Skip to main content

Distance


A desire to run away from the oppressiveness of the world into the solace of solitude is mounting in me restlessly these days.  I’m no sage and the Himalayas don’t entice me with all their gods and nymphs.  In fact, it’s more important to escape from gods these days.  Gods have capitulated to the insanity of their devotees.

My home and the little garden around it will do for me as long as priests and politicians stay away. 

A priest was arrested yesterday from a place not too far from my home for impregnating a minor girl.  The girl must have been helpless before the suave exterior of the priest who is taken by the faithful flock as the representative of God on earth.  The priest is the one who listens to the confessions of the ordinary sinners and absolves their sins in the name of God.  It is easy for a 16-year old to fall prey to the devil that comes wearing a priest’s robe.

It is easy for us to dismiss the issue labelling it a one-off affair.  Far from being singular, such venality is more prevalent today than ever in every religion particularly among the priestly classes.  Look at the number of godmen who are already behind the bars for grotesque abuse of their female devotees.  There are more of their ilk outside the prison walls than inside.

It is not just about abuse of women, however.  We find religions infiltrated with criminals.  We find a nefarious nexus between crime, religion and politics.  They all ride tandem to pick cherished trophies from the Mount of Success.

A 20-year old girl who says that Pakistan did not kill her father (who died in an Indo-Pak war) but the war did is trolled mercilessly and even threatened with rape by people who claim to be patriots and guardians of Bharatiya culture.  The youthful idealism of that girl who merely wanted to say that she does not hate anyone merely because they are born in a different country and practise a different religion was drowned in the cacophony raised by hooligans who beat the tin drums of patriotism. 

I live in a country whose criminals live in prisons enjoying VVIP status or in grand palaces with goons and thugs at their beck and call, while the simple, ordinary, good citizens keep struggling endlessly to get food and water.  I live in a country which glorifies perverts and cowards in the name of religion and culture.  I live in a country whose leaders mouth hollow promises and actually deliver hatred and violence.

Insanity reigns supreme here.  The one who shouts loudest gets the throne.  That’s why I need the distance. 





Comments

  1. sunaina sharmaMarch 1, 2017 at 4:42 PM

    I am shocked with the way people have distorted the message of Guemehar Kaur. Hatred makes people blind. Mix it with political agenda and all one gets is chaos, destruction. Utter hopelessness.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMarch 1, 2017 at 7:54 PM

      We have reached the end of the tether. Hopelessness. The air is vitiated so much by the Right wing people that hatred is what froths like the bubbles in the drains.

      Delete
  2. CifarMarch 2, 2017 at 12:53 PM

    By taking a part of her one year old video her message that she didn't afraid of ABVP goons is dissolved

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMarch 2, 2017 at 3:51 PM

      ABVP seems to be a Frankenstein monster possessing nothing but malice.

      Delete

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
47 comments
Read more

The Veiled Women

One of the controversies that has been raging in Kerala for quite some time now is about a girl student’s decision to wear the hijab to school. The school run by Christian nuns did not appreciate the girl’s choice of religious identity over the school uniform and punished her by making her stand outside the classroom. The matter was taken up immediately by a fundamentalist Muslim organisation (SDPI) which created the usual sound and fury on the campus as well as outside. Kerala is a liberal state in which Hindus (55%), Muslims (27%), and Christians (18%) have been living in fair though superficial harmony even after Modi’s BJP with its cantankerous exclusivism assumed power in Delhi. Maybe, Modi created much insecurity feeling among the Muslims in Kerala too resulting in some reactionary moves like the hijab mentioned above. The school could have handled it diplomatically given the general nature of Muslims which is not quite amenable to sense and sensibility. From the time I shi...
13 comments
Read more

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...
16 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
19 comments
Read more

Nazneen’s Fate

N azneen is the protagonist of Monica Ali’s debut novel Brick Lane (2003). Born in Bangla Desh, Nazneen is married at the age of 18 to 40-year-old Chanu Ahmed who lives in London. Fate plays a big role in Nazneen’s life. Rather, she allows fate to play a big role. What is the role of fate in our life? Let us examine the question with Nazneen as our example. Nazneen was born two months before time. Later on she will tell her daughters that she was “stillborn.” Her mother refused to seek medical help though the infant’s condition was critical. “We must not stand in the way of Fate,” the mother said. “Whatever happens, I accept it. And my child must not waste any energy fighting against Fate.” The child does survive as if Fate had a plan for her. And she becomes as much a fatalist as her mother. She too leaves everything to Fate which is not quite different from God if you’re a believer like Nazneen and her mother. When a man from another continent, who is more than double her age,...
7 comments
Read more