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

Whose Rama?

Book Review Title: Whose Rama? [Malayalam] Author: T S Syamkumar Publisher: D C Books, Kerala Pages: 352 Rama may be an incarnation of God Vishnu, but is he as noble a man [ Maryada Purushottam ] as he is projected to be by certain sections of Hindus? This is the theme of Dr Syamkumar’s book, written in Malayalam. There is no English translation available yet. Rama is a creation of the Brahmins, asserts the author of this book. The Ramayana upholds the unjust caste system created by Brahmins for their own wellbeing. Everyone else exists for the sake of the Brahmin wellbeing. If the Kshatriyas are given the role of rulers, it is only because the Brahmins need such men to fight and die for them. Valmiki’s Rama too upheld that unjust system merely because that was his Kshatriya-dharma, allotted by the Brahmins. One of the many evils that Valmiki’s Rama perpetrates heartlessly is the killing of Shambuka, a boy who belonged to a low caste but chose to become an ascetic. The...
8 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

In this Wonderland

I didn’t write anything in the last few days. Nor did I feel any urge to write. I don’t know if this lack of interest to write is what’s called writer’s block. Or is it simple disenchantment with whatever is happening around me? We’re living in a time that offers much, too much, to writers. The whole world looks like a complex plot for a gigantic epic. The line between truth and fiction has disappeared. Mass murders have become no-news. Animals get more compassion than fellow human beings. Even their excreta are venerated! Folk tales are presented as scientific truths while scientific truths are sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. When the young generation in Nepal set fire to their Parliament and Supreme Court buildings, they were making an unmistakable statement: that they are sick of their political leaders and their systems. Is there any country whose leaders don’t sicken their citizens? I’m just wondering. Maybe, there are good leaders still left in a few coun...
10 comments
Read more

Virginity is not in the hymen

The subtitle of Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles is A Pure Woman though Tess had lost her virginity before her marriage and later she commits a murder too.  Tess is seduced by Alec and gives birth to a child which dies.  Later, while working as a dairymaid she falls in love with Angel Clare, a clergyman’s son.  On their wedding night she confesses to him the seduction by Alec, and Angel hypocritically abandons her.  Angel is no virgin himself; he has had an affair with an older woman in London.  Moreover, Tess had no intention of deceiving him.  In fact, she had written a letter to him explaining her condition.  The letter was, however, lying hidden beneath the carpet in Angel’s room.  Later Alec manages to seduce Tess once again persuading her to think that Angel would never accept her.  Angel, however, returns repenting of his harshness.  Tess is maddened by Alec’s second betrayal of her and she kills him....
55 comments
Read more