ireland when I was in Delhi. Now I am in Kerala where William is planning to migrate back. We were both novices of a religious congregation for one year at Kotagiri in Tamil Nadu. He was older than me by a few years and far more mature too. But we shared a cordial rapport which kept us in touch though we went in unexpected directions later. William’s conversations had the same pattern back then and now too. I’d call it Socratic. He questions a lot of things that you say with the intention of getting to the depth of the matter. The last conversation I had with him was when I decided to stop teaching. I mention this as an example of my conversations with William. “You are a good teacher. Why do you want to stop
12 comments
Read more